Move Your Business to Cyprus: Founder's Guide (2026)

Moving a business to Cyprus almost always means registering a new Cyprus limited company and running the business through it from a date you choose. The other route, transferring your existing company's registration to Cyprus, is called redomiciliation. It works in a narrow set of cases, and Sumly does not offer it. We form new Cyprus companies and keep their books, so this guide walks the route most founders take and tells you exactly where the other one belongs.

What does moving a business to Cyprus actually mean?

It means one of two things: either you start a new Cyprus company and move the work into it, or you transfer the existing company's registration to Cyprus and keep the same legal entity.

Nearly everyone who says they are moving their business to Cyprus means the first. The customers, the contracts and the work move across, and the old company stops taking new business on a chosen date. This route can start this week, finishes without you being in Cyprus, and is the one Sumly is part of.

When is redomiciliation worth it?

Redomiciliation changes the country of registration while keeping the same legal person, and it earns its cost only when the company's value is tied to the entity itself. Think licences or permits granted to that specific company, registered intellectual property, a lending or credit history, or long contracts that would be painful to renegotiate. In those cases continuity justifies the legal work: the departing country must permit an outward transfer, both registries need filings, and lawyers on both sides will bill for it.

For a consultancy, an agency or a software business, the value sits in people, clients and code, and none of that cares which registry holds the company. That is why almost every founder we work with forms fresh.

If your case genuinely needs the entity moved, take it to a Cyprus law firm together with advisers in the country where the company is registered today, because whether that country permits an outward transfer is the first thing to establish.

How do you register the new Cyprus company?

The whole registration runs remotely: name approval, the incorporation documents, the filing with the Registrar of Companies, and then a live company with a registration number. Name approval costs €10 per proposed name, or €30 with the accelerated procedure, and the incorporation itself costs €165 in Registrar fees, plus an optional €100 to accelerate. The Registrar sells acceleration without committing to a timetable, so plan on a few weeks end to end and treat anyone promising an exact date with caution. Every company also needs a registered office address in Cyprus and a company secretary from day one; if you have no address here yet, we arrange the registered office as an add-on.

We register the company for you at a fixed price ordered online, show the registration status live in your dashboard, and start the bookkeeping the day you order rather than the day the certificate arrives. If the Registrar does not approve the company, you get your money back minus the government fees already paid. The details are on company formation.

Keep receipts for anything you buy before the company exists. Formation costs themselves are capital in nature and are not deductible against income tax, but the VAT on pre-registration purchases can be recovered on the company's first VAT return, reaching back six months for services and three years for goods.

Where does the new company pay tax?

In Cyprus, by default. From tax year 2026 a company incorporated in Cyprus is Cyprus tax resident automatically, unless a double tax treaty assigns residency to another country, and a company redomiciled into Cyprus is treated as incorporated here for the same test. Before 2026, residency turned solely on where management and control was exercised, which is why older articles told you the registration certificate decided nothing.

The management-and-control test still matters in one direction: if you keep running the company from another country, that country may claim it as resident too, and the treaty between the two decides. If you are moving to Cyprus and managing the company from here, the question answers itself. Profits are taxed at the corporate rate of 15% from tax year 2026.

What do you need in order to live in Cyprus?

You need a residence application, which has nothing to do with the company registry, and the right one depends on your passport.

EU citizens register their residence with the Registration Certificate known as the Yellow Slip, filed in person on form MEU1 with a €20 fee and a decision within one month for a complete application. We include Yellow Slip assistance with company formation for EU citizens starting a business in Cyprus; family-member applications and private relocations sit outside that package. See Yellow Slip assistance for what is covered.

Non-EU founders have separate immigration routes. The usual fit for someone who will work in their own Cyprus company is an employment permit through a company of foreign interests, which requires the company to join the foreign-interest register and pay the founder a gross salary of at least €2,500 a month. The Digital Nomad Visa comes up often but does not fit this plan: it requires income of at least €3,500 net a month from employers or clients registered abroad and forbids working for Cyprus companies, including your own. Immigration files have personal edge cases, so this is a place where an immigration adviser earns the fee.

What changes for your personal tax?

Nothing changes on the day the company is registered. Your personal tax follows where you are tax resident, and that moves on its own timetable, decided by your days and circumstances.

Cyprus gives you two ways in. Spend more than 183 days here in the calendar year and you are resident with no further conditions. Or use the 60-day rule, which from 2026 has four conditions to meet in the same year: at least 60 days in Cyprus, no more than 183 days in any other single state, a business, employment or office in a Cyprus-resident person, and a permanent home in Cyprus that you own or rent. The old fifth condition, that you must not be tax resident anywhere else, was removed from 2026, so a competing claim from another country no longer disqualifies you; the treaty settles it instead. Our 60-day tax residency guide works through each condition.

Once resident, most relocating founders claim non-dom status, which keeps dividends and interest outside the Special Defence Contribution for up to 17 years. The non-dom guide covers how it is claimed and what it does and does not exempt.

The year you move is the year to buy advice. Two countries can each tax part of it, and exit rules in the country you are leaving can apply to you or to the old company. That depends on your personal facts, which is exactly the kind of question a website should not answer for you.

What about a business bank account?

The account comes after incorporation, and the bank runs its own checks on the company, its owners and the nature of the business before saying yes. A clear, specific description of what the company does moves that process along more than any stack of prepared documents. The Cyprus market consolidated in 2025, when Hellenic Bank merged into Eurobank and AstroBank's operations moved into Alpha Bank Cyprus, leaving Bank of Cyprus, Eurobank, Alpha Bank Cyprus and Ancoria Bank as the main full-service choices for companies.

You are also free to bank elsewhere: no provision of the Companies Law requires a company to hold an account with a Cyprus bank, so a Cyprus company can run on any EU bank or licensed e-money institution. Our guide to opening a business bank account in Cyprus walks through the application itself.

How do you run the books from day one?

You run them from wherever you are. Drop invoices, receipts and bills into Sumly, or forward them to your company's private Sumly inbox address, and the AI reads each document and books the double entry, with every entry staying linked to its document. Bank feeds come in read-only through open banking, so Sumly can see transactions but can never move money: Bank of Cyprus, Eurobank (including former Hellenic Bank accounts), Alpha Bank, Revolut Business and Wise are ready to connect, and over a hundred further banks can be added on request. Transactions match against your invoices and recorded purchases automatically, so reconciliation happens by itself.

VAT returns, VIES statements and tax return work are prepared from those live books, and a person always files. On Base that person is you: you review what Sumly prepared and submit it. On Premium your Sumly certified bookkeeper reviews the books and submits the filings for you. The annual accounts still go to an independent licensed auditor, and you can order the audit from a partner auditor inside the dashboard. Plans start at €39 a month with a 30-day free trial, no card needed.

What happens to your old company?

That is decided under the law of the country where it is registered, and it is the part of a move founders most often leave until it gets expensive. Keeping it dormant, winding it up and letting it continue trading are all real options with different costs and different tax consequences there.

Put these specifics to your advisers in that country: the final returns and any exit or deregistration charges, the treatment of assets you transfer out, employees and their contracts, and the exact date from which new business stops flowing through the old entity. Sumly keeps the Cyprus side of the move; the departure side belongs to people qualified in that jurisdiction.

Questions people ask

Frequently asked

Can I move my existing foreign company to Cyprus instead of forming a new one?

Often yes, through redomiciliation: the company's registration transfers to Cyprus and the same legal entity continues. Both the departing country and Cyprus must permit the transfer, and it needs lawyers on both sides. It makes sense where licences, registered intellectual property or long contracts are tied to the entity itself. Sumly does not offer redomiciliation. The route we support is registering a new Cyprus limited company, which is what most founders choose anyway.

Is a Cyprus company automatically tax resident in Cyprus?

From tax year 2026, yes by default. A company incorporated in Cyprus is Cyprus tax resident unless a double tax treaty assigns residency to another country, and a company managed and controlled from Cyprus is resident on that ground regardless of where it was incorporated. Before 2026 residency turned only on management and control, so older guidance saying the registration certificate does not decide residency describes the old rule.

Can I run a Cyprus company before I move to Cyprus myself?

Yes. The company can be registered, hold a bank account, invoice customers and keep books while you still live somewhere else. The company's tax residency and your own are separate questions: the company is Cyprus tax resident by incorporation by default, while your personal position follows your days and circumstances, and the country you currently live in keeps taxing you personally until that changes. Take advice on the personal side in the year you move.

Do I have to be in Cyprus to register the company?

No. Formation runs remotely, which is the normal case for founders still winding down elsewhere. You supply identification and the company details, the incorporation is filed with the Registrar of Companies, and with Sumly the registration status is visible live in your dashboard while it runs. The Registrar publishes no committed turnaround, so allow a few weeks end to end.

Can I hire people in Cyprus once the company exists?

Yes. Employing someone brings monthly obligations: payslips, Social Insurance and GeSY contributions, and the employer filings. Sumly's Payroll add-on calculates all of it, emails each employee their payslip and posts every run to the books, at €15 per employee per month. Employment-law questions, such as contracts and dismissal rules, belong with a Cyprus employment adviser.

Can I use Sumly for my existing foreign company in the meantime?

No. The platform keeps books for Cyprus limited companies only, so a company registered elsewhere stays with whoever handles its accounting today. Once your Cyprus company exists, its books run in Sumly from the day you order formation, and if you are switching from another Cyprus accounting system we migrate the existing books free.