Greece is recording progress in the fight against tax evasion, with the gap in the collection of Value Added Tax now estimated to have already fallen below 10% for 2024. For the first time in history, the “VAT gap” in our country (as calculated by the EU) is close to or below the European average.
The new report “VAT gap in Europe Report 2025” by the European Commission reflects a saving of around 2.7 billion euros per year, i.e. more tax revenue for the state without tax increases, just from the reduction of tax evasion in VAT collection.
Specifically, according to the Report:
* in 2023, the VAT gap in Greece stood at 11.4%, compared to 12.4% in 2022 and 24% in 2019. Thus, in five years, it fell by 55% or 12.6 percentage points.
* VAT losses in Greece in 2023 significantly approached the pan-European average (9.5%), while until 2019 they were more than double it (24% compared to 11.1%).
* for 2024, the first unofficial data (preliminary estimates) show a single-digit rate of losses in VAT collection, less than 10%. The Commission places it at 9%, i.e. below the European standard for the last two years, recording a drop of 15 percentage points or almost 60% compared to 2019, when it reached 24%.
Based on the analysis of the European Commission’s data for the period 2019-2023, Greece is the champion in reducing the VAT gap in the six-year period 2019-2024.
The countries with the largest reductions in the VAT gap since 2019 are:
* Greece: 12.7 percentage points decrease, from 24.0% in 2019 to 11.4% in 2023
* Ukraine: 11 percentage points decrease, from 28.5% in 2019 to 17.5% in 2021. However, there is no data for 2022-2023 due to war
* Czech Republic: 6.6 percentage points, from 14.6% in 2019 to 8.0% in 2023
* Austria: 5.8 percentage points, from 6.8% in 2019 to 1.0% in 2023
* Netherlands: 4.2 percentage points, from 11.2% to 7.0%
* Croatia: 3.7 percentage points, from 11.4% in 2019 to 7.7% in 2023
* Slovenia: 3.5 percentage points, from 8.4% to 4.9%
* Hungary: 3 percentage points, from 10.4% to 7.4%
* Cyprus: 3 percentage points, from 6.3% to 3.3%
If we also take into account the preliminary estimate for 2024, Greece makes an even bigger leap: from 24% in 2019 to 9% in 2024. The 15 percentage point reduction places it far ahead of any other EU country or even the acceding member states.
