The 30-day rule for sales in Greece: which previous price you show, and how to find it.

The rule is in article 9i of law 2251/1994, Greece’s consumer protection law. It was added by law 5111/2024 (Government Gazette A 76, 24.5.2024) and transposes article 6a of EU Directive 98/6/EC, as added by Directive 2019/2161, the “Omnibus” directive. So the same rule applies across the European Union. Greece already had it from 2022, in a different law.

The law says that every announcement of a price reduction must show the “prior price” (προγενέστερη τιμή): the lowest price you applied in the 30 days before the reduction. In this guide we simply call it the previous price.

In March 2025 the Ministry of Development issued a Code of Conduct for price reduction announcements (Ministerial Decision 19138/2025, Government Gazette B 1140, 12.3.2025), with examples of how the rule applies. The examples in this guide follow the Code.

Every time you say, or let it be understood, that a product costs less than before:

• with a percentage, e.g. “-20%”,
• with an amount, e.g. “€10 off”,
• with the new price beside the old one, usually crossed out,
• with words such as “sale price”, “special offer” or “Black Friday deals”.

Loyalty schemes and personal discounts, such as a birthday coupon, are not price reduction announcements, and neither is “buy one, get one free”. A discount code in a banner that everyone sees is one, though: you show the previous price on every product it applies to.

The rule applies to sales to consumers: on the eshop, in the shop, in leaflets or on social media. It doesn’t cover sales only to businesses, or fresh and perishable farm products and food that may spoil within 30 days (paragraph 2 of art. 9i).

An eshop sells an electric kettle. Its prices over the last two months were these:

The 30 days before the sale run from 20 September to 19 October. Three prices applied within them: €79.90 on 20 and 21 September, the last two days of the offer, then €89.90 and €94.90. The lowest is €79.90.

So beside the €69.90 you show €79.90 crossed out, and the discount is 12.5%. If you showed €94.90 crossed out, the discount would look like 26%, when in fact it’s half that.

The Code gives a stricter example too. A product sells at €100, drops to €50 for five days and goes back up to €100. If five days later it goes on sale at €40, the previous price is €50, not €100.

The previous price calculator does the same calculation for any product.

The Code accepts three ways to show a reduction: as a percentage, as an amount, or with the new price beside the previous one, which may be crossed out. Whichever you choose, the previous price is stated explicitly on every product that shows a reduction.

A general advert, such as “-20% on everything on Saturday”, doesn’t have to list prices. But as soon as you show a product’s reduced price, you show its previous price too. The same goes for a reduction on a whole category, such as “-20% on Christmas items”: both prices appear on each product separately.

On an eshop, the clearest way is the previous price crossed out, the new one in bold and the percentage beside them. If the percentage isn’t a whole number, it’s better to round it down: 12.5% becomes 12%, not 13%.

Yes. The Code says plainly that short offer prices, even for a single day, count towards later reductions. What counts is the price you applied, even if you didn’t sell a single item at it.

That’s why a flash sale on a Tuesday affects the previous price of every reduction for the next 30 days. If you plan offers back to back, put the smallest one first.

If the product has been on sale for less than 30 days, the previous price is the lowest since it launched. A product added to the eshop on 10 November at €59.90, with no other price in between, can go on sale on Black Friday, 27 November, with €59.90 as its previous price.

If it had an offer in between, that counts too, as under the general rule.

If the price goes down step by step, without breaks and without any increase in between, you may keep the price before the first reduction as the previous price for 60 days. That’s how the January and July sales usually work. The example is the Code’s:

Under the general rule, in the 5th week you would show the €60 of the week before. The exception lets you keep the €100.

The exception ends as soon as the price goes up, even once, and 60 days after the first reduction. From then on, the lowest price of the 30 days applies again.

Not as the previous price in a reduction. The manufacturer’s recommended retail price can’t be the price the discount is calculated from.

You may mention it as a plain comparison, as long as it doesn’t look like a discount: not crossed out, and not next to red lettering with the word “only”. If you show it alongside a reduction, it goes in as extra information that doesn’t draw attention away from the previous price.

Keep evidence, too, that the manufacturer really recommends that price and that it is the product’s usual price on the market.

The previous price is counted separately for each sales channel, and for each shop with its own prices. The Code’s example: a watch sells at €200 in the shop and €190 on the eshop. A 10% reduction in both shows:

• in the shop, €200 crossed out and €180,
• on the eshop, €190 crossed out and €171.

If the same advert covers both, it says clearly where and when the offer applies.

• Raising the price a few days before. The increase doesn’t erase the month’s lowest price. What counts is the lowest of the 30 days, not the latest.
• Forgetting an offer that lasted a few days. Even one day at a lower price within the 30 days changes the previous price.
• “Discount applied at checkout”. The Code doesn’t allow it, nor “the discount is already included in the price”. The previous and the new price appear on every product.
• “Up to -70%” on the banner. Allowed, as long as it doesn’t mislead. If the -70% applies to a few products and the rest have much smaller discounts, it may be considered misleading.
• WooCommerce’s “regular price”. When you set a sale price, WooCommerce shows the product’s regular price crossed out. If the regular price isn’t the lowest of the 30 days, the crossed-out price is wrong.

The rule is enforced by the Interagency Market Control Unit (ΔΙΜΕΑ) and the Ministry of Development’s General Directorate for Market and Consumer Protection. They can issue a warning or a fine, which according to the Code ranges from €5,000 to €1,500,000.

The Code advises keeping a record of your prices, their dates and the channel where each applied. If you’re asked, the record shows where every previous price came from.

WooCommerce keeps a regular price and a sale price for each product, not their history. Without a history, someone in the office has to remember every offer of the past month, for every product.

The solution is to record every price change with its date, so that the previous price is worked out and placed beside every reduction by itself. We set this up in WooCommerce and in Odoo, together with whatever else the new rules for eshops ask for, such as the withdrawal button.

For one product or a few, the previous price calculator gives you the answer in a minute.