Cut the cost of your course through your Greek tax return
If you are a Greek tax resident and you pay by card or bank transfer, 30% of what you spend on education can come off your taxable income, up to a EUR 5,000 deduction a year. The relief attaches to your payment and your tax return, not to where the school is registered, which is what makes it usable for a course with us.
The relief follows your payment, not the provider's registration
Greece gives individuals relief on certain electronically paid service expenses, and education is one of the qualifying groups. The mechanism is worth understanding before you plan around it, because it is a deduction rather than a refund: 30% of your qualifying education spending comes off your taxable income, capped at a EUR 5,000 deduction in a year, and what you actually keep is that deduction multiplied by your own top rate of tax. The condition that decides whether you can claim at all is how you pay. Electronic payment, card or bank transfer, with an invoice in your name and a record you can produce, is what the relief is written around. No accreditation condition attaches to the learner's claim, which is why it works for a course bought from a provider outside Greece just as it does for one bought inside it.
You need to be a Greek tax resident with taxable income to set the deduction against. The relief reduces the income you are taxed on, so it is worth something only to the extent you have Greek taxable income in the same year. If this year is a low-income or no-income year for you, say between jobs, the honest answer is that it will be worth little now, and the last section of this page is the better place to look.
Pay by card or bank transfer, never in cash. Electronic payment is the condition the relief is built around, and a cash payment is outside it however good your paperwork is. Pay from an account or card in your own name if you want the expense to be yours to claim.
The claim attaches to your payment and your return, not to the school's registration. There is no provider-accreditation condition on the learner's side of this relief, so where the provider is licensed does not decide your claim. What decides it is that the spending falls in the qualifying education and services group, which is worth confirming for your own circumstances before you file.
Anyone with qualifying Greek income can use it, and it is not tied to your employer. You do not need your employer's agreement, a scheme to apply to or a place on any list. That independence is the practical difference between this and every other route on this page.
Keep the documentation from the start rather than reconstructing it in the spring. An invoice in your name showing the amount and the period, plus the card or bank record that matches it, is the whole evidence pack. It is much easier to ask for it when you enrol than a year later.
Frequently asked questions
Does this give me back 30% of my course fee?
No, and the difference is large enough to be worth being precise about. It reduces the income you are taxed on by 30% of what you spent, up to a deduction of EUR 5,000 in a year. What you actually keep is that deduction multiplied by your own top rate of tax, which realistically lands somewhere between a few hundred euro and a little over two thousand depending on your income. Treat it as a real reduction in the cost of the course rather than as a rebate on the fee, and it will not disappoint you.
Code Labs Academy is a German school teaching live online. Does that affect my claim?
The relief is written around how you paid and what the spending was for, and there is no provider-accreditation condition on the learner's side of it, so a course bought from a provider outside Greece is not treated differently from one bought inside it for this purpose. What is worth confirming for your own circumstances, as with any expense you claim, is that the spending is categorised in the qualifying education and services group. Your accountant can settle that in a couple of minutes, and step 4 above is there to make sure it happens before you file rather than after.
I paid in cash, or a family member paid for me. Can I still claim?
A cash payment falls outside a relief that is built specifically around electronic payment, and no amount of documentation converts it. Where a family member paid, the expense sits with whoever made the payment and holds the invoice, so if the intention is for you to claim it, pay from an account or card in your own name and have the invoice issued to you. Both of these are easy to arrange at enrolment and effectively impossible to fix a year later, which is why the payment method is step 1 rather than an afterthought.
Can I use a DYPA voucher for a Code Labs Academy course?
The voucher programmes fund 150-hour certified courses delivered by Greek adult-training centres licensed by EOPPEP and listed on voucher.gov.gr, with an allowance of EUR 750 for employees and up to EUR 1,000 for registered unemployed applicants. If you qualify and that training is what you are after, it is a good scheme with a lot of places in 2026 and it is worth taking on its own terms. It funds a different product from a full career-change bootcamp, so the two are worth keeping apart in your planning rather than treating one as a way to pay for the other.
How do I ask my employer to use LAEK for my course?
Start by asking two concrete questions rather than making the case in the abstract: what the company's accumulated LAEK balance is, and by when a training programme has to be declared to DYPA. Those two answers decide whether it is available to you at all and how much lead time you need, and both sit with whoever handles payroll. If the balance covers only part of the fee, that is the normal outcome given the per-hour ceilings, and it combines perfectly well with paying the remainder over interest-free instalments. Ask us for a written quote, the curriculum and the teaching hours, since that is the documentation the declaration needs.
I have little or no Greek taxable income this year. Is any of this worth anything to me?
Not much, and it is better to know that now. A deduction works by reducing income you would otherwise be taxed on, so in a year with little or no such income there is not much for it to reduce. The routes that do not depend on your tax position are the employer ones, LAEK or an employer simply buying the training, and the interest-free instalment plan, which spreads the fee over up to 60 payments with no interest and nobody assessing you. It is also worth pricing the shorter self-paced courses, which cost considerably less than the live bootcamps. If your income picture changes next year, the relief is there for what you pay in that year.
Get Personalized Advice
Want help comparing instalment plans, discounts, employer sponsorship, or Greece-specific voucher routes? Book a one-on-one consultation with an education specialist. We’ll help you choose a realistic plan based on your goals, budget, and timeframe, and point you to the right places to verify eligibility for any public programmes currently open in Greece.
