With over 500 million euros, 2.9 million Market Pass beneficiaries were supported. In particular, the deadline for applications for the household aid measure ended on Wednesday (March 15), the program concerns the financial aid of households, with the aim of covering part of the increased cost of shopping, especially food items, due to the significant increase in the index of consumer prices.

The Market Pass was announced by the Prime Minister on December 17, 2022, started on February 21, 2023 and upon its completion, 25 days later (March 15), approximately 2,900,000 beneficiaries are supported by the Information Society (supervised body of the Ministry of Digital Governance) of the program with 510,000,000 euros.

Regarding the distribution, 2,200,000 beneficiaries were supported through bank deposit in their accounts with a total amount of 365,000,000 euros and 645,300 beneficiaries through a digital debit card with a total amount of 145,000,000 euros.

The managing director of the Information Society, Stavros Asthenidis pointed out characteristically for Market Pass that “we have emphasized many times that digital policy constitutes a social policy by definition for everyone, but also with added value for our fellow citizens who need it most. In this direction, once again, all of us in the Information Society worked for the implementation of a demanding program, such as the market pass. To make it clear that digital transformation is the catalyst for social progress when technology is used as a “means of public interest”. All these support actions have the citizen at their center. Thus, we managed to carry out the market pass with speed, consistency and transparency, making available to the approximately 2,900,000 beneficiaries of the program more than 500 million euros”.

Let us remind you that the measure covers the period from February to July 2023, beneficiaries of the “Market Pass” program are natural persons, single, married, parties to a cohabitation agreement, separated, divorced or widowed, who are taxpayers residents of Greece and fall under the criteria of income and real estate value of paragraph 1 of article 2 of the KYA.

The aid is granted at the household level. The members of the household are the spouses / cohabiting partners, their dependent children, other dependent members and their guests according to the last Personal Income Tax Return for the tax year 2021, as submitted up to 31/12/ 2022.

The amount of assistance per household amounts to ten percent (10%) of the monthly amount of purchases, which is set at two hundred and twenty (220) euros for a single-member household, increased by one hundred (100) euros for each additional member of the household with maximum purchase limit of one thousand (1,000) euros.