The landscape of tax monitoring is radically changing as authorities now gain almost instant insight into money flows in the social media ecosystem.
Payments for partnerships and advertising no longer need to be declared after the fact, but are tracked in near real time through an extensive network of digital connections that significantly reduces the scope for “invisible” revenue.
This new reality is captured in the 2025 Annual Report and 2026 Planning Report of the AADE, which documents the transition to a highly sophisticated system of controls.
More than 1.22 million businesses transmit data through ERP systems, while document entries amount to 795 million through them and more than 2.25 billion through e-invoicing providers. In practice, almost every invoice now has a digital “identity” and can be checked.
Over 9.5 million declarations in one year
The picture is completed by the extensive digitisation of transactions of citizens and businesses with the Hellenic Revenue Service. Within a year, more than 9.5 million declarations and statements were submitted electronically, while hundreds of thousands of requests are being processed digitally, reducing the scope for unrecorded data.
This extensive digital footprint is now a key tool for identifying discrepancies. When a business pays money for promotion, advertising or partnerships, the amount is recorded and linked to a specific VAT number. If the corresponding revenue does not appear or appears reduced, the system triggers automatic audit trails, without requiring a complaint or physical intervention.
These cross-checks are no longer of an ancillary nature, but are a starting point for the audit procedures. Cases are opened in a targeted manner, where discrepancies between declared income and recorded transactions are identified, and the process can escalate from a simple compliance notice to a full tax audit.
The intensity of controls is also reflected in the data: in 2025, more than 290,000 controls and investigations were carried out, with fines and taxes assessed reaching €3.1 billion. At the same time, thousands of on-the-spot checks and targeted interventions show that the digital system works in a complementary way to traditional methods.
A multi-layered data network
The new control model goes beyond invoices. The AADE draws data from banking transactions, POS, booking and rental platforms, and digital business applications, with the aim of creating a comprehensive “digital profile” for each taxpayer.
This profile collects income, expenditure, transactions and assets. Through algorithmic checks, unusual discrepancies are identified, such as low declared incomes combined with high consumption or continuous business payments. These cases are identified as high risk and are prioritised for control.
At the same time, the use of tools such as the Digital Dispatch Note and the Digital Customer Log is being reinforced, which allow real-time monitoring of activity, contributing both to the detection and prevention of tax evasion.
The result is an increasingly interconnected digital audit trail, which significantly reduces the potential for income concealment, as almost every financial transaction now leaves a digital footprint.
