Official fees: €175 to incorporate
For a Cyprus private limited company the Registrar charges €175:
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Name approval, per proposal | €10 |
| Registration, limited company with share capital | €165 |
| Minimum total | €175 |
| Document package with the registration | around €120 |
| Accelerated procedure, per step | €100 |
That yields three realistic totals: €175 under the normal procedure without the document package, €295 with the package or fully accelerated, €515 with both.
The full sequence, form by form, is in the guide to company formation in Cyprus. This article is about the money.
Quotes: why they start in the thousands
The difference between €175 and what a provider charges is professional fees. That is not an accusation; it follows from the law:
In Cyprus the incorporation documents and form HE1 may only be drawn up and signed by a licensed advocate. Nobody can take that step themselves. What it costs is set by no authority.
Three items that no longer exist
This is the most common error in cost overviews, and it always runs the same way: too expensive.
The €350 annual levy was abolished from the year 2024 by law 25(I)/2024. Arrears for 2011 to 2023 remain payable; on a running basis it no longer applies.
Stamp duty was repealed in full on 1 January 2026 by law 239(I)/2025. Cost lists that include stamp duty on the articles and share capital are therefore out of date.
The 0.6 % capital duty on authorised share capital has been gone since 18 December 2018. Since then the registration fee has been a fixed amount and no longer depends on the level of capital.
First year: around €5,000, without a flat
What actually falls due splits into two groups. The first is exact, the second is not.
Fixed and official:
- €175 incorporation fees, once
- €0 share capital
- €0 annual levy
- €0 stamp duty
Professional fees, set by no authority:
- Advocate for the articles and HE1, mandatory
- Tax adviser, in practice equally unavoidable
- Company secretary, prescribed
- Registered office in the Republic, expressly not a PO box
- Bookkeeping from the first receipt
- Annual accounts and their audit or review
We do not quote individual fees here, because they differ by multiples depending on scope and an invented figure would be exactly the error this article describes. We do give the order of magnitude, because without it the figure 175 is misleading:
What we can say about the individual fees is on the page Cyprus setup from one place: there you pay the partner’s work and the official fees, and you see beforehand which is which.
Later years: €20 official, the rest fees
Here the arithmetic surprises in the other direction. Officially €20 a year remain, the fee for the HE32 annual return to the Registrar. That is all the state charges on a recurring basis.
The running cost arises in three places:
Bookkeeping. The item that returns every month. Which Cypriot filings it produces is set out in the overview of Cyprus tax deadlines.
Accounts and audit. Under Article 152A of the Companies Law Cap. 113 every Cyprus company must have its annual accounts audited, regardless of size or activity and even where no turnover arose. There is no genuine exemption. Small private companies may file a review under ISRE 2400 instead where net turnover and balance sheet total do not exceed €300,000 and €500,000, in at least two consecutive financial years. The detail is in the guide to statutory accounts.
Registered office and secretary. Both are prescribed and both are usually bought in.
Default: what being late costs
Penalties are the part that never appears in a quote, and the difference between them is substantial:
| Failure | Cost |
|---|---|
| HE32 annual return filed late | €50 on day one, then €1 a day, capped at €150 |
| Change of address not filed within 14 days | late filing fee |
| UBO register not filed within 90 days | €100 day one, €50 each further day, up to €5,000 |
The UBO register is the most expensive omission anywhere around incorporation, and at the same time the one fewest people remember, because it is not kept at the Registrar but elsewhere.
When further obligations arrive
Three thresholds, all of which cost money once crossed:
- €15,600 of taxable supplies in twelve consecutive months: VAT registration becomes mandatory, see the guide to VAT registration. After that come the quarterly VAT return and, for intra-community services, the monthly VIES return.
- First employee: registration with Social Insurance, plus 15.4 % employer contributions on gross pay. See the guide to Cyprus payroll.
- €300,000 turnover or €500,000 balance sheet total: the review becomes a full audit.
Residence: the item almost every list leaves out
This section is missing from practically every cost comparison, and for most readers it is the largest amount.
Forming a limited company does not require a residence in Cyprus. Running it from Cyprus does. A company is tax resident where management and control are exercised, and that is a fact rather than an address. Anyone wanting the 15 % corporate rate and non-dom status for themselves has to be there, and that takes an actually rented flat or house, not a PO box and not a mail-forwarding service. For registration and for dealing with the authorities, the tenancy agreement is the evidence.
What rent costs in Cyprus:
| Location | One-bedroom flat |
|---|---|
| Paphos | around €600 to €1,050 |
| Limassol | around €900 to €1,470 |
For a modern flat of around 60 m² you quickly land at €1,000 to €1,200 a month, and the range has no ceiling. Over a year that is €12,000 to €14,400, a multiple of all incorporation costs put together. On top come a deposit, usually one to two months’ rent, plus electricity, water and internet.
Rents are still rising: the RICS Cyprus Property Index shows 5.1 % year on year for flats in the first quarter of 2026, more than for offices or houses.
What we could not confirm
Tourism as a driver of rents. That holiday letting competes for the same housing stock in coastal towns and pushes rents up seasonally is widely described locally. We found no official series attributing the rise to tourism: the sources we checked name inbound relocation and companies moving their seat. We therefore present the point as plausible but unconfirmed.
- Fees for the advocate, secretary, registered office and accounts. They are set by no authority and published prices vary considerably. We therefore give no range.
- How long registration takes. The Registrar publishes nothing on this, neither for the normal nor the accelerated procedure. Provider figures range from two to ten working days and contradict each other.
- The exact split of the document package. The official page lists the package with a copy of the certificate of incorporation at €120 and without that copy at €130. The more expensive version therefore contains less. We treat that as an error on the page and quote “around €120”.
- From which financial year the €300,000 review threshold applies. The consolidated statutory text states €300,000; secondary sources date the change to financial years beginning on or after 6 February 2026.
Bookkeeping: the item you actually control
Of everything above, exactly one is immediately and permanently within your control: the ongoing bookkeeping. Incorporation fees are paid once, the lawyer once, the audit once a year. The books run every month.
Volk Accountant starts at €29 a month and produces VAT 4 and VIES from the same books the invoices already run into. Your accountant gets their own access on every plan through the accountant portal, so the year-end does not begin as a pile of files.
What the 15 % corporate tax leaves of it is set out in the guide to Cyprus corporate tax.