Cyprus police clearance certificate: how to get one

Almost everyone starts this in the wrong place. There is now an online route, it works well, and for a large share of the people reading this it is the one route they are not allowed to use.

Two rules close it, and both are stated plainly by the Police:

• If the certificate will need an apostille, do not apply through DIGIPOL. Appear in person, or send an authorised representative, at a Certificate Issuing Office.
• If you are a European Union citizen, do not apply through DIGIPOL either. Same answer — in person, or through a representative.

Read those together and you can see who the online service is actually for: a non-EU resident who needs the certificate for use inside Cyprus. If you are an Italian citizen, or you are sending the certificate to an authority abroad, you are in the in-person queue whatever the portal appears to offer.

That is worth knowing on day one, because the usual failure here is not a refusal. It is applying online, waiting, receiving a perfectly valid certificate, and only then discovering it cannot be apostilled — and starting again from the beginning.

Which certificate are you actually asking for

Three different documents come out of the same office, and the application form asks you to name the purpose precisely so that you get the right one:

• The criminal record certificate, or clean criminal record certificate — the ordinary one, issued under Law 73(I)/2004. €20.
• A certificate under the Law on Recreation Centres and the Law on the Sale of Alcoholic Beverages — for licensing. Also €20.
• A certificate from the register of persons convicted of sexual offences against minors, under the Prevention and Combating of Sexual Abuse, Sexual Exploitation and Child Pornography Law 91(I)/2014. Free of charge.

That last one matters if you are being asked for a check in order to work with children — a school, a nursery, a sports club, a childminding arrangement. It is a different certificate from the criminal record certificate, it comes from a different register, and it costs nothing. Being asked for "a police check" and buying the wrong twenty-euro document is a common and entirely avoidable detour.

What you need to bring

The application form is short. It asks for your full name, your present address and since when, nationality, country and place of birth, date of birth, passport number with its date and country of issue, the purpose of the certificate, and your ARC number.

Every application must be accompanied by:

1. The official receipt for the €20. Not a promise to pay — the receipt.
2. Identity card or passport, for Cypriot citizens.
3. The Alien Registration Certificate and the passport, for foreign nationals. The form names it in the language people actually use: alien book, pink slip or yellow slip. The yellow slip is the EU registration certificate, the pink slip the temporary residence permit — bring whichever you hold, plus the passport. Not one or the other. Both.
4. A copy of the incorporation document, where the applicant is a company, partnership, association or other legal person.

Forms come from any police station, or from the Cyprus Police website.

Paying the twenty euro

Three ways, and the second is the one worth remembering:

• Cash at any Divisional Police Headquarters.
• Cash at any Embassy or Consulate of the Republic of Cyprus.
• Remittance to the Central Bank of Cyprus, in the name of the Chief of Cyprus Police. Euro only.

The embassy option is the reason a Cyprus police certificate is obtainable without being in Cyprus. People assume they have to fly back for it. They do not.

The online route, when it is open to you

Where neither exception applies, DIGIPOL is genuinely the easier path.

You need a CY Login account — the service formerly called Ariadni — and it has to be authenticated, not merely created. That identity step is the usual sticking point, and it is the same one that blocks people from the rest of the government's online services. If you have never got past it, our guide to gov.cy enrolment covers what actually unblocks it.

Once submitted, you follow the request in DIGIPOL under Pending Requests, and you are notified when it is done. For problems with the portal itself the Police give an address: digipol@police.gov.cy.

If it is going abroad

This is where the apostille rule bites, and it is worth being concrete about the order of operations.

A Cypriot document presented to a foreign authority almost always needs an apostille — the certificate under the Hague Convention that makes it recognisable outside Cyprus. The Police are explicit that a certificate obtained through DIGIPOL is not the one to take down that road. So:

1. Decide, before you apply, whether the certificate is leaving the country.
2. If it is, apply in person or through an authorised representative.
3. Then have the issued certificate apostilled.
4. Then, if the receiving country needs it, have it translated — and check whether the translation itself must be apostilled or certified, because that varies by destination.

Our apostille guide covers step three and the one after it. The point here is only that step one comes first, and it is a decision, not a formality.

Where it goes wrong

• Applying online when you were never eligible. The certificate arrives, is perfectly genuine, and cannot be apostilled. Start again.
• Bringing the residence permit but not the passport. The form asks for both, and the counter will not improvise.
• Paying at the wrong moment. The receipt is a required attachment, so the payment happens first.
• Buying the €20 certificate when the free one was wanted. If the request came from a school or a club, ask which register they need checked before you pay anything.
• Leaving the purpose blank. It is the field that decides which of the three certificates you are issued.
• Assuming you must be in Cyprus. The fee is payable at any Cypriot embassy or consulate.

A note on your data

The certificate reports what the criminal record holds. Its handling is subject to the Processing of Personal Data (Protection of Individuals) Law 138(I)/2001, which is printed on the application form itself. Where an employer or an authority asks for one, they are asking you to obtain and hand over a document about yourself — you remain the one who applies for it.

How we can help

We do this errand often enough to know which queue you belong in before you join it. We establish first whether the certificate is staying in Cyprus or leaving it, because that single answer decides whether the online route is even available to you. Then we assemble the file, pay the fee so the receipt is in hand at submission, and where the certificate is going abroad we take it straight on to apostille and, if needed, sworn translation — so it arrives in the form the receiving authority will actually accept, the first time.