Cyprus

The standard vehicle is a private company limited by shares, commonly called an Ltd, formed under the Companies Law, Cap. 113, and registered with the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property. In practice a licensed corporate-services provider files everything: name approval, the memorandum and articles, and the first officers. You must appoint at least one director and a company secretary and maintain a registered office in Cyprus. Government filing fees are modest, roughly EUR 105–170. The real cost is professional and ongoing (as of 2026).

Yes. There is no residence or nationality requirement to incorporate or own a Cyprus Ltd. The process is completed remotely through a registered agent, so you need never set foot on the island to form it. The binding constraint is banking, not incorporation. Opening a Cyprus bank account now runs to roughly 6–12 weeks of KYC, and many founders bridge with an electronic money institution. Note the separate question of where the company is tax resident, below.

15% on the worldwide profits of a Cyprus tax resident company, from 1 January 2026. That is up from the 12.5% that ran to 31 December 2025. The rise applies to every Cyprus company, not only the large groups caught by the OECD's 15% global minimum. Two reliefs survive. The IP Box gives an effective rate of roughly 3% on qualifying patent and software income, raised from 2.5% by the rate change. Non-dom shareholders can still draw dividends free of Special Defence Contribution.

Incorporation itself is quick. The Registrar typically returns a certificate in about 5–8 working days once complete KYC is in hand. The bottleneck is the bank account, which can take 6–12 weeks. Budget roughly EUR 600–3,000 in professional formation fees on top of the nominal government charges. Running costs matter more. Expect EUR 2,500–6,000 a year for a simple company, dominated by the mandatory annual audit, accounting, registered office and the Registrar's annual levy (as of 2026).

It depends on what you want from it. Since 31 December 2022, a company incorporated in Cyprus is treated as Cyprus tax resident unless it is tax resident elsewhere, so incorporation alone can secure the 15% rate. But the older management and control test still governs treaty access and defends against another state claiming the company. Board decisions, and ideally directors and genuine substance, should sit in Cyprus. A brass-plate structure invites challenge, and the IP Box specifically requires audited R&D substance.

Only above the threshold, for most businesses. A Cyprus-established company must register once taxable turnover exceeds EUR 15,600 in any 12-month period. The standard VAT rate is 19%. There is no threshold for a non-established business making taxable supplies in Cyprus, which must generally register from the first supply. Intra-EU B2B services often shift the charge to the customer under the reverse charge. Register early if you will invoice EU clients. A VIES number is frequently expected.

No. The Cyprus Investment Programme was abolished with effect from 1 November 2020, after an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and a critical Audit Office report. Any 2026 offer of Cypriot citizenship by investment is fraudulent. The bigger risk is not that the programme closed. It is that the closure reached backward. The Nikolatos inquiry committee found that a reported 53% of passports granted under the scheme were issued unlawfully, and the Council of Ministers has since stripped citizenship from holders whose files failed retrospective review. Revocation proceedings and criminal investigations have continued through 2025. Anyone naturalised under the scheme between 2013 and 2020 still faces heightened bank onboarding friction. That is the standing lesson of the programme's collapse.

The Regulation 6(2) fast-track permanent residence route is genuinely quick — 2 to 3 months is commonly achieved — for a qualifying investment of at least EUR 300,000, and the permit is issued as permanent and does not expire. You do not need to live in Cyprus permanently; the only presence obligation is to visit at least once every two years to keep the permit alive. You must also show secured annual income of at least EUR 50,000 from outside Cyprus, rising by EUR 15,000 for a spouse and EUR 10,000 per dependent child, and maintain the EUR 300,000 investment — lose it and you lose the status. The residential route requires a first-sale new-build from a developer, so you buy at developer pricing in a market with documented golden-visa premiums.

No. This is the point most applicants get wrong. Cyprus is an EU member but not yet a full Schengen member, so neither the Regulation 6(2) permit nor the Category F permit gives you the free movement across the Schengen area that clients often assume they are buying. You get a permanent, non-expiring EU residence foothold and the right to be in Cyprus, but not the mobility a Maltese or Greek residence would give. If Schengen access is the actual goal, Cyprus residence is the wrong tool.

The 60-day rule lets you become a Cyprus tax resident on as little as 60 days of presence, provided you spend no more than 183 days in any other single state, keep a permanent home in Cyprus that you own or rent, and carry on business, employment or a directorship of a Cyprus tax resident company that has not ended during the year. The significant change for 2026, in force for tax years from 1 January 2026, removes the old condition that required you not to be tax resident anywhere else. That turns a demanding negative test into one you can satisfy on Cyprus facts alone. It leaves any dual-residency conflict to treaty tie-breakers, applied in order: permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, then nationality. Removing the condition does not remove the conflict. Sixty days rarely wins a serious contest against a state where your family lives.

The reality is more double-edged than the marketing suggests, so run the arithmetic before you pay to extend it. The reform passed on 22 December 2025 and took effect from 1 January 2026. It kept the 17-year non-dom limit in place but made it extendable by two consecutive 5-year periods at EUR 250,000 each, up to 27 years. At the same time, it cut the Special Defence Contribution on dividends from post-2026 profits from 17% to 5%. A domiciled Cypriot now pays only 5% on dividends. That means the exemption a non-dom pays EUR 250,000 to extend is worth a fraction of its 2025 value. Advisers still pricing the extension against the old 17% counterfactual are overstating its value by more than threefold. One more wrinkle: dividends out of pre-2026 profits keep the 17% rate until 31 December 2031, a transition trap for companies with accumulated reserves.

Cyprus has no wealth tax, and it abolished inheritance tax in 2000. That is a genuine structural advantage for estate planning. Capital gains tax at 20% applies only to Cyprus-situs immovable property and shares in property-rich companies. Gains on securities are exempt. From 2026, the property-rich threshold falls from 50% to 20%, while lifetime exemptions rise (EUR 30,000 general, EUR 50,000 agricultural land, EUR 150,000 primary residence). Cyprus is not territorial. A tax resident is, in principle, taxable on worldwide income. But the non-dom regime exempts dividends and interest from the Special Defence Contribution. There is also an 8% flat rate on crypto gains and approved share-scheme remuneration. Cyprus is a CRS participant, so the regime rests on disclosure, not opacity.

A long time, and yes. Ordinary naturalisation requires genuine long residence, broadly 7 to 8 years of physical presence, reduced to 5 under conditions, plus Greek language competence and full integration. The Regulation 6(2) investment permit does not speed this up. If you never actually live in Cyprus, you never get there. The moment citizenship rather than optionality becomes the goal, the cheap permanent-residence economics stop applying. Category F is no shortcut either. If a passport is the real objective, the residence-by-investment routes are a residence play, not a naturalisation track.

Only if you have no timetable. Category F is the honest cheap route. It requires a secured annual income from abroad of about EUR 9,568, plus roughly EUR 4,613 per dependant, against EUR 300,000 for Regulation 6(2). But the backlog is the real story. Reported processing runs five to seven years, with 2026 caseworkers said to still be handling 2020 applications. Regulation 6(2) exists precisely because Category F does not function on any reasonable timescale. In practice a property purchase of around EUR 100,000 is expected, even though the rules do not mandate one. Grants sit at the discretion of the Civil Registry and Migration Department, and refusals on thin files are common. It suits patient retirees with no deadline, not anyone who needs a status this decade.