The year 2025 is being recorded as the year of uncovering tax evasion and the dominance of digital audit tools. Electronic books (myDATA), automated checks, and the restriction of cash transactions have demonstrated their impressive effectiveness and superiority in the fight against tax evasion, as they transferred a large part of the “invisible” economy into official economic activity.

Under the new conditions, the state is now losing up to €7 billion less per year in VAT revenues compared to the recent past, according to data from a report recently published by the European Commission on the VAT Gap (VAT Gap 2025).

The progress has been continuous: in just one year (2024), a single new measure—the universal expansion of card payment acceptance—was estimated to have generated an additional €400 million in VAT revenues for the state in 2024, according to a new study by IOBE.

However, the benefit is expected to prove even greater in 2025 (reflected in income tax returns filed in 2026), as this year was the first in which the measure was fully implemented for all professionals and for the entire year, starting from January 1.

The data speak for themselves: tax returns filed in 2025 showed a record increase in gross revenues (turnover) declared by self-employed professionals for 2024.

As a result, entire business sectors—especially professions associated with nightlife and construction—reported increases of 10% to 15%.

For example:

• Bar owners (Activity Code 56.30) recorded a 15.2% increase in turnover (average gross revenue of €43,525 in 2024, compared with €37,777 in 2023).
• Taxi operators (Activity Code 49.32) showed average receipts 14.2% higher than the previous year (€18,595 compared with €16,281).

— Closing —

• Electricians (Activity Code 43.21) recorded an 11.2% increase in one year (€36,301 compared with €32,635 in 2023).
• Plumbers (Activity Code 43.22) declared an increase of 9.8% (€32,354 compared with €29,463).
• Carpenters (Activity Code 43.32) recorded an 8.1% increase (€35,593 compared with €32,913).

The “Miracle” of Technology

Compared with just one year earlier, the measures and changes are estimated to have generated an additional €2.7 billion in revenue in 2025, from taxes that had been “lost” to the state in previous years due to tax evasion.

Looking further back, however—before the invention and introduction of all the new digital tools and audits—during the 15-year crisis period (2010–2024), Greece lost more than €73 billion in total, solely from VAT tax evasion.

According to European Commission data on the VAT Gap in Greece:

• In 2009, before the Greek crisis erupted, the state lost €7.5 billion in VAT.
• In 2010, losses fell to €6.9 billion.
• In 2011, they soared to over €9.2 billion.
• From 2012 to 2018, the state lost approximately €5–7 billion per year.
• From 2019 onward, losses declined steadily each year: below €5 billion in 2019, below €4 billion in 2020, below €3 billion in 2021, reaching €2.1 billion in 2024.

The result was bailout memoranda, cuts to wages and pensions, greater pressure on law-abiding taxpayers, unfair competition, and economic “asphyxiation” for compliant businesses.

Everything changed after 2019. That marked the start of the biggest shift, with the activation of myDATA and a coordinated framework of measures targeting the core of tax evasion.

Specifically:

1. Electronic books (myDATA):
   Launched on a pilot basis in 2019 and expanded to all businesses in 2020–2021, they only became fully mandatory at the end of 2023. From 2024 onward, they automatically shape the VAT returns collected by the state from businesses. All invoices and retail receipts are recorded in real time and automatically cross-checked. The Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) no longer waits for annual tax returns to know professionals’ turnover, as it monitors and calculates it “live” at every moment.
2. “POS everywhere”:
   In 2024, the obligation to install POS payment terminals was extended to all retail and service sectors—from bars and restaurants to tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, carpenters), as well as taxis. At the same time, cash registers were technically connected to POS systems, and with every payment a receipt is issued that appears online both to AADE and on each customer’s smartphone. This effectively eliminated the “gaps” between tax declarations and actual cash register receipts.
3. IRIS:
   In 2024 and 2025, instant bank transfers (IRIS) entered forcefully into the lives of consumers and businesses. Their use expanded rapidly, leaving a digital footprint that is automatically recorded in myDATA. As of this December, IRIS is also accepted in supermarkets and department stores, while transaction limits will change again (doubling) from January 15, 2026.

From 2025 onward, these measures are already being extended to the Digital Dispatch Note, and from 2026 to the Digital Invoice, while audits are being strengthened with AI and other digital technologies.

The Key: “Self-Compliance”

Such measures—along with others coming in 2026—increase “self-monitoring” and overall tax compliance across entire professional sectors, slowing the momentum that many had built up in previous years.

This is reinforced by another factor: since 2024, all this digital data has led to a new system for determining and limiting tax evasion, one that effectively binds businesses to what they declare to the tax authorities.

Each year, AADE now calculates and officially announces the average annual turnover of each market sector, by Activity Code (KAD). This system has also been officially incorporated into the calculation of presumptive income, along with years of activity and payroll.

As a result, businesses and professionals whose declared figures are significantly lower than the nationwide average for their sector now know in advance if they show major deviations from what the sector’s “electronic books” indicate—and that, because of this, they may come under AADE’s scrutiny for future audits.