The US-Greece income tax treaty was signed in Athens on February 20, 1950 - with the “Kingdom of Greece,” a detail that alone signals how old this agreement is. It has never been comprehensively modernized the way most US treaties covered in this series were updated through late-20th and 21st-century protocols, and its dividends article is structured very differently from a standard modern treaty. The practical consequence: reliable current sources genuinely disagree on the exact withholding rate an individual Greek investor should expect on US dividends, which is unusual enough among the countries covered here that it’s worth explaining plainly rather than picking a number and asserting it confidently.
What’s Confirmed, What Isn’t
Confirmed: the treaty is real, dates to 1950, and remains the operative agreement between the US and Greece for income tax purposes - it has not been terminated or replaced. It lacks several provisions considered standard in modern US treaties, including a comprehensive Limitation on Benefits clause, and its dividends article does not follow the familiar “30% default, 15% portfolio, 5%-10% direct-investment” structure used across most other treaties in this series.
Where sources conflict: some tax reference sources describe the treaty as providing no dividend withholding reduction at all, meaning the standard 30% US non-treaty default would apply regardless of the treaty’s existence. Others describe a 25% cap for individual/portfolio recipients, with a lower 15% rate available only for a corporate recipient controlling at least 50% of the paying company’s voting power - a threshold structured differently, and pitched at a different ownership level, than the 10% thresholds common elsewhere. A third description characterizes the dividends article as narrowly focused on exempting Greek corporations from US tax rather than setting a general reduced individual rate at all.
What this means practically: this guide cannot tell you with confidence whether to expect 30%, 25%, or something else on your dividend statement based on published secondary sources alone - they don’t agree. The single most reliable way to know your actual rate is to check your broker’s dividend statement directly after filing W-8BEN and citing the treaty, and if the number looks unclear or inconsistent with what you expected, ask your broker’s tax documentation team or a cross-border tax advisor to confirm which provision of the 1950 treaty they’re applying and why.
Filing W-8BEN Anyway
Form W-8BEN is still the correct form to file with your broker to claim whatever treaty benefit does apply and to certify non-US person status, which independently prevents the backup withholding regime. Given the genuine uncertainty about the exact rate described above, filing the form correctly and then verifying the actual withheld rate against your statement is more reliable than assuming a specific number in advance.
Capital gains: unaffected by this ambiguity - the US generally does not tax capital gains realized by a non-resident alien on US securities under domestic law (IRC §871), independent of the treaty’s dividend provisions.
How Greece Investors Get an Account
Interactive Brokers and eToro both serve Greek clients. Eligibility by country shifts quietly; confirm with the broker before you apply.
What to Get Right from Greece
What a Greek investor needs to have covered:
- File W-8BEN with your broker citing the US-Greece treaty, even given the uncertainty about the exact resulting rate
- Check your actual dividend statement after filing to see what rate is genuinely being applied - don’t assume 30%, 25%, or any other figure without verifying
- If the withheld rate looks inconsistent or unclear, ask your broker’s tax documentation support or a cross-border tax advisor which specific treaty provision they applied
- Report worldwide investment income, including US dividends and capital gains, on your Greek tax return
- Re-check account-opening requirements with the broker directly before you apply
The Greece Position, Condensed
Greece’s tax relationship with the US is unusual among the countries in this series: the treaty is real but is 75 years old, unmodernized, and structured in a way that leaves genuine disagreement among current secondary sources about the exact dividend rate an individual investor should expect. Rather than repeat an unverified number with false confidence, the practical approach is to file W-8BEN, check the actual rate on your dividend statement, and follow up with your broker or a tax advisor if it doesn’t match a rate you can independently confirm from the treaty text itself.
Consider this an introduction to investing from Greece, not a professional opinion. The US-Greece Income Tax Treaty was signed February 20, 1950, and remains in force but has not been comprehensively modernized. Current secondary sources describe its individual dividend withholding treatment inconsistently - verify your actual rate directly with your broker and a qualified Greek or cross-border tax advisor rather than relying on any single source, including this one, for the exact figure.
Sources: US-Greece Income Tax Convention (signed February 20, 1950), IRS treaty text; LegalClarity - Understanding the Greece-US Tax Treaty and Double Taxation; Freeman Law - Greece Tax Treaty; HCO - United States-Greece Income Tax Treaty; IRS Streamlined Procedures - Overview of US & Greece Double Tax Treaty.
