Residency
Five questions, and we map your situation to the Cyprus route that fits, the official application path and a realistic timeline. Below that, every route with its published deadline and fee.
Every figure below is quoted from the department that issues the permit. Where a page does not state something, we say so instead of filling it in.
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens
The yellow slip. If you are staying longer than three months you register, and the clock starts the day you arrive rather than the day you decide to stay.
Non-EU family members of an EU citizen
The route for a non-EU spouse or child of an EU citizen. Same four-month deadline, but the card itself can take up to six months to be issued — which is the part that catches people out.
Anyone who has been here five years on an EU route
Acquired automatically after five consecutive years. Short absences do not break it, and the right survives until you have been away for more than two years.
Non-EU nationals coming to work
The standard third-country route. The permit tracks your employment contract, biometrics are taken at the district immigration unit, and the department gives itself one month to decide a complete application.
Not stated by the source: This page does not state the salary threshold that counts as 'highly paid' — the Migration Department's policy page does, and it is on the FIC card below.
Staff of a company of foreign interests
The route most relocating businesses use. A highly paid employee of a company of foreign interests can stay indefinitely, can move between such companies without restarting, and their spouse can take a job without a Department of Labour contract — which together is what makes it different from an ordinary work permit.
Not stated by the source: Whether a given company qualifies as a company of foreign interests is decided against criteria set by the Council of Ministers and examined by the Business Facilitation Unit of the Ministry of Energy, Commerce and Industry — not by us.
Which route you take determines when you become tax resident and which schemes are open to you. They are one decision, worked out together or worked out twice.
Weighing it against somewhere else
On the tax side Cyprus holds its own against all three — and it is the only one of them where the trade-off for a favourable regime is not the weather, the sea or the language. Full EU membership, English used in business as a matter of course, and 320-odd days of sun a year you do not have to negotiate for.
Every milestone, in the order they actually have to happen.