Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Greece's Minister of National Economy and Finance, attended the inauguration of a new Tax Procedures and Service Centre, known in Greek by the acronym KEFODE, in Thessaloniki on Friday, September 4, 2026. The opening marks the transition of Greece's Independent Authority for Public Revenue, known as AADE, into what officials called a new digital era.
The new centre is housed at the corner of Ethnikis Antistaseos Street and Ploutarchou Street in Kalamaria, a district of Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city and the main urban centre of Northern Greece. According to AADE, it will take over all tax procedures for the wider region, a change the authority said will radically alter how tax services operate across Northern Greece.
With KEFODE now operating, Thessaloniki's traditional local tax offices, known as DOY, are being converted into Tax Service Units, called YFE. AADE said these local units will be freed from the burden of processing taxpayers' bureaucratic requests, allowing them to take on a different role.
DOY stands for Dimosia Oikonomiki Ypiresia, or Public Economic Service, the long-standing name for Greece's local tax offices. YFE, short for Ypiresies Forologikis Exypiretisis, translates as Tax Service Units, the new designation for those offices under the reorganisation. Kalamaria, where the new centre is based, is a coastal district on the eastern side of Thessaloniki, facing the Thermaic Gulf.
Three pillars of the new system
AADE said the new operational structure reorganises how tax cases are handled and processed across the region, built around three central pillars.
- Centralisation of procedures: tax cases are brought together in a single modern structure meant to ensure speed, transparency and standardised handling.
- Digital workflows: cases can be processed without taxpayers needing to appear in person at a tax office.
- A new role for local offices: Tax Service Units now focus entirely on guiding and supporting citizens as they use AADE's digital tools, rather than processing paperwork themselves.
Pierrakakis on 'an important piece of the puzzle'
Pierrakakis said the shift represented another step toward specialisation and digital service. He said a citizen's relationship with the tax administration was one of the most frequent and critical relationships a person has with the state, and that the way the administration functioned practically shaped how citizens perceived the state itself, whether it worked quickly or slowly, whether it was simple or complicated, and whether it helped people or burdened them.
He described KEFODE Thessaloniki as another important step and a significant piece of the puzzle in this broader shift. He said the administration was moving from a structure organised primarily around geography to one organised around function, specialisation and digital service.
AADE chief points to 'a new era'
Giorgos Pitsilis, the head of AADE, said the inauguration of KEFODE Thessaloniki, housed in a modern building with advanced infrastructure, marked the step into a new era of tax service in Northern Greece. He said it completed the first stage of the reform to centralise AADE's services in Thessaloniki.
Pitsilis said the old tax offices were now being converted into Tax Service Units, while the authority was already preparing for its next step, a programme called myPOINT, which he said would introduce a new approach centred on guidance and digital support for citizens. Pitsilis gave no further detail on when myPOINT would launch or how it would work beyond that description.
AADE and Greece's tax reforms
AADE is Greece's independent authority for public revenue, responsible for collecting taxes and customs duties and enforcing tax law nationwide. It was set up as part of a broader effort to modernise Greece's public finances and improve tax compliance following the country's financial crisis and international bailout programmes, and has operated separately from the Ministry of Finance since 2017, though it still answers to the Ministry of National Economy and Finance, which Pierrakakis now leads. Giorgos Pitsilis has served as governor of AADE since it was established.
Pierrakakis previously served as Greece's Minister of Digital Governance, where he oversaw an expansion of the government's online public services. Greece has pushed to digitise public services in recent years through platforms such as gov.gr, which lets citizens handle many state transactions online without visiting a government office in person.
