What you're actually building
The standard vehicle is a private limited company (Ltd) registered with the Department of the Registrar of Companies. It pays 15% corporate tax under the post-reform regime, and its profits reach you as dividends — at 5% defence contribution if you are Cyprus-domiciled, and at 0% if you hold non-dom status, which is precisely the pairing that makes the structure famous. A remunerated directorship of the company can also serve as your economic tie for the 60-day tax residency rule — the three pieces are designed to work together.
Ownership is unrestricted: you can be a 100% foreign shareholder and director, all filings can be made in English, and you do not need to set foot in Cyprus to incorporate — though as you'll see below, there are good reasons to build a real presence anyway.
What the law requires
Four structural elements. Share capital — there is no statutory minimum; €1 is legally sufficient, though around €1,000 is customary because it reads as credible to banks and counterparties. A registered office — a physical Cyprus address, not a P.O. box; service providers offer this routinely. A company secretary — mandatory, and usually supplied by the same provider. At least one director — and here is the first substance decision: if you want the company to be Cyprus tax resident, its management and control should genuinely sit in Cyprus, which in practice means Cyprus-resident directors making real decisions here.
Know-your-customer checks under Cyprus AML law are completed before or alongside the filing — passports, proof of address, and a clear description of what the company will actually do.
The process, step by step
Name approval comes first — an application to the Registrar, typically cleared in a few working days; check the Registrar's name search before applying, because rejections cost time and often a fresh fee. Document preparation follows: the Memorandum and Articles of Association, prepared and signed through a Cyprus lawyer. Registration at the Registrar then takes roughly five to ten working days on the standard route, with an expedited option for a higher fee. End to end, a straightforward single-shareholder company runs about two weeks from name approval to certificate.
Immediately after incorporation, three registrations matter: the tax identification code with the Tax Department, VAT registration where turnover or cross-border EU trade requires it, and — the one with a hard deadline — the UBO register: beneficial ownership must be filed with the Registrar within 90 days of incorporation, with an annual confirmation each October–December. Missing the UBO window triggers fines and flags the company for AML scrutiny, which then complicates the one step that is genuinely slow in Cyprus: opening the bank account. I'll be honest about that — banking compliance takes longer than incorporation, sometimes considerably, and a clean file from day one is the best accelerant that exists.
Costs that no longer exist
- The €350 annual levy — abolishedRemoved from 2024 by Law 25(I)/2024; guides still quoting it are out of date
- Stamp duty on documents — abolishedGone from 1 January 2026 under the tax reform
- Capital duty — abolishedNo charge on authorised share capital since 2018
- Realistic setup totalGovernment fees of a few hundred euros; with professional fees, a straightforward company typically lands between €1,000 and €3,000
Obligations that remain — the honest list
- Annual audited accountsRequired for every company — unless small enough for the lighter review regime (turnover threshold rising to €300,000 for financial years from 6 February 2026)
- The HE32 annual returnFiled within 28 days of the AGM, every year
- Tax filingsCorporate return plus provisional tax instalments in July and December
- Running costsRegistered office, secretary, bookkeeping, audit — budget a few thousand euros a year, not zero
The substance question — read this before you incorporate
A Cyprus company with no real activity behind it is cheap to create and expensive to defend. Foreign tax authorities, banks, and the EU's own rules all now look through paper structures — so the companies that work are the ones with genuine management in Cyprus, a real office or workspace where the scale justifies it, and decisions demonstrably taken here. This is also where the personal and corporate sides of a relocation meet: your own tax residency, the company's management and control, and the non-dom treatment of the dividends form one structure, and they should be designed together, not bolted onto each other. The full corporate picture — including the relocation calculator — is on my business relocation page.
And the standing caveat, said plainly: incorporation is executed by licensed lawyers, the accounts by licensed accountants and auditors. My role is to help you design the structure and coordinate the professionals who build it — not to replace them.
Official sources: Department of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property · Tax Department, Ministry of Finance. The annual levy abolition derives from the Companies (Amendment) Law 2024, L.25(I)/2024; stamp duty abolition from the 2026 tax reform. Fees, thresholds, and processing times change — confirm the current position with a licensed lawyer and accountant before incorporating. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice.