What changed on 1 July 2026
This is the change that weighs most for online sellers, and it is only a few months old.
The €150 duty exemption has been abolished. In its place comes a flat customs duty of €3 per item on low-value consignments from outside the EU. The measure runs until 1 July 2028; after that, normal duty rates apply by type of goods.
What matters is how the counting works: per item, not per consignment. The Commission works it through itself:
| Consignment | Items | Duty |
|---|---|---|
| Five T-shirts | 1 | €3 |
| One T-shirt and one watch | 2 | €6 |
The tariff classification decides, not the quantity.
Who owes it: the declarant of the goods, meaning the seller or importer — under IOSS the holder of the IOSS number, under the special arrangements their user, or an indirect representative. Only in residual cases does it fall on the consumer.
Excluded are goods benefiting from preferential trade agreements or customs union measures, as long as VAT was not collected through IOSS.
One point that affects the invoice: under IOSS the €3 does not enter the VAT taxable amount, and no VAT is due on it at import. Under the special arrangements and the standard procedure it must form part of the taxable amount on which VAT is charged.
The legal basis is Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382 of 11 February 2026, in the Official Journal of 18 February 2026. It deletes Chapter V of Title II of Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009 — Articles 23 and 24, which held the exemption. It is supplemented by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1022 and an implementing act; the Commission published guidance and legal texts on 8 June 2026.
Alongside it, product identifiers: voluntary since 1 July 2026, and mandatory from 1 November 2026.
What the EORI number is
An identifier unique across the Union, assigned by a customs authority to an economic operator for customs purposes. It is required for every customs clearance — import, export, transit — and is valid throughout the EU.
Its structure is set in EU law: a two-letter country code, followed by an identifier unique within that member state of up to 15 alphanumeric characters. A Cyprus EORI therefore begins with CY.
Each operator has exactly one EORI number, and anyone established in the EU obtains it in the state where they are established — even if the first operation takes place in another member state.
It does not expire. The Commission states expressly that EORI numbers have no expiration date. A number is invalidated only on request or when customs activities cease — and the recorded data is then kept for ten years, so that declarations lodged beforehand can still be corrected. There is no renewal obligation.
It is not the VAT number. Form C.1000 asks for the VAT number marked “if any”, and the Commission states that the EORI rules neither limit nor undermine obligations in other fields such as taxation. Whether Cyprus builds the numeric part from the VAT number in practice, no official source says — so we do not claim it.
Who needs one — and who does not
Needs one: anyone involved, in the course of business, in activities covered by customs legislation. The Commission enumerates the triggers: lodging a customs declaration, an entry or exit summary declaration, a temporary storage declaration, or acting as a carrier by sea, inland waterway or air.
Needs none: anyone not involved in such activities. The Commission gives two examples expressly — an EU supplier delivering raw materials already in free circulation to an EU manufacturer, and a transport operator moving only goods in free circulation within the Union.
Sole traders as much as companies. Form C.1000 lists “self-employed person” first among the legal forms, with identity number and date of birth. Partnerships additionally complete C.1000A. The detail on legal form is in the guide for self-employed people.
Below the VAT threshold too. The EORI obligation attaches to customs activity, not turnover. And import VAT falls due in any case — Cyprus Customs states it is imposed on all imported commodities whether the importer is liable to VAT or not.
Apply before the first import. The Commission puts it as a recommendation with a clear undertone: begin the registration procedure before starting activities covered by customs legislation.
Applying in Cyprus
Form C.1000, “Application for Customs Registration and Provision for an EORI Number”. Depending on the case, add:
- C.1000A — for a partnership
- C.1000B — authorisation of a representative
- C.1000D — for operators not established in the EU
- C.1035 — appointing an indirect representative in Cyprus
It is filed at the district customs office — Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca or Paphos. The form must be completed in capital letters and every page initialled.
The signature is given either in front of a customs officer or certified. The certified route requires revenue stamps, so signing in person at the customs office is the cost-free path.
Documents for a Cyprus company: copies of the Registrar’s certificates, the certificate of directors, the signatory’s identity card or passport, the VAT certificate if any, and the company stamp if there is one. Natural persons present an identity card or passport, plus the trade-name certificate if any.
The NACE code of the principal activity is requested, but the form’s own notes say the field is not obligatory.
Processing time contradicts itself between two official sources: the Cyprus page says one to five working days, the Commission’s country overview says two to twenty-four hours. The latter comes from a 2022 document and reproduces Cyprus’s own declared figure. We follow the currently published page. The certificate arrives by post.
Checking a number
The Commission’s validation service sits at ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/eos/eori_validation.jsp. Enter the number, click “Validate”.
The point where most people go wrong: name and address appear only if the holder consented to publication. That consent is expressly optional on form C.1000, and the Commission states that refusing it affects neither the application nor any customs formality.
A valid result with no name is therefore entirely normal and no sign of a wrong number.
Import VAT in Cyprus
Cyprus Customs describes the mechanism concisely:
- VAT is imposed on all imported commodities, whether the importer is liable to VAT or not
- On importation it is treated as an import duty and is charged and paid at the same time as the duty
- The standard rate is 19%, and 5% for the goods listed in Annex V to VAT Law 95(I)/2000
- The taxable value is the customs value plus all duties, taxes and levies collected on importation
- Import VAT paid is input tax for persons liable to VAT
The VAT legislation says the same: under Article 5(c) of the VAT Law the tax is imposed on all imported goods, whether the importer is a taxable person or not, and Article 21(1) and (2) make import VAT paid an input tax for taxable persons.
One consequence costs real money: a business that is not VAT-registered still pays the import VAT — but cannot deduct it as input tax. It becomes a genuine cost. For anyone importing regularly, that is a serious argument for registering voluntarily below the €15,600 threshold, which is available as an “intending trader” before the first supply. The detail is in the article on VAT registration, and the filing itself in the article on the VAT return.
No postponed accounting — and what exists instead
This is where most of what circulates online is wrong. Cyprus operates no postponed accounting for import VAT. The consolidated VAT Law 95(I)/2000, as amended to K.Δ.Π. 221/2026 and running to 377 pages, contains no deferral of payment; the operative rule is that tax on importation is imposed and paid as if it were a customs duty. The official VAT-return completion guide likewise lists import VAT only as input tax, with no output-tax leg. Two advice sites claim the opposite — both are contradicted by the statutory text and the guide.
What does exist sits in customs law, not VAT law: deferred payment against a guarantee. The Cyprus Customs “Guarantor’s Undertaking” form carries its own reference amounts, with and without deferred payment, Articles 110 and 111 of the Union Customs Code grant thirty days on application, and a customs announcement of 14 July 2026 refers interested companies to the Chief Customs Office. There is no named scheme with its own form, published ceiling and conditions — it is handled case by case.
The tax point can also legitimately be postponed through customs warehousing, temporary storage, temporary importation, inward processing, free zones and VAT tax warehouses.
Which boxes of the return an import belongs in
The official completion guide answers this unambiguously: an import of goods from a third country belongs in exactly two boxes of the return.
| Box | Content |
|---|---|
| 4 | Input VAT, expressly “imports of goods from countries outside the EU” |
| 7 | Total value of inputs, “the value of goods cleared through customs in the period” |
Not boxes 1, 2 or 3. There is no output-tax leg, because the VAT was already paid to Customs. The common claim that third-country imports are “reverse charged into box 1 and box 4” is wrong for goods — it conflates imports with intra-EU acquisitions and services received, which belong in boxes 2, 11A and 11B.
Recovery happens in the same return: under Regulation 20(1) of the VAT (General) Regulations 2001, input tax is claimed in the return for the period during which the VAT is chargeable.
The claim is evidenced by the import declaration for release for home consumption, naming the claimant as importer, consignee or owner and showing the amount of import VAT; the Commissioner may accept other documentary evidence. The document is the Single Administrative Document, lodged through CY-UCC-AIS. The “C2 receipt” sometimes cited is not a Cyprus form — it appears nowhere on the customs forms pages.
IOSS, ICS2 and the EORI
IOSS does not replace the EORI. A customs declaration is lodged for every import — H7, H6 or H1 — and the declarant is identified in it by an EORI number; the IOSS VAT identification number sits in a separate data element. Customs may accept the EORI of an indirect representative as declarant, but may not accept a declaration in which the consumer appears as declarant with an IOSS number. The EORI rules apply regardless of the VAT collection mechanism used.
The reverse does not hold: no EORI is needed to register for IOSS. The Commission’s 58-page guide to the One Stop Shop, including the exhaustive list of registration details in Annex 2, contains the word EORI not once. Cyprus OSS registration runs through tax-oss.mof.gov.cy.
For ICS2, by contrast, the EORI is a precondition. The Commission puts it literally: to connect to ICS2, economic operators have to obtain an EORI number. Since 1 September 2025 ICS2 has fully replaced the old ICS1, and since 1 June 2026 every consignment entering the EU must have a valid entry summary declaration — the earlier transitional derogations have ended. Customs may reject incomplete declarations and may impose administrative sanctions for non-compliance with the data requirements.
The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland
A CY EORI is valid throughout the EU, but not in the United Kingdom. The UK government states that importing goods into England, Wales or Scotland requires an EORI number starting with GB — and that anyone holding a number that does not start with GB must apply for a GB one. The format is confirmed too: 14 characters, two letters plus twelve digits. The widely repeated rule that it is “GB plus the VAT number plus 000” appears only in secondary sources — we do not claim it.
The same holds in reverse. The Commission’s Brexit FAQ states that EORI numbers issued by the United Kingdom are no longer valid in the EU. For customs purposes the UK is now treated as any other non-EU country.
You do not need an XI number for Northern Ireland. It is meant for moving goods from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, for declarations made there, or for customs decisions in Northern Ireland. The UK government says expressly that it is not needed if you already hold an EU EORI number; anyone established in an EU country but not in Northern Ireland applies in the EU country. In any case, only persons based in Northern Ireland or the EU may be named as declarant on declarations made in Northern Ireland — a Cyprus number satisfies that. And anyone who does need an XI number must first have applied for a GB one.
In practice: if the Cyprus company is itself the importer of record in Great Britain, it needs its own GB number. If the import runs through the UK customer or an agent there, that party’s number is used.
Importing without an EORI
There is no EORI-specific penalty in Cyprus. This is not an inference from absent search hits: the full consolidated Customs Code Law 94(I)/2004, including amendments up to 18(I)/2022, does not contain the word “EORI” anywhere, and no penalty provision attaches to it. The effect works differently: the customs declaration cannot be lodged.
The Commission warns expressly that late applications, for instance at the customs office of entry, cause delays because the newly assigned number is not yet known to the electronic customs systems. The UK government puts the consequence most plainly: without the right EORI you may face delays at customs and increased costs, because the goods may have to be stored until the number is issued.
And the clock runs. Under Article 67 of the Cyprus Customs Code Law, goods not collected within 90 days of the cargo manifest are deemed unclaimed and moved to a state warehouse at the expense of the goods; 20 days later the Director may sell them by public auction. On top of that sits the 90-day limit on temporary storage under Article 35.
Under-declaring a duty attracts a 10% monetary surcharge on the duty subsequently assessed, plus interest, under Article 52 — but that concerns the declaration, not the missing EORI. General offence provisions with fines up to €10,000 and imprisonment exist; none of them attaches to the EORI. Cyprus customs offences are either prosecuted or settled under form C.1025, where the amount is a blank field set case by case. There is no schedule of amounts.
What we could not verify
- The exact Cyprus number pattern. Only the EU rule is confirmed:
CYplus up to 15 alphanumeric characters. The Commission’s country overview has a dedicated Cyprus section and does not state the structure; three research passes found no official source. Secondary sources claim “CY plus the VAT number” and contradict one another. This is the point we most expressly do not assert. - The value of the revenue stamps where the signature is certified.
- That an online application now exists. Two official sources say paper, the portal often cited does not respond, and the Cyprus Customs announcements archive for 2025 and 2026 carries no announcement of one — only exchange rates, system outages and CY-UCC-AIS technical specifications.
- The literal wording of a result from the EORI validation service.
- Any per-day demurrage figure, and the widely repeated claim that individual member states impose EORI fines of up to €5,000.
- The amount of the Union handling fee. It will be set in a delegated act; the figure quoted in the trade press has no official basis.
- The date from which Regulation (EU) 2026/2108 applies. In force since 21 September 2026 and being phased in — the Commission names no specific application date.
- The composition rule for a UK GB EORI (“GB plus the VAT number plus 000”). Only the format is confirmed: two letters and twelve digits.
- Any named Cyprus deferred-payment scheme — with its own form, published ceiling and conditions. Confirmed only that it is handled case by case through the Chief Customs Office.