How to open a business bank account in Cyprus (banks vs Revolut/Wise)

You open a Cyprus business account by applying directly to a bank or an e-money provider, passing its know-your-customer review, and waiting. The review checks who owns the company and where its money comes from. The waiting is the hard part. A Cyprus company can be registered and ready to trade while its account is still in onboarding, and that gap surprises most founders. After two bank mergers in 2025, the realistic choice is a full-service local bank or an e-money provider such as Revolut Business or Wise. Many companies end up with one of each.

Which banks offer business accounts in Cyprus?

Four full-service banks serve companies in 2026: Bank of Cyprus, Eurobank, Alpha Bank Cyprus and Ancoria Bank. The list is shorter than older articles suggest, because the market consolidated in 2025. Hellenic Bank merged into Eurobank on 1 September 2025, and Alpha Bank Cyprus took over AstroBank's operations on 31 October 2025. If your paperwork or your search results still mention Hellenic or AstroBank, you're looking at the same institutions under their new names.

A local bank gives you a domestic IBAN, cards, branch access and the local payment systems. Some payments only work through a bank, such as certain deposits, government refunds and domestic direct debits. In exchange, onboarding is thorough. You'll be asked to explain the business, and naming your industry won't be enough.

Revolut Business and Wise are the e-money providers Cyprus companies use most, especially when the customers are abroad. They're licensed payment or e-money institutions, not banks, and that matters in two ways. Your money is protected differently from a bank deposit, so read the provider's own terms before parking large balances there. And some domestic processes still expect a bank IBAN. In return you get faster onboarding, built for remote applicants, and simpler handling of several currencies.

Neither is right for everyone. Look at what your money actually does. If most of it arrives from EU or international customers and leaves as supplier payments and salaries, an e-money account handles that comfortably. If you deal with Cyprus counterparties, hold larger balances or expect to need credit, the local bank is worth the wait.

What documents do Cyprus banks ask for?

Every bank sets its own list, but the request looks the same everywhere, because it comes from the same anti-money-laundering rules. Expect to provide the company's corporate documents. Those are the certificate of incorporation, the memorandum and articles, and the certificates of directors, shareholders and registered office. You'll also need ID and proof of address for every director, shareholder and ultimate beneficial owner, the person who ultimately owns or controls the company. And you'll need evidence of where the money comes from, which in practice means bank statements, employment or business income, or documents for the funds being invested.

The part founders underestimate is the business description. The bank wants to know what the company will actually do, who its customers and suppliers will be, which countries the money will move between, and roughly how much and how often. Contracts, a website, invoices from a previous business or a short written business plan all help. If you gathered paperwork for incorporation recently, our guide to the documents a Cyprus company registration needs covers most of the corporate half.

How long does it take to open a business bank account in Cyprus?

Plan in weeks, sometimes longer, because no Cyprus bank publishes a service standard you can hold it to. Be suspicious of any specific turnaround promise, whether it comes from a bank, an intermediary or an article. E-money providers are usually faster than local banks, and a clean file is faster than a messy one. That's as precise as anyone can honestly be.

What you can predict is the shape of the delay. Onboarding runs in order: an application, a compliance file, follow-up questions, then approval and activation. Every incomplete answer adds another round trip, and each round takes days. A file that arrives complete moves through in a fraction of the time of one pieced together by email over several weeks.

Apply as early as the bank will accept it. Answer the first round of questions in full, even the ones that feel intrusive. Keep the corporate documents, IDs and proof-of-address certifications current, because an expired proof of address restarts the clock on a document the bank already had.

Can a non-resident director open a Cyprus business account?

Usually yes, but it's the hardest version of the process. Owning a Cyprus company doesn't require Cyprus residence, and banks do open accounts for companies with foreign directors and shareholders. What changes is how deep the review goes. If the owner, customers and suppliers are all outside Cyprus, the bank will keep coming back to one question: why here? An office, staff, local customers or another real operational reason for the company to be Cypriot makes the file straightforward. Without one, the review runs slow and sometimes ends in a refusal.

Some banks ask non-resident directors to attend in person. Others accept certified, apostilled documents sent remotely. An apostille is the stamp that makes a document from one country valid in another. It varies by bank and by profile. This is one reason e-money providers are so common among internationally owned Cyprus companies, because their onboarding was built for remote applicants from the start. If you're setting up the company from abroad, our company formation service handles the incorporation end to end and prepares your bank account application alongside it. We'll tell you plainly that the bank's decision is the one step we can't control.

How do bank feeds work with your bookkeeping?

Once the account exists, you connect it to Sumly through open banking and your transactions arrive in your books automatically. This is the part Sumly handles. Feeds are ready for the Cyprus banks, including Eurobank accounts opened under the Hellenic Bank name, plus Revolut Business and Wise. If you bank somewhere we haven't listed, ask us and we'll connect it.

The connection is read-only. Sumly can see transactions, but can never move money, start a payment or change anything at the bank. Sumly matches each incoming transaction against your sales invoices and recorded purchases, so reconciliation happens by itself instead of piling up as a monthly chore. The documents behind those transactions, receipts and supplier bills, reach Sumly by drag and drop or by forwarding to your company's private inbox address. The AI reads and books them, and links every entry to its document.

From those live books, Sumly prepares your VAT, VIES and tax returns. VIES is the return that lists your sales to businesses in other EU countries. On Base, you review and submit the returns yourself. On Plus, Sumly files every return except the year-end accounts. On Premium, your Sumly certified bookkeeper files everything.

The document side doesn't need the bank connection, so the onboarding weeks aren't dead time. Costs from before the company was up and running can still belong in its books, as our guide to pre-establishment expenses explains. The same goes for everything spent while the application sits in compliance. There's a hard tax reason to capture these early too. The first VAT return can recover input VAT, the VAT you paid to suppliers, on services received up to six months before VAT registration, and on goods up to three years before. But only with the invoices to prove it. If VAT registration is also on your list, our guide to VAT registration covers the triggers that catch new companies out.

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