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

Australia does not have a departure tax by name. It has something with the same effect: a capital gains tax event that happens the moment you stop being a resident, sweeping in everything you own outside Australian real property. On top of that, a founder leaving after 1 July 2027 meets a materially different capital gains regime from one leaving before it, which makes timing a first-order decision rather than a detail.

Updated for 2026 Cyprus tax law and regulations.

From Australia to Cyprus with a single provider on the Cyprus side of the move

Sumly is the one-stop, fully digitalized way for an Australian founder to create a Cyprus company and operate it from the day it exists. We handle the registration, open your books the day you order, prepare each Cyprus return box by box, and run the tax residency and non-dom application as a single fixed-price service. That is one dashboard and one provider for the whole Cyprus half of the move, instead of a corporate lawyer, a separate bookkeeper, and no one owning the space between them.

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.

Does Australia charge an exit tax when you leave for Cyprus?

Yes — it is simply written as a CGT event rather than labelled a departure tax, which is why so many pages miss it.

Section 104-160 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 provides that CGT event I1 happens if you stop being an Australian resident, the time of the event is when you stop being one, and you work out a capital gain or loss for each CGT asset you owned just before that time, other than taxable Australian property of certain kinds. You make a gain if the market value of the asset at the event time exceeds its cost base.

No asset is sold. No money changes hands. The gain is assessable in the income year in which you ceased residence. Assets acquired before 20 September 1985 are disregarded, which matters only for a small and shrinking group of readers.

For a founder, the assets that matter are the ones the whole plan is about: shares in your own Australian company, an unlisted holding in someone else's, listed portfolios, cryptocurrency, foreign property. All of it is valued on the day you stop being a resident and taxed on the gain, before you have earned a cent in Cyprus.

What does CGT event I1 leave alone?

Taxable Australian property, which is a defined and narrower category than most people assume. Section 855-15 sets out 5 categories of CGT assets that are taxable Australian property: taxable Australian real property; an indirect Australian real property interest; an asset used at any time in carrying on a business through a permanent establishment in Australia; options and rights over the first three; and assets covered by a section 104-165(3) choice.

There is an asymmetry here that repays a careful read. The exception inside CGT event I1 itself is drawn by reference to items 1, 3 and 4 only. Indirect Australian real property interests — item 2 — are not excluded from I1; instead subsection 104-160(4A) resets their cost base to market value at the event time. If your structure includes a company that is Australian-property-rich, do not assume the item-2 label keeps it out of the charge.

The design behind all of this is logical once you see it. Section 855-10 lets a foreign resident disregard a capital gain or loss from a CGT event happening to an asset that is not taxable Australian property. Australia's claim over a departed resident is confined to Australian land and Australian business assets — so it takes a deemed disposal on the way out for everything else. The exit charge is not punitive. It is the price of the clean slate that follows it.

Can you choose not to pay it on the way out?

You can, and the Australian mechanism is genuinely different from — and in one respect more generous than — the deferral elections other countries offer.

Subsection 104-165(2) provides that if you are an individual you can choose to disregard making a capital gain or a capital loss from all CGT assets covered by CGT event I1. If you do, subsection 104-165(3) treats each of those assets as taxable Australian property until the earlier of a CGT event involving you ceasing to own the asset, and you again becoming an Australian resident.

Four things to hold on to.

It is all-or-nothing. The choice applies to all assets covered by the event. You cannot bank losses on the ones that fell and defer gains on the ones that rose. A founder with one very large winner and a portfolio of losers has to decide which effect they want more.

It defers the event, not the payment. Some countries tax the deemed gain and then let you pay later against security. Australia instead lets you elect that no gain arises at departure at all. The price is that the assets stay inside the Australian net as deemed taxable Australian property, so Australia will tax the actual gain when you eventually sell — including every dollar of growth that accrued while you lived in Limassol.

The trade-off is real and runs in both directions.

Returning unwinds it. Becoming an Australian resident again ends the deemed taxable-Australian-property status, which is a point in favour of the choice for anyone whose move might not be permanent — and a point against it for anyone certain it is.

How and when the choice is formally made is a matter of Australian Taxation Office practice rather than statutory text, and the ATO guidance was not reachable while this guide was written, so we describe the choice and not the paperwork. Your Australian adviser will handle the mechanics; what matters here is that you understand what you are choosing between before you meet them.

Why does 1 July 2027 change the whole calculation?

Because the 50% CGT discount for individuals is written with an expiry date in it, and almost nothing published about relocating from Australia has caught up.

Section 115-100 sets the discount percentage. Paragraph (aa) gives 50% where the gain is made by an individual from a CGT event happening before 1 July 2027, provided the foreign and temporary resident sections do not apply. Paragraph (f) then sets the discount percentage at 0% if none of the above paragraphs applies to the gain.

Read together, that is a general case of no discount for CGT events from 1 July 2027 onwards. The exceptions are narrow: new residential dwellings under section 115-102, affordable housing under section 115-125, and the superannuation rate. Section 115-102 also records that indexation of the cost base may be chosen as an alternative, which is the relief that replaces the discount rather than supplementing it.

Alongside it, a new Division 119 has been inserted. Section 119-1 states that an individual who is an Australian resident may have to pay extra income tax on certain capital gains to ensure, before applying offsets, a rate of tax of 30% on so much of those gains as remains after section 119-5. Section 119-10 imposes the extra tax where the individual is an Australian resident at any time during the income year and has a minimum tax gap amount, and section 119-15 provides an exception for recipients of certain payments. Both changes were made by the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026.

What do franking credits actually cost you when you leave?

This is the section that decides whether an Australian founder trusts the rest of the page, so here is the concession first: a bare comparison of Australia's 30% against Cyprus's 15% is not merely incomplete, it is wrong, and any accountant reading it over your shoulder will say so within thirty seconds.

Australia runs full dividend imputation. Section 207-20 provides that where an entity makes a franked distribution, the receiving entity's assessable income includes the amount of the franking credit on the distribution, and that the receiving entity is entitled to a tax offset equal to the franking credit.

In plain terms: the shareholder grosses the cash dividend up by the company tax already paid, is taxed on the grossed-up figure at their own marginal rate, and then credits the whole of that company tax against the bill. Australian company tax is not a second layer of tax on a resident shareholder — it is a prepayment of the shareholder's own income tax. Where the shareholder's marginal rate is below the company rate, the excess offset is refundable to individuals in cash, which is unusual internationally and genuinely valuable.

So the fair comparison is not thirty against fifteen. It is: an Australian resident shareholder ends up at their personal marginal rate with no economic double tax, against a Cyprus company paying 15% and then a shareholder position that depends entirely on where the shareholder lives.

And that is precisely where the departure cost lands. The gross-up and offset in section 207-20 are subject to Subdivision 207-C, which sets out the residency requirements an individual must satisfy for the franking credit to be included in assessable income or the offset to arise. Where the requirement is not met, section 207-70 means no amount is included and no offset arises.

A founder with a substantial franking account balance is therefore holding an asset that has value only while they remain an Australian resident. Ceasing residence writes it down to nothing for them. That is a real, quantifiable cost of relocating, it belongs in the cost column next to CGT event I1, and no Cyprus-side page mentions it. What partly offsets it: a fully franked dividend paid to a non-resident is generally not subject to further Australian tax on the franked part, so the credits are not wasted so much as spent differently.

What is the real Australian corporate rate for your company?

Twenty-five or thirty per cent, and which one you get is not decided by turnover alone — a point most published summaries get wrong.

Section 23(2) of the Income Tax Rates Act 1986 sets the rate at 25% for a base rate entity and 30% otherwise. Section 23AA then defines a base rate entity by two cumulative limbs: no more than 80% of its assessable income is base rate entity passive income, and its aggregated turnover is less than $50 million. Both, not either.

Section 23AB defines base rate entity passive income to include distributions other than non-portfolio dividends, franking credits on them, non-share dividends, interest, royalties and rent, gains on qualifying securities and net capital gains. So a company that has quietly become an investment or licensing vehicle breaches the 80% limb and pays 30% — with turnover nowhere near fifty million. If you are comparing your company against Cyprus, work out which limb you are actually on before you pick a number.

Personally, Schedule 7 of the Rates Act sets the resident scale for the 2026-27 income year: nil to the tax-free threshold of $18,200, then 15% to $45,000, 30% to $135,000, 37% to $190,000 and 45% above that. The Medicare levy adds 2%, giving a top marginal rate of 47%. Schedule 7 also sets a lower bottom rate of 14% for the 2027-28 year of income or a later year — the scale is drifting down at the bottom bracket only, and the top rate stays where it is throughout.

When does Australia accept that you have actually left?

When you fail all four of the residency tests, and the one that catches Australians is not the day count.

The definition in subsection 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 covers a person who resides in Australia, and includes a person whose domicile is in Australia unless the Commissioner is satisfied their permanent place of abode is outside Australia; a person actually in Australia for more than one-half of the year of income unless the Commissioner is satisfied their usual place of abode is outside Australia and they do not intend to take up residence; and members of specified Commonwealth superannuation schemes with their spouses and children under 16.

They are alternatives, so satisfying any one of them makes you a resident. You have to fail all four.

The domicile limb is the sticky one. An Australian domicile of origin is not shed by boarding a plane, and the carve-out asks the Commissioner to be satisfied that your permanent place of abode is outside Australia — a substantive test, with the practical burden on you. A twelve-month lease in Limassol, a Cyprus directorship, the family actually there and the Australian house sold or genuinely let is what that looks like. Counting days under 183 is not.

On the reform everyone asks about: the 2021-22 Budget announced replacing these rules with a bright-line 183-day primary test plus objective secondary tests, and Treasury consulted on the design. That consultation paper says plainly that the details have not received Government approval and are not yet law. The operative definition in force on 1 July 2026 is still the four-test one above. The reform has not been legislated — which is a different statement from saying it has been abandoned, and we are not making the second one.

Do Australian CFC rules catch your Cyprus company?

They can, and Cyprus sits on the wrong side of the line that decides how hard.

Control first. Section 340 of the ITAA 1936 makes a company a CFC if any of three gateways applies: a group of 5 or fewer Australian 1% entities whose aggregate associate-inclusive control interests are not less than 50%; a single Australian entity with an associate-inclusive control interest of not less than 40% where the company is not controlled by another group; or control by a group of five or fewer Australian entities. The 40% assumed-controller gateway is the one that catches founders who think a minority stake keeps them outside the regime.

Then the country classification, and this is a checkable fact worth having. Section 19 of the Income Tax Assessment (1936 Act) Regulations 2025 declares the listed countries for Part X purposes to be Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Seven countries, and that is the whole list. Cyprus is not on it. A Cyprus CFC is an unlisted-country CFC, which carries the broader attribution base — essentially all adjusted tainted income unless the active income test is passed.

The active income test in section 432 is passed only if every limb holds, including that the company carried on business in that country at or through a permanent establishment of the company in that country at all times during the period, kept accounts giving a true and fair view, met the substantiation requirements, and had a tainted income ratio of less than 0.05.

Put those together and the message is the same one every honest departure analysis reaches. A Cyprus company that is a passive holding or licensing vehicle will fail the 5% tainted income limb without difficulty, and its income will be attributed to its Australian controllers as it arises. The Cyprus advantages are real for a founder who genuinely ceases Australian residence, or who builds a Cyprus operation with real people and real active income. They are not real for someone who stays in Sydney and incorporates offshore.

Is there an Australia–Cyprus tax treaty?

No. This is the fact that reshapes everything else on the page, and it is the one thing readers most often assume the other way, because Cyprus has a wide treaty network and Australia has a reasonably wide one too.

The Treasury publishes the list. Its income tax treaties page names 47 treaty partners, running from Argentina to Vietnam. Cyprus does not appear anywhere in the table.

Three further consequences follow. There are no reduced withholding rates on payments from Australia to Cyprus, because there is no treaty to reduce them. There is no mutual agreement procedure to resolve a dispute between the two administrations. And there is no treaty permanent establishment article, so item 3 of the taxable Australian property table in section 855-15 falls to be applied using the ordinary domestic meaning of permanent establishment rather than a treaty definition — a small, precise point with real consequences for anyone leaving business assets behind.

What happens to your superannuation?

It stays. This is the answer Australians least want and most need.

The departing Australia superannuation payment regime in Subdivision 301-D is often described as "cashing out your super when you leave". It is not that. Section 301-170 defines a DASP as a superannuation lump sum paid to a person who has departed Australia in accordance with specified regulations, and section 301-175 provides that such a payment is not assessable income and not exempt income, taxed instead at a rate declared by Parliament for such payments.

The structural clue is everywhere in the Act: the departure-related superannuation relief is framed around temporary residents. Subdivision 293-G and Subdivision 296-E are both headed Modifications for temporary residents who depart Australia and both refund tax to temporary residents who leave.

So a founder relocating to Limassol keeps a preserved Australian superannuation balance that they cannot touch and that continues to be administered under Australian rules from twelve thousand kilometres away. That is a genuine friction point in the move. We are not going to quote DASP tax rates or the specific conditions of release on this page — those live in ATO material and the SIS Regulations that were not reachable here, and a wrong number about someone's retirement savings is not a mistake worth making.

Does Australia tax your estate, and does Cyprus do better?

Australia has no inheritance tax, no estate duty in any jurisdiction and no annual net wealth tax. Cyprus has none of those either.

And here is where an honest page has to stop selling. Unlike some countries, Australia does not impose a general deemed disposal at death: assets passing to a legal personal representative or beneficiary generally roll over, with the CGT liability inherited along with the asset rather than triggered by the death. The tax is deferred, not forgiven — but Australia is genuinely favourable here, and Cyprus offers no advantage over it whatsoever. Any page telling an Australian founder that moving to Cyprus saves death duties is inventing a saving that does not exist.

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 actually give an Australian founder?

A flat corporate rate, a clean shareholder position, and a much shorter set of rules to keep in your head.

A Cyprus limited company pays 15% from tax year 2026 on taxable profit — one rate, with no base-rate-entity test, no passive-income limb and no turnover threshold to monitor. Qualifying intellectual property income can fall to an effective 3% from tax year 2026 under the IP Box.

The shareholder side is where the difference shows. A Cyprus tax resident who is not Cyprus-domiciled pays no Special Defence Contribution on dividends for 17 years, and Cyprus does not charge personal income tax on dividends at all. What is left is GeSY at 2.65% on income up to €180,000 a year — €4,770 at most, on any distribution of any size. A Cyprus-domiciled shareholder instead pays 5% on dividends from 2026 profits. Salary meets personal bands of 0% to €22,000 rising to 35% above €72,000.

On the operating side, Cyprus VAT registration begins at €15,600 of taxable turnover at a standard rate of 19%. There is no imputation system, which is the honest counterpoint to everything above: Cyprus does not credit company tax against a shareholder's personal bill because, for a non-dom, there is essentially no personal bill on the dividend to credit it against. The detail sits in Cyprus non-dom status and the 2026 tax reform.

How does an Australian founder become Cyprus tax resident?

Through the 60-day rule in most cases, and it got easier in 2026 — which, given that there is no treaty to fall back on, is worth understanding precisely.

One route is simply spending more than 183 days of the year on the island. The alternative has four conditions from tax year 2026, the old fifth having been removed from the 60-day rule: at least 60 days in Cyprus; no more than 183 days in any single other state; a business, employment or office in a Cyprus tax-resident person held throughout the year; and a permanent home in Cyprus you own or rent.

For an Australian, two of those conditions do double duty. The permanent home is also the strongest evidence for the permanent-place-of-abode carve-out on the Australian side, and the directorship of your own Cyprus company is both the office the third condition asks for and part of the picture that shows where your life now is. Because there is no treaty tie-breaker, that evidence is not a formality — it is the whole defence.

Australia is not an EU member state, so the Yellow Slip route, which exists under EU free movement law, is not open to an Australian passport holder and we promise nothing about it. The routes that do apply are those for third-country nationals; we handle the paperwork and bring in immigration specialists where a file calls for one.

Why do people choose Cyprus over other tax havens?

Because it is a country rather than a postbox, and after a while that turns out to matter more than the rate.

Everything commercial in Cyprus happens in English — contracts, banking, professional services, the courts — so an Australian founder loses none of the fluency that makes running a business feel normal. Violent crime is among the lowest in the European Union. The population already includes people from everywhere, so no one is the only outsider in the room. Property and business are both busy, and the state is genuinely willing to let people trade without wrapping every step in process. Meat, fruit and vegetables cost visibly less than in an Australian capital. And the coast is the argument that closes it: you can swim through a Cyprus winter, and the summers are what people cross continents for.

The Australian push list has to be written carefully, because Australia is a genuinely well-designed tax system and pretending otherwise would be insulting. Imputation means a resident shareholder is not double taxed, so the corporate-rate comparison mostly evaporates for someone staying put. What actually pushes founders is narrower and sharper. The 47% top marginal rate arrives at $190,000, which is not a high bar for a successful founder. The 50% CGT discount, on the current text, ends for events from 1 July 2027, and Division 119 puts a 30% floor under certain gains. The base rate entity test quietly moves companies from 25% to 30% as they become more asset-heavy. There is no treaty with Cyprus to smooth any of it. And superannuation, the country's best long-term feature, is a preserved balance you cannot use while you build something new somewhere else. That is not a grievance list. It is a set of edges that get sharper the more successful you are.

Can an Australian e-commerce brand run through Cyprus?

Yes, and for a store selling into Europe the market access is often worth more than the tax. An Australian company deals with the EU as a third country: customs formalities, import VAT, and separate registrations for distance sales and digital supplies. A Cyprus company sits inside the EU VAT system, holds a VAT number buyers can verify in VIES, zero-rates intra-EU business supplies and uses the one-stop shop for consumer sales right across the bloc.

Where it usually falls over is the bookkeeping, because a store produces thousands of small transactions across several currencies with VAT treatment that shifts by customer type and destination. The Shopify and WooCommerce plugins bring orders, refunds, fees and payouts into the ledger already carrying the right Cyprus VAT codes, so a return is built out of the sales themselves rather than reverse-engineered from a spreadsheet at quarter end.

Two worked examples

A consultancy distributing A$300,000 of profit a year. In Australia the company pays 25% if it clears both base rate entity limbs, and the founder is then taxed at their marginal rate on the grossed-up dividend with a full offset for the company tax, landing at their personal rate — 47% at the top with the Medicare levy. Through Cyprus the company pays 15% and a non-dom founder meets only GeSY, capped at €4,770. The annual difference is substantial at this level, because imputation removes double tax but does not lower the shareholder's own rate. What has to be set against it is CGT event I1 on the shares, the franking account balance that is written off, and the fact that a consulting company with genuine clients and staff in Cyprus has a much easier time with the active income test than a holding vehicle would.

A software company at A$800,000 of profit with qualifying intellectual property. Cyprus IP Box income is taxed at an effective 3%, and the distribution still meets only GeSY. On the Australian side, the same company is likely to fail the 80% passive limb as licensing income grows, pushing it to 30%. This is where the gap becomes structural — and also where the exit charge is heaviest, because the intellectual property is what the shares are worth on departure day. This is the profile for which the 1 July 2027 question is not academic, and the profile that most needs Australian advice on the section 104-165 choice before anything is filed.

Both examples assume full distribution and headline rates. Your own marginal rate, your franking balance, your cost bases and the departure date change the answer, which is what a meeting is for.

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?

Timelines vary with circumstances, so treat this as a shape rather than a schedule.

• Before you go — and this is where we start. We put you in front of an Australian adviser who takes a valuation view on your shares, since that number drives CGT event I1. They tell you whether the section 104-165 choice fits your case, look hard at the departure date against 1 July 2027, and price what your franking account balance is actually worth to you.
• Month 1. We register the Cyprus company — ordered online, books opening the same day — and start the residence paperwork. We begin building the permanent-place-of-abode evidence with you straight away, because it is dated evidence and it cannot be assembled retrospectively.
• Months 1–3. We complete VAT and, where relevant, social insurance, employees and UBO registration, and get banking and EU payments working. You take up the directorship the 60-day rule needs — that one has to be you.
• Months 3–6. You take the Cyprus home the residency rule requires, and we tell you what qualifies. You move decision-making genuinely across, and we set up the minuting so it is recorded here. Your Australian adviser deals with the Australian company on their own timetable, and we keep the two sides in step.
• From month 12. Your Australian adviser files the return covering the year of departure. We apply for the Cyprus tax residency certificate and register you as non-dom, then keep the evidence current — with no treaty behind you, the file is the defence.

What mistakes do Australian founders actually make?

The costly ones are ordinary.

Comparing 30% against 15% and never mentioning imputation, then discovering the accountant does. Assuming there is no exit charge because nothing is called an exit tax. Making the section 104-165 choice to avoid a bill today, without noticing it hands Australia every dollar of future growth. Planning a departure for the second half of 2027 without checking what the discount looks like by then. Forgetting the franking account entirely, which is the single most expensive omission on this list. Believing a 30% shareholding is too small for Part X, against a 40% assumed-controller gateway and a five-entity aggregation rule. Assuming a treaty exists. Booking a Cyprus flat and a Sydney house at the same time and expecting the domicile limb to be satisfied. And treating superannuation as capital that travels.

Nearly all of them come from planning the arrival carefully and the departure not at all.

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

Both are genuine options, and founders pick each. Doing it yourself means the Registrar's forms and fees, arranging a registered office, VAT and VIES registration, provisional tax twice a year, annual statements and books an auditor will accept — while also running an intercontinental move. Sumly puts three prices on the same work and publishes all three: formation from €950 one-time, the bookkeeping software from €39 a month, and a Sumly certified bookkeeper of your own at €390 a month, with books open from day zero and every return prepared box by box.

The software by itself runs and operates the company, whether you are working from Cyprus or still in Australia: invoicing, AI double-entry bookkeeping that books documents on its own, live open-banking feeds, all VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate returns prepared box by box, live reporting, a document inbox with its own email address, mobile receipt capture that files 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.

Sumly offers the rest of the catalogue to everyone as well: a virtual address with PO box, with mail scanned and delivered digitally to your dashboard wherever in the world you are; nominee director and secretary where a structure needs them; tax residency and non-dom at €750 per person; and the whole registrations bundle — VAT, social insurance, employees and UBO. The Yellow Slip sits on that list too, but it is available only to EU citizens as a matter of EU law, so it is not the Australian route.

Every one of those is an extra, scoped to the case in front of us. Say what you need in the meeting and you get one clear package-deal offer covering all of it, with the IP Box application included where it belongs, since it is complex expert work and precisely the thing that should be examined with you before anyone attaches a number to it. No hourly billing, no surprises.

Sumly, a law firm, and a traditional bookkeeping firm

Law firm vs Sumly — and what happens when it 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.

For an Australian founder the split is unusually clean. CGT event I1, the section 104-165 choice, the 2027 timing question and the franking account are Australian work for an Australian adviser, and we will say so every time. The Cyprus company, the books, the filings and the residency run through one provider, one dashboard and four published prices. That is what makes Sumly the best choice for Australian 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. Everything below is the evidence for that claim, laid out so you can check it.

The Cyprus-built products an Australian founder gets 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.

Said without decoration: the best support, the best bookkeeping software, the best AI for bookkeeping, the best bookkeeper, and the best prices — with everything made easy. The detail is published: Sumly vs Cybooks, Sumly vs Balabook, and against the international tools an Australian founder already runs, Xero, QuickBooks and Sage.

On the IP Box, one line bears 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. It begins as a conversation rather than a form, which is one more 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 Australian founders actually ask

Frequently asked

Does Australia charge an exit tax when I move to Cyprus?

Yes, in the form of a CGT event. Section 104-160 of the ITAA 1997 says CGT event I1 happens if you stop being an Australian resident, at the moment you stop, and you work out a gain or loss on every CGT asset you owned just before that time other than taxable Australian property. It is a deemed disposal at market value with no sale and no cash. Assets acquired before 20 September 1985 are disregarded.

Can I elect not to pay CGT on leaving Australia?

You can make a choice under section 104-165 to disregard the gain or loss from all assets covered by CGT event I1. It is all-or-nothing — you cannot defer the winners and crystallise the losers. If you choose, those assets are treated as taxable Australian property until you either dispose of them or become an Australian resident again, so Australia keeps the taxing right over everything that happens to them while you live in Cyprus. It defers the event, not the payment.

Why does 1 July 2027 matter for an Australian moving to Cyprus?

Because the 50% CGT discount for individuals is written to apply only to CGT events happening before 1 July 2027. Section 115-100(aa) sets the 50% rate on that condition, and paragraph (f) sets 0% where none of the earlier paragraphs applies. From that date the general case is no discount, with cost-base indexation available as an alternative, and a new Division 119 imposes a 30% minimum rate on certain capital gains. Confirm how that interacts with your own departure with an Australian adviser.

Do I lose my franking credits if I leave Australia?

Yes, and this is the cost nobody puts in the brochure. The gross-up and offset in section 207-20 are subject to the residency requirements in Subdivision 207-C. Fail them and no franking credit is included in assessable income and no tax offset arises. A large franking account balance is an asset that only has value to an Australian-resident shareholder; ceasing residence writes it off. Set against that, a fully franked dividend paid to a non-resident is generally not further taxed in Australia.

Is there an Australia–Cyprus double tax treaty?

No. The Treasury's list of Australia's income tax treaties names 47 partners and Cyprus is not among them. That has real consequences: there is no residence tie-breaker to resolve a conflict if both countries claim you, no reduced withholding rates, no mutual agreement procedure, and no treaty permanent establishment article, so the domestic definition governs. An Australian founder has to prove departure on the domestic tests alone, which raises the evidential bar considerably.

Do Australian CFC rules catch a Cyprus company?

They can, and Cyprus gets the less favourable treatment. Section 19 of the Income Tax Assessment (1936 Act) Regulations 2025 lists seven listed countries — Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States — and Cyprus is not one of them. An unlisted-country CFC has a much broader attribution base unless it passes the active income test in section 432, which requires a real permanent establishment and a tainted income ratio below 0.05.

Can I take my superannuation with me to Cyprus?

Not if you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident. The departing Australia superannuation payment in Subdivision 301-D is a mechanism for former temporary residents whose visas have ceased, not a general cash-out on leaving the country. A citizen or permanent resident who moves to Cyprus keeps a preserved balance that stays under Australian rules until an ordinary condition of release arrives. Treat superannuation as an Australian asset you administer from abroad, not as capital you are moving.

Has Australia's residency test been replaced with a 183-day bright line?

Not in the law. The 2021-22 Budget announced a modernised framework built on a 183-day primary test with secondary tests, and Treasury consulted on it in 2023 — but that consultation paper says in terms that the framework had not received Government approval and was not yet law. The operative definition in section 6(1) of the ITAA 1936, as in force on 1 July 2026, is still the four-test resides, domicile, 183-day and superannuation definition. The reform has not been legislated.

Does Sumly advise on Australian tax?

No. Sumly builds and runs the Cyprus side: the company, the books from day zero, Cyprus VAT, VIES and corporate returns, and the tax residency and non-dom application. This page states Australia's own legislation so you can see the shape of the decision, but whether CGT event I1 has happened on your facts, and whether to make the section 104-165 choice, is a question for an Australian 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
• Cyprus non-dom status — what the 17-year exemption covers
• The Cyprus 60-day rule — day counting and the residency certificate
• What changed in the 2026 Cyprus tax reform
• How to register a company in Cyprus and what it costs
• Cyprus tax benefits for foreigners — the overall picture

The calculator on this page uses headline rates, an assumed 10% annual return and full distribution of profit, so it shows the shape of the difference rather than your own outcome; it does not model CGT event I1, which depends on your assets and your departure date. Australian figures are taken from the Federal Register of Legislation compilations in force on 1 July 2026 and are stated for the 2026-27 income year. 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.