How Much Does Therapy Cost in Athens in 2026?

Greece's public system offers two funded routes. Through EOPYY, psychotherapy is covered when a psychiatrist issues the referral, and at an EOPYY-contracted provider you pay no co-payment, with monthly session limits set per therapy type and diagnosis. Through the public health system's community mental health centres, care is provided without charge, and the uninsured access public mental health structures on equal terms with the insured through the AMKA system. Private fees have no published schedule, and Athens practices that publish their rates charge €45 to €60 a session, with several publishing reduced rates for unemployed people and students.

These are guiding estimates for the private route. Therapists set their own fees; the public routes above are not priced by the practitioner.

The EOPYY route

Article 39 of EOPYY's benefits regulation covers individual, group and family psychotherapy, with the monthly number of sessions set by therapy type and by ICD-10 diagnosis. Across most diagnoses the annex allows up to four individual sessions a month for up to three years, and family therapy up to two a month. At a provider contracted to EOPYY the patient pays nothing towards the session; only where no contracted provider exists do you pay and claim back. The gate to all of it is the referral, and the rules are specific: only a psychiatrist can issue it, not a GP and not the psychologist you wish to see. In practice the route in Athens runs: psychiatrist first, referral in hand, then a contracted or reimbursable psychotherapist.

The public door

The community mental health centres of the public system see people without charge, and the access rule is broader than many expect: through e-prescription and the AMKA number, the uninsured are served on the same terms as the insured. The honest caveat is capacity: public structures mostly offer brief and supportive therapies, and long-term work is rare within the system's workload, which is what sends longer therapies private. The Athens exception worth knowing is the Centre for Psychotherapies at the Aiginiteio Hospital, Dimitressa 10, the university psychiatric hospital of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, whose specialist units run psychotherapy of defined length, from several months to two years. Referrals go straight to the unit concerned.

What practices charge

Athens practices that publish their prices sit at €45 to €60 for individual therapy. Several publish reduced rates as standing policy rather than as a favour to be asked for: €25 a session for unemployed people and €35 for students, on proof. Online sessions are charged the same as in-person at every practice we read, not less. Read from five practices' own price pages on 26 August 2026; these are examples, not a survey.

The private market

Private psychotherapy in Athens is priced practice by practice, and no Greek body publishes a fee schedule. Pages quoting a standard Athens session rate are quoting themselves; the reliable figure is the practice's own quote, like those above, and asking whether EOPYY reimbursement applies to your situation is the first question worth a psychiatrist's time.

If you need someone now

• Klimaka suicide intervention line: 1018, 24 hours a day, charged at the ordinary local rate.
• National psychosocial support line: 10306, free and anonymous, 24 hours a day.

Sources

• EOPYY, article 39 of the current benefits regulation (EKPY), decision EALE/G.P. 4091, Government Gazette B' 2106 of 2 May 2025: the psychotherapy categories, the psychiatrist-only referral rule and the no-co-payment provision. Its annex, Gazette B' 4737 of 4 September 2025, carries the monthly session numbers per ICD-10 diagnosis. Both read 26 August 2026.
• Consistent Greek professional explainers of the EOPYY rules and the AMKA access route for the uninsured; reporting, labelled as such. Read 28 July 2026.
• Five Athens practices' own published price pages, read 26 August 2026. They are held in our fee evidence record and deliberately not linked: one practice's price page is good evidence of what that practice charges and no kind of authority on the city.

Reviewed August 2026. The scheme rules were read on 26 August 2026 in article 39 of the current EKPY and in its annex, both published by EOPYY. Those texts set session numbers rather than euro amounts, so no per-session reimbursement figure is quoted. The private figures are five Athens practices' own published rates read on the same date, shown as examples; the band is their working range, not an official price.