Buying property in Cyprus: permission, fees and agents

Start with the thing that protects you most, because almost nobody checks it: in Cyprus, estate agency is a licensed profession.

Under the Real Estate Agents Law of 2010, only a person registered in the Register of Real Estate Agents and holding a licence from the Council of Real Estate Agents may practise. And the law is specific about how you can tell.

How to check the person selling you a house

A registered and licensed agent must:

• Show the words "registered and licensed real estate agent", followed by the registration number and the annual licence number, on every document and every advertisement used in the course of the profession
• Keep an office, with the certificate of registration and the licence displayed in a conspicuous place
• Show on the front of the office the name, those same words, and the registration number

So the check is simple: look for the numbers on the listing. If an advertisement carries no registration and licence number, the person placing it is either not licensed or not complying with the law, and both are reasons to be careful with your deposit.

The Council of Real Estate Agents keeps the register and will confirm whether someone is on it.

Permission to buy, if you are not an EU citizen

Non-EU nationals — including foreign companies and companies controlled by foreign nationals — must obtain permission from the local District Administration before acquiring immovable property.

• Form COMM 145, submitted to the District Administration of the district where the property is
• No fee is payable
• Two to three weeks to process

What you may buy

Permission is granted for either:

• A plot or land not divided into plots, up to 4,000 m², for the purpose of building a dwelling for owner occupation — couples are granted joint permission; or
• Up to two units, which may be at different stages of development: two dwellings, or one dwelling and a shop up to 100 m², or one dwelling and an office up to 250 m²

The limit applies to a couple in total, not to each person.

What the application needs

• A survey
• A copy of the title deed
• A copy of the planning consent — only where separate title deeds have not been issued for the apartment or dwelling; for plots being partitioned, a copy of the partitioning permit
• A copy of the contract of sale
• Floor plans of the dwelling or apartment
• Proof of financial standing
• Copies of the passports of the applicants and their spouses
• The marriage certificate with a certified translation — unless it is in Greek or English, and only where the spouses do not share a surname and the wife's passport does not show her husband's surname

Stamp duty: what changed, and what the official page still says

The Stamp Duty Laws of 1963 to 2025 were abolished from 1 January 2026.

A document drawn up and signed by even one party on or after 1 January 2026 is not subject to stamp duty. A document signed by even one party by 31 December 2025 still is, under the old law, and still has to be stamped by the old procedure.

Worth knowing: the Ministry of Interior's own purchasing page still lists the contract of sale "with the requisite stamp duty affixed" among the documents. For a contract signed this year that requirement no longer exists. If an office asks for it, the abolition notice is the thing to point at.

The €5 stamp for an apostille and the €2 stamp on a certified translation are separate charges and do still apply.

Transfer fees

Two exemptions do most of the work here:

• Total exemption where the transfer relates to a transaction subject to VAT
• A 50% exemption where the transaction is not subject to VAT

The Department of Lands and Surveys publishes a transfer fees calculator. Note its own caveat: the calculator does not apply the 50% exemption, so a figure it gives you for a non-VAT purchase is roughly double what you will actually pay.

Title deeds, and depositing the contract

The single most important protection in a Cypriot purchase is depositing the contract of sale at the Land Registry. It is what stands between you and a developer's creditors while separate title deeds are still being issued.

Ask, before you sign: do separate title deeds exist for this unit? If they do not, ask when they will, and what happens in the meantime. This is the question that has cost buyers in Cyprus more than any other.

If you are going to rent it out

Rental income is taxable, carries a GESY contribution, and brings you inside the rules covered in tenant and landlord rights — most importantly, whether the property falls under rent control, which turns on whether it was completed by 31 December 1999.

Where the defence contribution applies, non-domicile status changes the arithmetic, and it is worth settling before the first rent arrives.

Where it goes wrong

Not checking the licence. The numbers must be on the advertisement. Their absence is information.

Assuming the permission is a formality you can do later. A non-EU buyer needs it, and it is applied for at the district where the property is.

Missing the two-unit limit. It applies to a couple jointly, so buying "one each" is not a way around it.

Paying stamp duty that no longer exists on a contract signed this year.

Trusting the transfer fee calculator's number on a purchase not subject to VAT — the 50% exemption is not in it.

Not asking about title deeds before signing, and not depositing the contract at the Land Registry afterwards.

How we can help

We are not licensed estate agents, and we do not sell property. Cyprus regulates that profession, and where an agent is needed we introduce you to a licensed one and check their registration first.

What we do is the part around the purchase: the COMM 145 permission and its document pack, certified translations, apostilles where a document comes from abroad, your tax number, and the residence side if the purchase is part of a move.

And, honestly, the part that is not paperwork at all: we live here, and we work across the whole island — Larnaca, Limassol, Nicosia, Paphos and Famagusta. On which areas suit which kind of life, what a street is like in August, what the drive to school actually takes — we will tell you what we know from our own experience, and say so when we are giving an opinion rather than a fact.

If the purchase is meant to buy residence as well as a home, that is immigration permit 6(2) — and the route the money takes matters as much as the price.