Are contest prizes taxable in Greece? What winners and organisers must report
Tax on contest prizes in Greece is set by Article 35 of Law 3775/2009, which subjects prizes offered to contest participants to tax, alongside lottery winnings. The same article also names radio and TV competitions as a separate case. The state's annual tax lottery is different: its prizes are described as tax-free and not subject to withholding. The cited texts say nothing about who must report a contest prize, and a reader who needs the rate or the filing step has to go to the official text.
Rechecked on 22 October 2026.
Article 35 taxes contest prizes alongside lottery winnings
Article 35 of Law 3775/2009 is the text the cited material rests on, and it puts contest prizes in the same sentence as lottery winnings. That placement is the first thing to notice. A reader who expects contest prizes to sit under a separate rule will find the cited text does not draw that line. The article lists the two items side by side, so a prize is taxed under one heading whether it came from a lottery or from a contest.
The article names radio and TV competitions as a separate case, next to contest participants. The cited text does not say how the two groups differ in the tax they bear, and it does not say whether a broadcast prize carries any extra step. A producer running a competition on air faces the same open question, and the cited material gives no answer for the broadcast case beyond naming it.
Public-vote contests raise a question the text leaves open. A prize in a contest decided by public votes is still a prize offered to participants, but the cited text says nothing about how the voting mechanism changes the tax. Whether a public-vote prize counts as one offered to participants is a reading the cited text does not settle, and a reader should not treat the point as settled either way.
- Lottery winnings and contest prizes sit in one sentence of the article.
- Radio and TV competitions are named as a separate case.
- The cited text names no tax rate and no filing step for contest prizes.
- Whether a public-vote prize counts as offered to participants is an open reading.
The state's annual tax lottery prizes are tax-free
The state runs its own annual tax lottery, and the cited reports are about that draw, not about contests. Its prizes are the subject of the tax-free wording, and the cited material links that wording to no private contest.
A reader asking whether a prize is income needs the distinction. The state lottery prize is reported as not income, while Article 35 names contest prizes as subject to tax. Those are two different answers, and a reader should not merge them. CNN Greece's report and the Article 35 wording point in different directions for the two cases, and the page keeps them apart.
The cited material does not compare the two treatments in detail. It names no rule that lets a private contest pay out a prize free of tax, and it names no withholding rule for private prizes. A reader should keep the state lottery and the contest prize as two separate cases, because only one of them is described in the cited text as tax-free.
- The tax-free wording belongs to the annual state tax lottery.
- The state prize is reported as not income and free of withholding.
- No cited text extends that wording to a private contest.
- Sort a prize into state lottery or contest before reading the tax answer.
Prize draws are not named in the cited wording
A prize draw is a common case, and the cited wording leaves it unnamed. The article covers lottery winnings and contest prizes, and the cited text does not place a draw under either one. A reader who hopes the answer is the same for a draw as for a contest has to read the full article rather than the extract this page cites.
The category question decides the answer. If a draw counts as a lottery in the article's sense, the lottery treatment applies, and the cited text taxes lottery winnings. If a draw counts as a contest prize, the contest wording applies instead. The cited material does not say which reading a Greek authority takes, so this page cannot choose between them.
A contest that combines a draw with a public vote raises both questions at once. The cited material does not say how the two combine, and a reader should not assume that one category settles the other. Writing the draw and the vote as separate prize clauses in the contest's own rules lets a reader see which question each part of the prize raises.
- The article names lottery winnings and contest prizes as separate items.
- A draw is not named in the cited text as either item.
- A draw inside a contest with a public vote raises both questions.
- The cited text gives no test for placing a draw in one category.
Reporting and enforcement are not set out in the cited texts
The H1 asks what winners and organisers must report, and the cited material gives no answer to that part. Article 35 lists what is taxed, not what must be filed, and the state lottery reports say nothing about filing by a winner. A reader who needs the filing step has to read the Code and any official filing guidance directly, because neither is reproduced here.
Organisers are in the same position. The cited material names no reporting duty for a contest holder, and nothing in the cited text says a contest must withhold tax before it pays a prize. A contest that pays prizes can check its own rules for what it records, because the cited material sets no duty either way.
Enforcement is a separate gap. The cited material names the Greek state as the taxing party through the Tax Code, and it names AADE only as the body behind the state's tax lottery. It does not say which body checks the tax on a contest prize, and this page does not guess.
- The cited text lists what is taxed, not what a winner must file.
- No cited text sets a withholding duty for a private contest.
- AADE is named only for the state tax lottery.
- Check the contest's own rules for what it records about each prize.
A tax rule says nothing about whether a contest is genuine
The scam question is separate from the tax question, and the cited texts answer none of it. A tax article does not show that a contest is real or that its prize will be paid. The cited material says nothing about fake contests in Greece and names no body that checks whether a contest pays its prize.
Disqualification is the other objection, and the cited texts say nothing on it. The cited material names no platform rule and says nothing about whether a disqualified entrant keeps a prize. A reader who loses a prize to disqualification has to find the reason in the contest's own rules, because the tax text does not reach that outcome.
Organisers and platforms set their own disqualification terms, and this page cannot predict them. Where the terms are unclear, the sensible step is to read the clause that governs the prize and to keep the tax question apart from the eligibility question.
- A tax rule does not show that a contest is genuine.
- The platform rule and the disqualification outcome sit outside the cited text.
- Keep the tax question apart from the eligibility question.
- A prize withdrawn for disqualification is a contest-rules question, not a tax one.
Rules that apply
Greek tax on contest prizes starts from Article 35 of Law 3775/2009, which the Greek state's Inheritance, Gift and Lottery Tax Code carries. The article taxes lottery winnings and the prizes offered to contest participants and in radio and TV competitions, and it lists those items together. The state's own annual tax lottery is described in news reports as tax-free, not income, and free of withholding. Whether a contest's prize is taxed under Article 35 is answered by the article's wording, while whether the contest itself is permitted to run is not in the cited material. The sources behind this page were checked and reviewed on 2026-10-22: a Greek tax information site that carries the Code, and two Greek news reports on the state tax lottery.
What we decline
Nothing here gives a tax figure for any contest prize, because no rate or threshold is named in the cited text. The page cannot say whether a winner must report a prize or whether an organiser must withhold anything, and it never speaks for the tax authority. It does not promise a tax outcome for any reader, and it does not decide how a particular prize is treated. Decisions on a given prize belong to the tax authority and to the contest's own terms, and this page is not a substitute for either.
Questions and answers
Article 35 of Law 3775/2009 subjects prizes offered to contest participants to tax, alongside lottery winnings. The same article also names prizes in radio and TV competitions. The state's annual tax lottery is different, since news reports describe its prizes as tax-free and not income. The cited material gives no rate, threshold or filing step, so those details need the official text.
The cited material names no official page on tax for contest prizes. It cites the Greek state's Inheritance, Gift and Lottery Tax Code, which carries Article 35, and two news reports about the state's tax lottery. A reader who wants the official wording has to open the Code itself, because a summary paraphrases the article in its own words.
No. The article names lottery winnings and contest prizes as separate items, and it does not place a prize draw under either one. A reader asking whether a draw is taxed like a contest prize has to test the draw against the article's wording, and the cited material does not do that test. The state's tax lottery sits in a separate case again, described as tax-free.
The cited material contains no organiser's wording on tax for contest prizes, so this page quotes none. The text itself says what is taxed, and an organiser's terms should be read against Article 35 rather than in place of it. The cited texts do not say how a contest's own rules should describe the tax, so an organiser has to work that out from the article directly.
The cited material names no enforcing body for tax on contest prizes. The Code is a Greek state statute, so the state is the taxing party it names. AADE is named in the news reports only as the body behind the state's annual tax lottery, not as the checker of contest prizes. Who checks the tax on a given contest's prize is a question the cited texts do not answer.
No. The cited material holds a statute and two news reports about the state's tax lottery, and no guidance document on tax for contest prizes. A reader who looks for guidance has to go to the tax authority's own publications, which this page does not reproduce. Until those are read, the article's wording is the only Greek text on the point that the cited material offers.