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 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 choices are a full-service local bank or an e-money provider such as Revolut Business or Wise, and many companies end up running 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 AstroBank's operations were absorbed by Alpha Bank Cyprus on 31 October 2025. If your paperwork or your search results still mention Hellenic or AstroBank, you are looking at the same institutions under their new names.

A local bank gives you a domestic IBAN, cards, branch access and the local payment rails. Some counterparties will only deal with a bank: certain deposits, government refunds and domestic direct debits sit in this category. In exchange, onboarding is thorough. You will be asked to explain the business, and a description that merely labels it will not be enough.

Revolut Business and Wise are the e-money providers Cyprus companies use most, especially where the customers are abroad. They are licensed payment or e-money institutions rather than banks, which matters in two ways. How your money is protected differs 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. What you get in return is faster onboarding built for remote applicants and simpler multi-currency handling.

Neither category is the right answer 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 relationship is worth the wait.

What documents do Cyprus banks ask for?

Every bank sets its own list, but the shape of the request is the same everywhere because it comes from the same anti-money-laundering framework. Expect to provide the company's corporate documents (certificate of incorporation, memorandum and articles, certificates of directors, shareholders and registered office), identification and proof of address for every director, shareholder and ultimate beneficial owner, and evidence of where the money comes from. In practice that means bank statements, employment or business income, or documentation of 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 predecessor business or a short written business plan all help. If you assembled 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. Treat any specific turnaround promise from a bank, an intermediary or an article with suspicion. E-money providers are usually faster than local banks, and a clean file is faster than a messy one, and that is as precise as anyone can truthfully be.

What is predictable is the shape of the delay. Onboarding runs as a sequence: an application, a compliance file, follow-up questions, then approval and activation. Every incomplete answer restarts a round trip, and each round is measured in days. A file that arrives complete moves through in a fraction of the time of one assembled by email over several weeks.

Start the application 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, and it is the hardest version of the process. Cyprus company ownership does not require Cyprus residence, and banks do open accounts for companies with foreign directors and shareholders. What changes is the depth of the review. A company whose owner, customers and suppliers are all outside Cyprus has to answer a question the bank will keep coming back to: why here? An office, staff, local customers or another genuine 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 and apostilled documents remotely, and the position varies by bank and by profile. This is one reason e-money providers are so common among internationally owned Cyprus companies: their onboarding was designed for remote applicants from the start. If you are setting the company up from abroad, our company formation service handles the incorporation end to end, and we will tell you plainly that banking is the one step we cannot do for you.

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 of the process Sumly handles. Feeds are ready for the Cyprus banks, including Eurobank accounts opened under the Hellenic Bank name, plus Revolut Business and Wise, and if you bank somewhere we have not listed, ask us and we will connect it.

The connection is read-only. Sumly can see transactions and can never move money, initiate a payment or change anything at the bank. Each incoming transaction is matched automatically 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, and the AI reads and books them with every entry linked to its document. From those live books your VAT, VIES and tax return work is prepared for a person to review and submit.

None of that depends on the bank connection existing yet, so the onboarding weeks are not dead time. Costs incurred before the company was up and running can still belong in its books, as our guide to pre-establishment expenses explains, and the same goes for everything spent while the application sits in compliance. There is a hard tax reason to capture these early too: input VAT on services received up to six months before VAT registration, and on goods up to three years before, can be recovered on the first return, 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.

Questions people ask

Frequently asked

Can Sumly open a business bank account for me?

No. Sumly is accounting software. It is not a bank or a payment provider, so it cannot open, hold or operate an account, and it never moves money. Once you have the account, Sumly connects to it through open banking with read-only access, so your transactions flow into your books and reconcile themselves. Choosing the provider and passing its onboarding is between you and the bank.

Does a Cyprus company need a Cyprus bank account?

No rule requires a Cyprus company to bank with a Cyprus institution, and plenty of companies operate mainly through an e-money provider. What the company does need is a business account in its own name, separate from any personal account, with statements it can produce on demand. Running company money through a director's personal account is the single most common bookkeeping problem we see.

Can I use Revolut Business or Wise as the company's only account?

Many Cyprus companies do, particularly those invoicing abroad, and no law stands in the way. The trade-offs are practical. Some local counterparties, landlords and government payments are easier through a local bank, and an e-money account will not help if a supplier insists on a domestic IBAN. A common setup is one local account and one e-money account, used for different things.

Why do banks ask so many questions about my business?

Because they are required to. Know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules mean the bank has to understand who owns and controls the company, where its money comes from, and whether the activity you described matches the transactions that later appear. Every answer you give goes into a file the bank must be able to defend to its regulator, which is why vague answers just produce more questions.

Can I start bookkeeping before the bank account is open?

Yes, and you should. Formation costs, software subscriptions and equipment bought before the account exists are still company transactions and still need recording. Sumly's inbox takes those documents from day one, and when the account is finally connected the historic entries are already in the books waiting to be matched.