Recent reforms and digitalization in Greece have dramatically reduced the time required to publish wills, with procedures that once took up to three months now completed within the same day or, at most, the following day after submission of required documents, according to figures announced this month.
The improvement is attributed to the launch of a general registry of wills, introduced last November by the justice ministry in cooperation with notarial associations in the country. The system marks the country’s first fully integrated digital platform for the registration and publication of wills and last testaments.
Under a 2025 law, all types of wills—including handwritten, confidential and public—are now processed through the digital platform diathikes.gr, managed by the biggest notarial association in the country, which covers the greater Athens-Piraeus area, under the supervision of the ministry.
The system primarily applies to cases involving deaths occurring after Nov. 1, 2025. However, subsequent legislation expanded the framework, allowing notaries to publish wills even if the testator / will-maker died before that date, provided certain procedural conditions are met.
Since its launch, the registry has processed significant volumes:
- 30,011 unpublished wills registered between Nov. 1, 2025, and April 14, 2026
- 8,426 requests for publication, including:
- 3,683 public wills
- 1,440 handwritten wills
- 3,085 handwritten wills filed by third parties
- 154 third-party handwritten wills already published by Greek courts
- 64 secret wills
In the same period, a total of 47,450 applications were submitted, including:
- 44,128 requests for certificates of publication (or non-publication)
- 2,192 requests for publication records
- 103 declarations validating handwritten wills
- 1,027 will search requests
