Registering a company in Cyprus: cost, timeline and what happens after

Most of what people are quoted for a Cyprus company is service fees. The government's own charges are small, and worth knowing so you can tell the two apart.

What the Registrar charges

So roughly €175 in state fees for a standard private limited company. Any figure well above that is professional fees, and you are entitled to see them itemised.

The forms, and why you cannot file them alone

• HE1 — a declaration that the registration complies with the Companies Law. It must be signed by a practising Cyprus lawyer and sworn before the court registrar
• HE2 — the registered office, which must be a physical address in Cyprus, not a PO box
• HE3 — directors and secretary
• Memorandum and Articles of Association, signed by the shareholders

That HE1 signature is the reason nobody incorporates a Cyprus company entirely by themselves. A lawyer has to be involved by law. Be wary of anyone who implies otherwise.

Choosing the name

You submit up to three names in order of preference. The Registrar rejects names that are identical or confusingly similar to an existing company, and words like bank, insurance, trust, royal and government need a licence or ministerial consent.

Submitting one name and waiting is the most common self-inflicted delay. Send three.

How long it takes

• Name approval: about 5–7 working days
• Registrar review: 5–10 working days standard, 1–3 accelerated
• Realistically, two to three weeks from name application to certificate of incorporation

The accelerated fees are small compared with the delay they remove. If the company has a bank appointment or a contract waiting on it, pay them.

What it costs to run, per year

The €350 annual levy was abolished in 2024 (Law 25(I)/2024). Any unpaid levies for 2011–2023 are still owed, but from 2024 onward there is no annual government levy. Plenty of sites still list it as a running cost.

What remains:

• HE32 annual return — filed within 28 days of the AGM
• Audited financial statements — every Cyprus company needs an audit, whatever its size. This is the real annual cost, not the Registrar's fees
• Corporate tax return, at 15% from 1 January 2026 (up from 12.5%)
• UBO register confirmation — annually, October to December. Missing it costs €100 plus €50 a day, capped at €5,000

That UBO confirmation is the one that quietly generates fines, because it is annual, it is easy to forget, and the penalty accrues daily.

The decisions that matter more than the registration

Registering is the easy part. What actually shapes your tax position:

• Where the company is managed and controlled. Cyprus tax residence follows management, not the certificate
• How you pay yourself — salary, dividends, or both. See non-domicile status, which removes the defence contribution on dividends
• Whether your income qualifies for the IP Box, which needs the right structure from day one, not retrofitted
• Substance — an address and a director on paper is not a business, and banks look at this before the tax office does

Common mistakes

Comparing quotes without separating state fees from service fees. €175 of it is the government.

Budgeting for the €350 levy. Abolished in 2024.

Registering before deciding how profits come out. The dividend and non-dom questions are cheaper to answer before incorporation than after.

Forgetting the UBO confirmation. It is annual and the fine runs daily.

Assuming registration means a bank account. It does not — see opening a corporate bank account.

What we do

We run the incorporation end to end: name searches that will actually pass, the lawyer's HE1, the registered office, the Memorandum and Articles drafted for what you actually intend to do, and filing with the Registrar. Then the things that follow — tax registration, UBO filing, and the first year's calendar so nothing lapses.

A practising lawyer must sign the HE1 and an auditor must sign the accounts. Both come through our partners, so you do not have to go and find them — the lawyer signs, the auditor signs, and we run everything in between. What you are paying us for is that the sequence is right, the filings happen on time, and you are not learning the annual calendar by receiving a fine.

Tell us what the company will do and where you will be resident, and we will come back with the state fees, our fee and the realistic timeline before anything is committed.

Before you set off: the document checklist has a tick-list for registering a company — what to bring, what needs an apostille, what needs a sworn translation, and what it costs.

Once it is trading, the reporting is its own problem — see data analytics for what is worth automating and what is not.