Create a company in Cyprus — or move your company from Armenia

Armenia cannot tax you for leaving, and not because nobody has got round to it. Article 6 of the Tax Code lists nine taxes and then forbids the creation of any other, so an exit tax, a wealth tax and an inheritance tax are all legally impossible rather than merely absent. That is an unusually clean starting point, and it changes what the Cyprus decision is actually about.

Updated for 2026 Cyprus tax law and regulations.

One partner from the Armenian filings to the Cyprus company that replaces them

Sumly is the fully digitalized, single-provider way to take a business from Armenia to Cyprus and operate it from the day the company exists. We register the company, open the books the day the order arrives, prepare every Cyprus return box by box, and run the tax residency and non-dom application as one fixed-price service. One partner, one dashboard, prices published before you commit — instead of a law firm for the incorporation, a bookkeeper for the ledger, and nobody for the stretch between two tax systems.

This is Sumly — and what we actually do for you

Sumly is the fully digital provider for founders moving a company to Cyprus. You do not need to learn Cypriot company law, find a local auditor, or work out which form goes where. You get in touch, and we do the rest.

And we stay with you on both sides of the move. The Cyprus side we own outright. For the side you are leaving, we put you straight in front of an adviser or lawyer from our network who works on exactly your problem — company law, exit taxation, inheritance, employment — and we hold the thread between them and us. One point of contact for the whole move, however many specialisms your case turns out to touch. If your case is simple, we do all of it for a fixed price.

Part 1: What leaving actually costs you

Your home country does not let go the moment the plane does. What still runs after you have left, and in which order it has to be handled.

What does Armenia actually charge, and is Cyprus cheaper?

Marginally, and the honest version of that sentence matters more than the number. A resident profit taxpayer, and a non-resident operating through a permanent establishment on the income attributed to it, pays 18%. Cyprus charges 15% from tax year 2026. Three percentage points is a genuine saving and it is the only one of the non-EU corridors we write about where the corporate rate moves at all — but three points is not a reason to restructure a business, and if that is the whole case being put to you, the case is thin.

Armenia taxes on accrual, not on distribution, so retained profit is taxed as it is earned. An individual entrepreneur inside the general system pays a higher rate than a company — 23% — which is what pushes most solo founders to incorporate. On the personal side the general income tax rate is 20%, with a set of schedular rates below it:

Dividends at 5% are low by any European standard, and the combined cost of getting profit out of an Armenian company to its individual owner is 18% at the company and then 5% on the 82 that remains — about 22.1% all in. The Cyprus comparison is 15% at the company, and then, for a shareholder who is Cyprus tax resident and not Cyprus-domiciled, no Special Defence Contribution on dividends for 17 years and no income tax on them, leaving GeSY at 2.65% on income up to €180,000 a year. That gap is the real one — and, again, it exists only if the shareholder actually relocates.

If the reader's high-technology business qualifies, Armenia has reliefs with no Cypriot equivalent: a 200% super-deduction of salary for professional staff directly engaged in Government-listed high-technology activity, and a separate 200% deduction for staff engaged in scientific research and experimental development, allowed regardless of whether the salary is also deducted in computing the profit tax base. Every one of those reliefs is gated on a Government list of activities and of professional works that we could not retrieve, so we describe the mechanism and not its scope. Check your own activity against the list before you count on it.

Can Armenia ever introduce an exit tax?

Not without amending the Tax Code itself, which is a far higher bar than a Government decision. Article 6 sets out the state taxes — value added tax, excise tax, profit tax, income tax, environmental tax, road tax and turnover tax — and the local ones, immovable property tax and vehicle property tax. Then it closes the list: taxes not prescribed by points 1 and 2 of part 1 of this Article cannot be defined in the Republic of Armenia.

Nine taxes, and no others are legally possible. There is therefore no wealth tax, no net-worth tax, no inheritance tax, no gift tax, no social security tax and no exit tax — not as an oversight but as a matter of statutory design. We searched the Code for deemed-disposal and emigration provisions as well, and there are none; Armenia is not an EU member state and has transposed nothing resembling the exit-tax article of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive.

Two consequences follow, and one of them cuts against the move. The first is that receiving property by inheritance is not a taxable event under any of the nine taxes, and where the heir of a deceased individual repudiates an inheritance of property constituting the object of entrepreneurial activity, the heir is exempt from discharging the deceased's tax liabilities. Armenia is one of the cleanest jurisdictions anywhere on estate taxation, and a founder is not solving an estate problem by leaving. The second is that moving into the European Union does not escape controlled-foreign-company and exit-tax rules — it acquires them, because articles 5, 7 and 8 of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive are harmonised across every member state. That is a permanent cost of the move and you should hear it early rather than late.

What do the small-business regimes cost in Armenia?

Less than the general system, but noticeably more than the equivalent regimes in the neighbourhood — and the reform that took effect on 1 January 2025 is the reason most of what you will read online is out of date.

Turnover tax replaces VAT and, for individual entrepreneurs, sits alongside a flat profit tax. The ceiling is AMD 115 million of sales turnover across all activities in the preceding tax year, and the election is made by statement to the tax authority by 20 February of the tax year, or within 20 days of registration for a new entity. Rates run by activity under article 258(1): 10% on commercial purchase-and-sale activity with an expense-based reduction to a 1% floor, 7% on production activity with a 3% floor, 12% on public catering with a 3.5% floor, and — the line a consultant, agency or service business falls into — 10% on other activity, reduced by 6% of qualifying expenses but never below a 4.5% floor. Qualifying expenses have to be directly related to the goods, works or services and supported by the documents article 55 requires, and undeducted expense carries forward within the same activity bucket.

On top of that, an individual entrepreneur inside the turnover tax system pays AMD 5,000 per month, flat, irrespective of the number of activities, as a final profit tax liability for those activities. Small, but it is the whole profit tax bill for the year, which is worth knowing.

Article 258(1) also carries a much lower rate for activities on the Government's high-technologies list. We are not printing that figure. The official English consolidation of the Tax Code and Armenian government communications about the 2025 high-technology support law give two different numbers, and they cannot both be current; a founder would act on whichever one they read. Get the current Armenian text of article 258 before you plan around it.

Micro-entrepreneurship looks better still — a micro-entrepreneurship entity is exempt from all obligations to calculate and pay state taxes arising in respect of the micro-entrepreneurship, with a ceiling of AMD 24 million of turnover in the previous year. And it is almost certainly closed to you. Article 267(5)(2) excludes persons providing consultation, legal, accounting, engineering, advertising, design, marketing, translation, expert, medical, dental and vehicle-repair services, brokerage, information processing and transmission, scientific and research, development and engineering, technological and construction activities — and anyone carrying on activities similar to those. Read plainly: a consultant, an agency, a software developer, a designer, a marketer or an engineer cannot be a micro-entrepreneurship entity.

That reading is confirmed by the Ministry of Finance's own account of the 2025 package, which describes turnover tax rates rising mainly by double from 1 January 2025, with specified micro-enterprise activities including software development, construction and real-estate mediation moved out of micro-entrepreneurship into the turnover tax or VAT systems, and legal and notary activities moved to VAT. So for the founder this page is written for, the honest Armenian baseline is the turnover tax at a 10% headline and a 4.5% floor plus AMD 5,000 a month, or the general system at 18% for a company. Not zero, and not one per cent.

When does Armenian tax residency end, and why does the date matter so much?

At a year boundary, and nowhere else. This is the harshest departure rule of the three non-EU corridors we cover, and almost nothing in Armenian search results mentions it.

The basic test is familiar. A resident is a natural person whose actual presence in Armenia extends for 183 or more days, and article 25(2) counts both the day of arrival and the day of departure in full, irrespective of hours actually spent in the country. Residents also include natural persons whose centre of vital interests is located in the Republic of Armenia, meaning the place where the person's family and economic interests are concentrated, and in particular where their house or apartment, their family, or their principal place of professional or other activity is.

Then comes the provision that decides the plan.

The practical rules that fall out of it are short. Plan the move to a year boundary or accept a full extra year of Armenian residence — one of the two, chosen deliberately rather than discovered afterwards. Do not treat the day count as a safe harbour, because the centre-of-vital-interests limb does not care about it. And move the things the limb actually looks at: the home, the family arrangements and the principal professional activity, not just the passport stamps.

There is no residency-deregistration filing described in the Tax Code — residence is determined on the facts each year, and place of residence under article 26 is where the person is record-registered, or failing that their actual place of residence. What you will need for the Cyprus side is a tax residence certificate from the State Revenue Committee, and we could not retrieve an official page setting out that procedure or form, so ask the Committee rather than relying on the commercial pages that rank for it.

Does a Cyprus company run from Yerevan become Armenian?

No — and then yes, in a way that costs almost as much. This is the most nuanced point on the page and it is worth reading twice.

On residence, Armenia is the outlier and the news is good. A resident organisation is one that is located in the Republic of Armenia, and location means the place of state registration of the organisation. That is the whole test. There is no place-of-effective-management limb for corporate residence in Armenian domestic law, which is materially different from Serbia, where incorporation or effective management makes a company resident, and from Georgia, where place of business and/or management does the same. A Cyprus-registered company is never an Armenian resident organisation, however it is run, and Armenia cannot tax its worldwide profit.

On permanent establishment, the answer flips. Article 27(1) lists the places of business that constitute a permanent establishment where a non-resident conducts entrepreneurial activity through them, irrespective of the period of performance of the activity, and item 2 of that list is any place of management. A Cyprus Ltd directed from Yerevan therefore has a place of management in Armenia, which is on the face of the provision a permanent establishment with no minimum duration attached. The consequence is 18% Armenian profit tax on the profits attributed to it, and attribution turns on a rule founders rarely expect: income is treated as attributed to the establishment where the accounting documents supporting it were issued by that establishment, whether or not it is named in the contract as the recipient.

The treaty agrees rather than rescuing you. Article 5(2)(a) of the Armenia–Cyprus agreement lists the place of management among the examples of a permanent establishment, and article 4(1) defines residence by reference to criteria including place of management. Because Armenian domestic law will not treat the Cyprus company as resident, the article 4(3) tie-breaker on place of effective management usually will not engage at all — but the business profits article still allows Armenia to tax what is attributable to the Armenian establishment.

Article 27(2) adds a second route in: works or services performed in Armenia by a non-resident's employees or hired staff constitute a permanent establishment where carried on for at least 183 calendar days in a tax year within one or more related projects. A Cyprus company that keeps delivering into Armenia with Armenian-based people is squarely in scope.

Net effect: the Cyprus structure works only with real management substance in Cyprus. Board decisions taken and minuted on the island, strategic direction and material commitments approved there, and a documentary record that matches. Our guide to nominee directors in Cyprus explains what a nominee does and does not solve.

What does the Armenia–Cyprus treaty give you?

Less than the Georgian one and more than the Serbian one, with one threshold that decides everything. The agreement was signed at Nicosia on 17 January 2011 and entered into force on 19 September 2011, in Greek, Armenian and English, all equally authentic, with the English text prevailing on divergence. Note a structural point that matters: it covers taxes on income only. There is no taxes-on-capital article, so Armenia's immovable property tax and vehicle property tax sit outside it entirely.

The EUR 150,000 line is the most commercially important number here and it is misreported constantly. Read article 10(2)(a) carefully: the test is that the beneficial owner invested at least the equivalent of EUR 150,000 at the moment of making the investment in the company's capital. It is an investment-amount test measured at the time of investment — not a percentage-shareholding test, and not an ongoing valuation. Above it, a Cyprus holding takes Armenian dividends at 0% instead of 5%. Below it, the treaty gives 5%, which is exactly what domestic law already gives, so the treaty adds nothing at all. Anyone telling you "the treaty gives 0% dividends" without mentioning the threshold has not read it.

Article 13(4) is the other clause to check before you build anything. Unlike the Serbian and Georgian treaties, this one has a land-rich carve-out: gains on shares deriving more than half their value directly from Armenian immovable property remain taxable in Armenia. A founder whose Armenian company's value sits mainly in Yerevan real estate does not get a clean exit through a Cyprus holding. The word directly is on the face of the text and does not on its own reach indirect holdings through an intermediate company — but that is not a reading to build a structure on without advice.

One honest gap on anti-abuse. The ARLIS consolidated record shows this treaty as the basic act in force from 19 September 2011 with no amending acts and no incorporations recorded, which on its face means the treaty stands unmodified and carries no principal purpose test. We are not going to state that as a conclusion. We could not establish Armenia's position under the Multilateral Instrument from an official source, and an ARLIS record may not reflect an MLI modification even where one applies. The commercially safe assumption is that a Cyprus entity in this corridor needs real management, real people and a real commercial reason to exist — which is the standard it should meet regardless of what any anti-abuse article says. For individuals, article 4(2) gives the usual ladder: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then mutual agreement.

Can you move money out of Armenia?

Freely, and the Central Bank says so in its own words rather than by implication. The Central Bank conducts a freely floating exchange rate regime consistent with the principles of liberalized capital account operations, and it is explicit that capital account operations — direct and portfolio investments, transfers of payment for property ownership and other rights, and operations by long-term financial instruments — are also liberalized, and that residents and non-residents alike may buy and sell foreign exchange in the domestic market without any restrictions. Armenia joined the International Monetary Fund on 28 April 1992, accepting the Article VIII obligations that support a multilateral payments system free of restrictions, and the free-floating regime has been in force since 1996.

The Central Bank attaches its own qualification and it belongs here rather than in a footnote: it may determine other terms and conditions for capital and financial account flows in order to maintain financial system stability, combat money laundering and terrorism financing, improve statistics and manage economic risks. So the accurate description is that capital moves freely while the Central Bank retains a prudential and anti-money-laundering power it has not used as a capital control.

On banking we will go no further than the architecture, because nothing else is sourceable. Armenia is not an EU member state, not in the euro area, not in SEPA by membership, and not in the EU VAT system or VIES. A Cyprus company holds a euro IBAN inside the single market; an Armenian account, in a freely convertible currency, does not. Sumly helps founders get banking and EU payments sorted, and no provider can promise a specific bank's decision.

There is one narrow Armenian rule worth flagging before you start paying a Cyprus entity. Where a resident profit taxpayer makes an advance payment for goods to an organisation registered in a country or geographical area with a specific liberal tax system as prescribed by the Government, and no outcome is received within 365 days, the advance is deemed Armenian-source other income of that organisation from the 366th day and taxed at 20%. Whether Cyprus appears on that Government list is something we could not establish, and it is the Armenian analogue of a blacklist, so establish it before you structure prepayments for goods through a Cyprus company. The rule reaches advance payments for goods only, not services.

What happens to your pension and social contributions?

Armenia has no social security tax — look again at the nine taxes in article 6. What exists is a mandatory funded pension system under a separate law, and it is referenced in the registration legislation as an obligation confirmed at liquidation.

Beyond that we are going to be candid about what we do not know, because this is exactly the sort of question where a confident guess does real harm. We could not establish, from any official Armenian source, the funded pension contribution rates and income thresholds; whether accumulated pension assets can be withdrawn or transferred on permanent emigration; or whether Armenia has a bilateral social security agreement with Cyprus that would let insurance periods aggregate. Georgia has an express, tax-free refund of pension assets on leaving the country for good; whether Armenia has an equivalent is precisely what a departing founder wants to know, and we are not going to invent an answer. Put all three questions to the pension authority before you leave, and get the answers in writing.

Once you are working in Cyprus, the ordinary rule is that you insure where you work, so Cyprus social insurance and GeSY apply to a director drawing a salary from a Cyprus company.

Can the Armenian company move to Cyprus without being closed?

Yes — and this is the finding that makes the Armenian corridor different from every other one on this site. Armenia has a statutory outbound re-domiciliation procedure, and Cyprus permits inbound continuation, so the two halves fit together. Neither Serbia, whose corporate residence rule traps an incorporated company regardless of management, nor Georgia offers this as cleanly.

The procedure sits in articles 36.2, 36.3 and 36.4 of the Law on State Registration of Legal Persons and runs in two stages.

Before re-domiciliation, you file a notice of intention; the decision or minutes of the competent body, which must state the destination country and the time limit for notifying creditors; proof that creditors other than the Republic of Armenia have been notified; evidence of payment of the state duty; and a document confirming that re-domiciliation to that country is possible under its legislation. The creditor-notification period is set out in the statute in a form that the official English rendering leaves genuinely ambiguous, so we describe it as a period measured in months rather than printing a number — check it against the Armenian text, because your whole timeline hangs off it.

To register the re-domiciliation itself, you file an application naming the company and its registration number, the destination state, the legal form and name it will take, its address and contact details and the foreign registration authority; an official document from the competent body of the destination state, duly certified and translated into Armenian, confirming that re-domiciliation is possible; an excerpt from the foreign commercial register or a certificate of continuation; evidence that creditors who claimed early discharge have been paid; a statement from the Judicial Department that the company is not in bankruptcy proceedings and has not been declared bankrupt; a statement from the tax authorities that the company has no liabilities in respect of the revenues they control; and a statement from the Public Services Regulatory Commission that the company is not a regulated participant with pending proceedings.

The clock is unusually taxpayer-friendly. Where the applicant does not file the confirmatory statements, the registration body must enquire of the relevant bodies within three days, those bodies must respond within ten days, and failure to respond in time is treated as confirmation that no proceedings and no liabilities exist. The registration body registers the information on the company undergoing re-domiciliation within ten working days, and registers the re-domiciliation itself within a further ten working days once evidence of the foreign registration is filed. Article 36.3 obliges the registration body to issue, on application, a standard statement on the legislative possibility of re-domiciliation within one day.

Realistically: budget several months, driven overwhelmingly by the creditor-notice period, plus roughly four weeks of processing at each end. That is comparable to a liquidation timeline in the region — but it produces a surviving legal entity rather than a dissolved one. Contracts, banking history, intellectual property ownership and trading record continue uninterrupted. For a founder with real customers and a real history, that is worth more than any rate difference discussed anywhere on this page, and it is the single strongest structural argument in the Armenian corridor.

The alternatives are the ordinary two. Keep it as a Cyprus-owned Armenian subsidiary: it keeps paying 18%, dividends to the Cyprus parent are 0% if the EUR 150,000 condition is met and otherwise 5% — which is no better than domestic — and article 13(4) matters if the company is real-estate-heavy. Or liquidate it: the Agency posts the liquidation announcement within two working days of the application, and within one working day of the liquidation application it queries the tax authority for confirmation that the company has no liabilities to the State Budget and to social security. The tax authority must reply within 20 days, and failure to reply within the prescribed time is treated as confirmation that no liabilities exist. Where the applicant supplies a tax-authority statement dated on or after the day the liquidation balance sheet was approved, the query is not sent at all. No state duty is charged for registration of a liquidation. The creditor-claim period itself is governed by the Civil Code, which we did not retrieve, so we do not quote an overall liquidation timeline.

Part 2: What Cyprus gives you

This is the straightforward half, and the half we build end to end. What you actually get on the other side.

What does the Cyprus side look like for an Armenian founder?

One rate, one set of returns, and a shareholder position that rewards actually moving. A Cyprus limited company pays 15% on taxable profit with no bands, and income that qualifies under the IP Box reaches an effective 3% from tax year 2026 — which is the one place where the rate difference against Armenia's 18% stops being marginal and becomes structural. Personal income tax runs on a scale from 0% to €22,000 rising to 35% above €72,000. VAT registration is compulsory above turnover of €15,600, at a standard rate of 19%. A shareholder who is Cyprus-domiciled would pay 5% on dividends from 2026 profits, which is why the non-dom position matters so much to an arriving founder.

Cyprus levies no net wealth tax and no inheritance tax. So does Armenia, and it is worth repeating that this is not a reason to move. The reason to move, if there is one, is on the next page of the argument. The full mechanics of the shareholder position are in Cyprus non-dom status, and the IP Box is at the IP Box service page.

How does an Armenian founder become Cyprus tax resident?

Through 183 days, or through the 60-day rule, which became easier in 2026. Four conditions apply now that the fifth was removed from the 60-day rule: at least 60 days in Cyprus, no more than 183 days in any other single state, a business, employment or office in a Cyprus tax-resident person held through the year, and a permanent home in Cyprus owned or rented. The condition that disappeared — not being tax resident anywhere else — was the awkward one for anyone leaving Armenia mid-year, because article 25(5) keeps them Armenian resident for the whole of that year. Its removal means that overlap no longer disqualifies you from Cyprus residence by itself; the two claims resolve under the treaty instead.

The office the third condition asks for can be a directorship in the Cyprus company itself, so incorporation and residency run as one project. On immigration: the Yellow Slip is a registration certificate for EU citizens exercising free movement, and Armenia is not an EU member state — so it is not the Armenian route and we promise nothing about it. Armenian founders use the routes open to third-country nationals; we handle the paperwork on our side and bring in immigration specialists where a file requires them. The day counting is set out in the Cyprus 60-day rule.

Why do people choose Cyprus over other tax havens?

Because it is a country people want to live in, and most of the low-tax alternatives are not. For an Armenian reader the tax case is narrow, so the rest has to be honest and it has to be specific.

Violent crime here is among the lowest in the European Union. The island runs in English across business, banking, contracts and professional services, which removes the largest practical friction in moving anywhere in Europe. People from every part of the world are already here, and an arriving founder is never the only foreigner in the room. Business and real estate are booming. Officialdom here starts from the assumption that trade is normal, rather than from the assumption that it needs permission. Groceries — meat, fruit and vegetables — are affordable. And the coast: a Cyprus winter still leaves you an afternoon at the beach, and the summers are what people cross the world for.

The Armenian case for Cyprus, stated without inflation:

1. EU membership and the single market. Armenia is a partner, not a member. A Cyprus company sells, contracts and establishes inside the union. This is not a tax argument and it does not need to be.
2. An EU VAT identification number, visible in VIES. European business customers reverse-charge against a VIES-visible number without thinking about it. An Armenian supplier sits outside that machinery and becomes an exception on every buyer's ledger.
3. A euro IBAN inside the euro area and SEPA by membership — a statement about what the account is and where it sits.
4. Statutory re-domiciliation. Armenian law lets the company itself move and continue, keeping contracts, banking history, IP ownership and trading record. No liquidation, no new entity, no restart. This is what makes the move practical rather than merely arithmetic, and it is unique to Armenia among the corridors on this site.
5. A modest but real rate saving, 18% to 15%, plus the treaty's 0% dividend rate above the EUR 150,000 investment threshold in place of 5%, and the IP Box where qualifying income exists.
6. Permanence — and in Armenia's case this is evidenced rather than asserted. The 2025 package doubled turnover tax rates and stripped software development out of micro-entrepreneurship, and every high-technology relief in the Code is gated on a Government list that changes by decision rather than by statute. A business built on an Armenian preferential list is exposed to the next reform, and there has just been one.

Against all of that, one honest counterweight that no relocation page will tell you. Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Tax Code's VAT provisions distinguish EAEU from non-EAEU imports throughout. That customs-union relationship with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is something a Cyprus company cannot replicate. If your market is eastward rather than westward, moving to Cyprus is a straightforward loss and you should not do it.

Can an Armenian e-commerce brand sell through Cyprus?

Yes, and for a store the single-market question generally outweighs the tax one. An Armenian company selling into the EU is a third-country seller: customs formalities, import VAT, and none of the union-wide simplifications a member-state seller uses as a matter of course. A Cyprus company sits inside the EU VAT system with a number buyers verify in VIES, zero-rates intra-EU business sales and uses the one-stop shop for consumer sales across the bloc. Putting the store back inside the single market is the reason; the tax saving here is a rounding difference by comparison.

The ledger is where stores come unstuck, because thousands of small transactions in several currencies carry a VAT treatment that changes by customer type and destination country. Sumly's Shopify and WooCommerce plugins pull orders, refunds, fees and payouts into the books with the correct codes as they arrive, so the VAT return is built from trading rather than reconstructed from a spreadsheet at quarter end.

Part 3: How the move runs

From the decision to the first invoice out of the Cyprus company: the order, the mistakes people make before you, and two calculations worked through in full.

What does the move look like, month by month?

Circumstances differ, so treat this as shape rather than schedule.

• Before anything else — and this is the part we start. We put you in front of an Armenian adviser from our network, who fixes the departure date against article 25(5). If it cannot fall on a year boundary, they tell you before you commit, rather than you discovering a full year of Armenian residence afterwards. We work through re-domiciliation, retention and liquidation with you, because the three have very different timetables.
• Month one. We either incorporate in Cyprus — with your ledger open the day you order — or, on the re-domiciliation route, obtain the Cyprus continuation documentation while your Armenian adviser starts the creditor notice.
• Months one to three. We register you for VAT and VIES, add social insurance and employee registrations where they apply, and file the beneficial-ownership details. We get banking and EU payments moving. You take up the directorship that anchors the 60-day rule — that one has to be you.
• Months two to five. On the re-domiciliation route, your Armenian adviser collects the tax-authority, Judicial Department and Commission statements, and we file for registration of the re-domiciliation. We watch the ten-working-day windows at each end.
• Months three to six. You rent or buy the permanent home the 60-day rule requires, and we tell you exactly what qualifies. You move real decision-making to Cyprus — which is also what retires the article 27(1) permanent-establishment risk — and we set up the minuting so it is documented as it happens.
• From month twelve. Once you are through the first full year on the right side of article 25, we request the Cyprus tax residency certificate and put the non-dom registration in behind it.

What mistakes do Armenian founders make?

The expensive ones repeat.

Leaving in July and assuming the year splits, when article 25(5) makes it a full year of Armenian residence. Moving the day count while leaving the apartment, the family and the principal professional activity in Yerevan, which keeps you resident on the centre-of-vital-interests limb regardless. Believing that because a Cyprus company can never be an Armenian resident, running it from Yerevan is safe — and meeting article 27(1)(2), where a place of management is a permanent establishment with no minimum duration. Quoting "0% dividends under the treaty" without the EUR 150,000 condition, and then discovering the treaty rate is the domestic rate. Building a Cyprus holding over a real-estate-heavy Armenian company and meeting the land-rich clause in article 13(4). Relying on a high-technology relief without checking the Government list that gates it. Confusing the AMD 24 million micro-entrepreneurship ceiling with the AMD 115 million turnover tax ceiling — an error that even large advisory sites propagate. And treating re-domiciliation as a form-filling exercise, when the tax-authority statement of no liabilities is the item that actually gates it.

Two worked examples

A services company distributing AMD-denominated profit to its Armenian owner. In Armenia the company pays 18% and the owner then pays 5% on what is distributed — about 22.1% of the original profit. Through a Cyprus company owned by a founder who has genuinely become Cyprus tax resident and non-domiciled, the company pays 15% and the shareholder meets only GeSY, capped by the €180,000 ceiling. The corporate leg saves three points; the shareholder leg is where the difference actually lives, and it exists only if the shareholder moves.

A software company with real contracts and a five-year history. Here the argument is not the rate at all. Re-domiciling under articles 36.2 to 36.4 moves the same legal entity to Cyprus: the customer contracts do not need novating, the trading history stays attached to the company, the intellectual property does not change hands, and the banking relationships continue on the same legal person. Add an EU VAT number visible in VIES and, where the IP qualifies, an effective 3% on that income, and the case is about market access and continuity rather than about a three-point rate. That is the honest version, and it is a better one.

Both examples use headline rates and assume full distribution. Your own thresholds, reliefs and timing change the answer, which is what the meeting is for.

Part 4: Who does the work

You can do all of this yourself. Below is what that costs in time and in money, against what it costs to let us do it.

Do it yourself — or have Sumly do it

Two workable routes, described fairly. On your own it is the Registrar's forms and fees, a registered office you source, VAT and VIES registration, provisional tax twice a year, annual statements and a ledger that has to satisfy an auditor — alongside a move between two tax systems you are already managing. Through Sumly it is three published prices: formation from €950 one-time, the bookkeeping software from €39 a month, and a Sumly certified bookkeeper at €390 a month, with books from day zero and every return prepared box by box.

The software on its own runs the company from Cyprus or from Armenia: invoicing, AI double-entry bookkeeping, live open-banking feeds, every VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate return prepared box by box, live reports, a document inbox with its own email address, mobile receipt capture that books itself, multi-currency invoicing, team roles and the AI assistant — plus payroll at €15 per employee per month, IP Box tracking at €50 a month, Projects at €10 a month, and the e-commerce plugins.

Everything else in the catalogue is available to every client: a virtual address with PO box, with digital scanning of your post into the dashboard wherever you are; nominee director and secretary where the structure genuinely needs them; the Yellow Slip for EU citizens, which is not the Armenian route; tax residency and non-dom at €750 per person; the registrations bundle for VAT, social insurance, employees and UBO; audit via Partner Auditors; the store plugins; banking and EU payments; and the expert-lawyer network for complicated relocations.

Each of those is an extra. Tell us what the case needs in the meeting and it comes back as one clear package-deal offer covering all of it — the IP Box application included where it belongs, since it is complex expert work that should be examined with you before anyone puts a price on it.

Sumly, a law firm, and a traditional bookkeeping firm

Law firm vs Sumly — and what happens when a case gets complicated

Sumly is cheaper and faster, and we work WITH lawyers, not against them. When a case gets too complicated for what Sumly handles directly, we simply connect you with the right expert in exactly the legal field you need help in, and everything gets done according to best practice, always. Either way, it starts the same place: contact us.

The Armenian half of this move — the re-domiciliation file above all — belongs to an Armenian adviser, and we will say so every time. The Cyprus half is one provider with one dashboard and four prices you can read in advance. That is what makes Sumly the best choice for Armenian founders creating a company and relocating to Cyprus.

Why is Sumly the best bookkeeping system for a Cyprus company?

Sumly is the best accounting software for a Cyprus limited company — because it is built for exactly one thing, Cyprus tax law: all 16 Cyprus VAT codes mapped to the official VAT return boxes, VIES and provisional tax native, not a localization. That sentence is defensible anywhere, and the table below is the reason.

The two Cyprus-built alternatives an Armenian founder will be shown are Cybooks and Balabook. We meet their former customers every week, and what they tell us, again and again: workflows that made simple bookkeeping overly complicated, rough edges and glitches, support that left them waiting — a messy experience they were relieved to leave behind.

On every one of these checkable dimensions, Sumly leads. That is a factual comparison — not a matter of taste.

Stated plainly: the best support, the best bookkeeping software, the best AI for bookkeeping, the best bookkeeper and the best prices, with all of it easy to actually do. The detail is published in Sumly vs Cybooks and Sumly vs Balabook, and for the international tools an Armenian founder already uses, Xero, QuickBooks and Sage.

One line on the IP Box is worth repeating: the IP Box is the largest single line in a Cyprus product company's tax position — and the easiest one to forfeit through bookkeeping that was never set up for it. That application opens as a conversation rather than as a form, which is another reason the meeting comes first.

What happens when you get in touch

You do not need to have decided anything before you speak to us, and you do not need your paperwork in order.

1. The meeting. Fifteen minutes. You tell us what you own and when you want to move. We tell you which rules at home catch you, and what the Cyprus side costs.
2. We tell you what kind of case you have. If it is simple, we do all of it — company, books, residency, non-dom — at a fixed price. If it is not, we say so immediately and bring in the specialist it needs.
3. We start. The company is registered, your books open the same day, and you have one point of contact for the whole thing.

Questions Armenian founders actually ask

Frequently asked

Can Armenia introduce an exit tax, a wealth tax or an inheritance tax later?

Not without rewriting article 6 of the Tax Code. Article 6 lists the state taxes — VAT, excise, profit tax, income tax, environmental tax, road tax and turnover tax — and the two local ones, immovable property tax and vehicle property tax. Article 6(2) then says in terms that taxes not prescribed by those points cannot be defined in the Republic of Armenia. Nine taxes, and no others are legally possible. There is no wealth tax, no inheritance tax, no gift tax and no exit tax, and none can simply be added by decision.

Does moving to Cyprus actually save an Armenian founder tax?

A little, and this is the only one of our non-EU corridors where the corporate rate genuinely moves. Armenian profit tax is 18% under article 125(1); Cyprus applies 15% from tax year 2026. Three points is real but modest, and it is not on its own a reason to restructure. The larger differences are the shareholder position under the Cyprus non-dom rules and the treaty's 0% dividend rate above the EUR 150,000 investment threshold.

If I leave Armenia in July, am I still an Armenian tax resident that year?

Yes, and this is the single most consequential fact for anyone timing a departure. Article 25(5) provides that where a person is considered a resident as of one of the days of the tax year, that person is considered a resident for the whole tax year. There is no mid-year split of the kind Serbian or British law allows. The only clean exit is at a year boundary, so a mid-year move should either be pulled forward to 1 January or accepted as a full year of Armenian residence.

Will a Cyprus company run from Yerevan become an Armenian company?

No — but it will almost certainly acquire an Armenian permanent establishment, which costs nearly as much. Armenian corporate residence turns on the place of state registration under articles 22 and 23 and nothing else, so a Cyprus-registered company is never an Armenian resident. But article 27(1) lists any place of management as a permanent establishment, irrespective of how long the activity lasts, and the profits attributed to that establishment are taxed in Armenia at 18%.

Can I move my Armenian company to Cyprus instead of closing it?

You can, and this is the strongest structural argument Armenian law offers. Articles 36.2 to 36.4 of the Law on State Registration set out a statutory outbound re-domiciliation procedure: with creditor notice, a tax-authority statement of no liabilities, a Judicial Department statement on bankruptcy and a document from the destination state confirming that continuation is possible, the company continues its legal existence as a Cyprus company. Contracts, banking history, IP ownership and trading record survive.

What does the Armenia–Cyprus treaty give on dividends?

Nothing at all below a threshold, and a full exemption above it. Article 10(2)(a) gives 0% where the beneficial owner, at the moment of making the investment in the company's capital, invested at least the equivalent of EUR 150,000. Article 10(2)(b) gives 5% in every other case — which is identical to the Armenian domestic rate, so below the threshold the treaty adds nothing. It is an investment-amount test at the time of investment, not a percentage-shareholding test, and it is routinely misreported.

Are there Armenian CFC rules?

None. We searched the Tax Code for controlled-foreign-company provisions and there are none, so an Armenian resident who owns a Cyprus company is not taxed on its undistributed profits. What exists instead are the related-party rules in articles 30 and 31, used to police the turnover and micro-entrepreneurship thresholds by aggregation, and a transfer-pricing regime. Note the direction of travel, though: an EU company acquires the ATAD controlled-foreign-company and exit-tax framework that Armenia does not have.

Is the turnover tax a cheap route for an Armenian consultant?

Less than its reputation suggests, because the reform on 1 January 2025 changed it. The old flat 5% on services is gone. A consultancy or agency falls into the other activity line of article 258(1) at a 10% headline rate with an expense-based reduction that cannot take it below a 4.5% floor, plus the individual entrepreneur's flat AMD 5,000 a month profit tax under article 125(3). Micro-entrepreneurship, which is exempt, is closed to consultancy and similar services by article 267(5)(2).

Does Sumly advise on Armenian tax?

No. Sumly builds and runs the Cyprus side: formation, books from day zero, Cyprus VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate returns, and the tax residency and non-dom application. This guide quotes the Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia and the Law on State Registration so you can see the shape of the decision, but how article 25(5) or article 27 applies to your facts is a question for an Armenian adviser. Where a case needs one, we connect you with expert lawyers from our network.

Keep reading

• Every country's route to Cyprus — the departure guide for wherever you are now
• Non-resident company formation — the route that applies outside the EU
• Cyprus non-dom status — the 17-year exemption in detail
• The Cyprus 60-day rule — day counting and the residency certificate
• The Cyprus IP Box — how qualifying income reaches an effective 3%
• How to register a company in Cyprus and what it costs

The calculator on this page uses headline rates, an assumed annual return and full distribution of profit, so it shows the shape of the difference rather than your own outcome. Armenian figures are stated for 2026 in drams; Cyprus figures apply from tax year 2026. All Sumly prices exclude VAT, and government expenses on a formation are invoiced separately once your application is approved.