Greece

Summary

Greece’s hunting texts and its weapons law point in different directions, and no text read says in so many words that hunting with a bow is forbidden. The Forest Code still says that hunting is carried out only with an ordinary shoulder-fired hunting gun, as well as with a bow and a hunting knife; the bird decision of 1985 says that birds are hunted only with a bow or a smooth-bore shoulder gun, and none of its five later amendments touches that article.

The Weapons Act of 1993 treats the bow differently. It counts bows and crossbows as weapons, allows them to be held only with a police licence and only for target shooting, forbids carrying weapons, and lets hunting weapons, which it defines as smooth-bore gunpowder guns, be carried for hunting, but gives the bow no such exception. The Greek bowhunters’ union says the country has banned the method since 1993 and asks for it to be restored. This page follows that reading and lists Greece as prohibited.

The legal mechanism

• Weapons Act, art. 1 § 2 δ: swords, spears, daggers, stilettos, bows, crossbows and police batons are weapons under the Act. Art. 7: possessing any of them is forbidden except where the Act provides; § 2 η allows, with a licence from the police of the holder’s place of residence, the possession of bows and crossbows intended exclusively for target shooting.
• Weapons Act, art. 10: § 1 forbids carrying the weapons and items of art. 1; § 10 α gives a hunting permit only to holders of a hunting-weapon licence, and § 10 β allows hunting weapons to be carried for hunting or target shooting and on the way there and back. Art. 1 § 1 β defines hunting weapons as smooth-bore shoulder guns, single- or double-barrelled, repeating or semi-automatic, powered by burning gunpowder. § 13 β punishes the illegal carrying of the items of art. 1 § 2, where the bow sits, with up to two years in prison and a fine.
• Forest Code, art. 252 § 1: hunting is carried out only with an ordinary shoulder-fired hunting gun, as well as with a bow and a hunting knife, with or without a dog. Article 38 of the Weapons Act repealed the second sentence of that paragraph, which described the ordinary hunting guns, and the whole of § 2; the first sentence, with the bow, was not repealed.
• Bird decision of 1985, art. 4 § 1: game birds may be hunted only as a sport and only with a bow or a smooth-bore shoulder gun of one or two barrels, or a repeating gun holding at most three cartridges. The amendments of 1996 and 1997 replaced the species annexes, the amendment of 2007 replaced arts 2 and 5, and the decisions of 2010 and 2012 dealt with prohibited means and protection areas without naming the bow or amending art. 4.
• The hunting decision for 2026–2027 is based on other articles of the Forest Code and on arts 5 and 11 of the bird decision; it does not mention the bow.
• The hunting federation’s course for the hunting exam cites art. 252, art. 4 of the bird decision and the Weapons Act and describes only the shoulder-fired hunting gun.

Open questions

• How the two sets of texts fit together. No court judgment, ministry circular or answer to parliament was found that says whether the bow named in the Forest Code and in the bird decision may still be used for hunting after the Weapons Act. The prohibition shown here rests on the Weapons Act and on the bowhunters’ union’s statement, not on a text that forbids hunting with a bow in terms.
• The crossbow is treated like the bow in the Weapons Act and is not named in the hunting texts.

Before you go

This page describes the Greek texts as they stood on the date below. A change would appear as an amendment to art. 7 or art. 10 of the Weapons Act, or as a new hunting rule that names the bow and says how it may be held and carried; if you hear that the bow has been allowed, ask for that text and its Government Gazette number. Until then, carrying a bow for hunting in Greece falls outside the exceptions of art. 7 and art. 10 of the Weapons Act. The final check is yours.