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

Czechia lets a founder leave without taxing them for going — the General Financial Directorate says in writing that the ATAD provisions reach companies and not people. What it does police is the company you leave with, the substance behind it, and the calendar. Get the sequence wrong and the year, not the plan, is what costs you.

Updated for 2026 Cyprus tax law and regulations.

Czechia to Cyprus, with one provider carrying both ends of the file

Sumly is the one-stop, fully digitalized route out of Czechia: we relocate, start and run your company in Cyprus and keep it operating from the first day it exists. Formation, books opened the day you order, every Cyprus return prepared box by box, and the Yellow Slip, tax residency and non-dom applications as fixed-price services — one partner, one dashboard, one set of prices published before you commit, instead of an advokátní kancelář for the incorporation, an účetní firma for the ledgers and nobody at all for the part in between.

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 Czechia charge an exit tax when a founder moves to Cyprus?

Not on the individual, and the reason to trust that answer is that it does not rest on the absence of a provision. It rests on a positive statement by the tax administration itself. The General Financial Directorate's information on the ATAD directive, issued under č. j. 54816/20/7100-40113-207118, sets out which sections of the Income Tax Act transpose the directive — the interest limitation in § 23e and § 23f, the exit tax in § 23g with § 22 and § 38zg, the CFC rule in § 38fa, and the hybrid-mismatch rule in § 23h — and then says plainly that the directive covers corporate income tax payers and their permanent establishments only, so those provisions do not apply to individuals.

That single sentence is worth more to a Czech founder than any amount of comparative commentary. There is no Czech counterpart to the German Wegzugsteuer, no deemed disposal of your podíl on the day you change residence, no valuation exercise, no security to post, no instalment plan to negotiate for yourself personally. You can move to Cyprus holding exactly the shares you held the day before, at exactly the acquisition cost you held them at.

English-language content gets this badly wrong in the reader's favour, which is an unusual direction for tax writing to fail in. The comparative surveys of European exit taxes that circulate every January cover Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, and simply omit Czechia — leaving a Czech reader to assume by analogy that a charge exists. It does not, and planning around a phantom charge is how people end up paying for structures they never needed.

Two things do survive the departure, and neither is an exit tax, though both behave a little like one if you ignore them. The first is the calendar: the 183-day test can make you a Czech resident for a whole year you thought you had left. The second is the notification duty on large exempt income, which attaches to you personally for the year the income arose. Both are dealt with below.

What does § 23g do when a Czech company moves to Cyprus?

This is where the charge you were told did not exist turns up, pointed at the company rather than at you. § 23g ZDP carries the heading zdanění při přemístění majetku bez změny vlastnictví — taxation on a transfer of assets without a change of ownership — and it implements Article 5 of the ATAD directive. Its mechanism is a fiction: moving an asset out of Czechia without selling it is treated for income tax purposes as a sale of that asset to yourself at the price unrelated parties would have agreed in ordinary commercial relations, with a corresponding adjustment to the taxable result.

Three situations trigger it. Two of them are the familiar ones: assets reallocated from Czechia to your own foreign permanent establishment where the exemption method would later shelter the disposal, and assets moved out of a Czech permanent establishment of a non-resident so that a later sale escapes Czech tax. The third is the one that decides this guide. § 23g also bites on a reallocation connected with the transfer of the company's own tax residence out of Czechia. Migrating the company, not merely its assets, is itself the taxable event.

Read that against how founders actually think about the move. The instinct is to keep the s.r.o. and add a Cyprus company beside it, or to move the operating substance across piece by piece and let the Czech shell go quiet. § 23g is drafted for exactly that behaviour: it does not wait for a sale, a liquidation or a distribution, and it does not care that no money changed hands. It prices the latent gain at the border.

There is a narrow short-term exception. Assets that are reasonably expected to return to Czechia within twelve months, in securities-financing transactions, as financial collateral, or where the move serves prudential capital-adequacy or liquidity requirements, sit outside the charge — and if the asset does not come back, the deemed sale is treated as having happened in the last period in which the condition could still have been satisfied. None of that helps an ordinary trading company; it is drafted for financial institutions.

The symmetry is worth knowing about too, because it works in your favour on assets coming the other way: an inbound transfer from another EU member state that was taxed on exit there is taken up at arm's-length value, which is a step-up rather than a continuation of the old base.

Can the Czech corporate exit charge be paid over time?

Yes, on application, and the destination matters. § 38zg ZDP allows the tax administrator to permit the portion of corporate tax attributable to the transfer to be paid in instalments over a maximum of five years from the due date, where the assets move to an EU or EEA state with equivalent mutual assistance in the recovery of tax claims. Cyprus is an EU member state, so the route is open in principle.

Three practical points about it. It is not automatic — the taxpayer applies, and the application is a document someone has to prepare properly. The deferrable amount is a computed share rather than the whole bill: the GFŘ information works it through as the ratio between the tax base generated by the transfer, summed across destination states, and the taxpayer's total base before deductions. And it is a payment schedule, not a discount; the tax is assessed in full in the period of the move.

The planning consequence is unglamorous and important: the cheapest version of this move is usually the one where the Czech company is not carrying large unrealised gains at the moment it goes, and the second cheapest is the one where the Cyprus company is incorporated fresh and grows into the work rather than receiving a migrated balance sheet. Which of those fits you is a question for a Czech adviser with your accounts in front of them.

Do Czech CFC rules catch a Cyprus company at 15%?

On the headline rates, no — and the arithmetic is short enough to do in public. § 38fa ZDP treats the activity of an ovládaná zahraniční společnost, and the handling of its assets, as if it had been carried out by the controlling Czech company, at the moment the foreign tax period ends. Two conditions have to hold together. The company must not carry on substantial economic activity, and the foreign tax on it must be lower than half the tax that would have been assessed had the company been a Czech tax resident.

Czech corporate tax is 21% for 2026, so half of it is a shade over ten and a half percent. A Cyprus company taxed at 15% from tax year 2026 sits well clear of that line. On rate alone, a genuine Cyprus trading company does not meet the low-tax limb at all.

The control test is where founders miscount rather than where they get caught. A foreign company is controlled if a Czech-resident corporate taxpayer, alone or with associated persons, directly or indirectly holds more than 50% of registered capital or of voting rights, or has the right to more than 50% of profit — with associated persons counted in at a 25% profit entitlement. A foreign permanent establishment of a Czech resident in an exemption-method treaty state is caught too.

Three mechanics are routinely missed. The included income is a closed list rather than an abuse test — borrowing income, royalties, profit shares, gains on disposing of participations, finance-lease arrangements, insurance and banking activity, and two limbs catching goods and services routed through associated persons with little or no added economic value. Attribution follows the share in registered capital at the moment of each activity, not the position at year end. And where the adjustment would reduce the Czech result it is simply not made; the amount can instead reduce the result in the three immediately following tax periods.

Now the point that changes the answer for most readers of this page. § 38fa binds corporate taxpayers. A Czech individual who holds Cyprus shares personally is not inside it at all — the same GFŘ statement that removes the individual exit tax removes individual CFC exposure with it. The regime becomes live when a Czech s.r.o. sits above the Cyprus company. So the shape of the holding decides the exposure before any rate comparison does, and a founder who is genuinely emigrating and holding directly has a materially simpler position than one who keeps a Czech holding company in the chain.

Does the Cyprus IP Box put a Czech founder back inside § 38fa?

It can, and this is the one place where the good news above stops being unconditional. The comparison in § 38fa is not a comparison of headline rates. The GFŘ information is explicit that the hypothetical Czech liability has to be rebuilt from all of the company's transactions under Czech accounting and Czech income tax rules, allowing for foreign taxes paid, hypothetical loss carry-forwards, other deductions and credits — and then halved and set against the tax the company actually paid abroad.

Income qualifying under the Cyprus IP Box is taxed at an effective 3% from tax year 2026. That is far below half of 21%. So a Cyprus company whose profits sit largely inside the IP Box, or which pays little actual tax because of exempt dividend and share-disposal income, can fail the low-tax test even though its nominal rate is 15% — and royalties are on the included-income list by name.

Two qualifications keep this in proportion. It only matters where a Czech corporate taxpayer controls the company, for the reason set out above. And even then the substance limb still has to fail as well. But it does mean one thing plainly: the IP Box should not be sold to a Czech founder as an unconditional win. If you intend to claim it while any part of the group is still Czech-resident, the relief and the substance file have to be built at the same time, by people who know that both are being read together. That is why the IP Box application is scoped in a meeting rather than priced from a page.

When does a Czech founder actually stop being a Czech tax resident?

Later than most people assume, and the governing document is unusually recent. In January 2026 the General Financial Directorate issued a dedicated methodological information on determining the tax residence of individuals, č. j. 39105/26/7100-20113-010370. It barely appears in public Czech-language content, and it is the single most useful departure-side document in the whole file.

Two criteria live in § 2 ZDP and, importantly, they are assessed independently and at the same time. Neither outranks the other.

Bydliště. You are resident if you have a stálý byt here in circumstances from which an intention to dwell in it permanently can be inferred. Ownership is irrelevant — a rented flat counts. The intention is judged against personal and family circumstances: whether a spouse, children or parents live there, whether the place is used in connection with your economic activity. Residence on this criterion starts when the bydliště arises and ends when it ceases, so this test alone can make you a resident for part of a year only.

Obvyklé zdržování. You are also resident if you are present in Czechia for at least 183 days in the calendar year, with every commenced day counted. A morning arrival and an evening departure are two days, not one. Proof runs on bank statements, your own records, travel and accommodation documents. Three things GFŘ says are expressly irrelevant: when a residence permit was issued, when you registered with the labour office, and which state you are insured in.

Dual residence is the other half of the mechanism, and GFŘ is emphatic about the order of operations: the treaty tie-breakers engage only where both states treat you as resident under their own domestic law, and you may not jump straight to the treaty to argue your way out of Czech residence. When it does engage, the order is permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, and testing stops at the first criterion met in one state only. The burden of proof sits on the taxpayer, normally discharged with a certificate of tax domicile from the other state — and the Czech administrator may refuse a certificate issued prospectively or where the facts point elsewhere. Czech domicile certificates come from your local finanční úřad.

Can a hotel or an Airbnb keep you Czech tax resident?

Yes, and the GFŘ information says so in terms — which is why this deserves its own answer rather than a footnote. A bydliště does not have to be a flat you rent on a long lease. Hotel accommodation, and accommodation booked through short-let platforms, can constitute a stálý byt where the surrounding circumstances point to an intention to stay.

The example GFŘ chooses is aimed squarely at the departing taxpayer. You terminate the lease on your Prague flat, the move slips by a few weeks, and you bridge the gap in a hotel — and the hotel is then to be treated as your bydliště for that period. The lesson is not that hotels are dangerous. It is that ending a lease is evidence, not proof, and that the residency question is answered on the whole picture: where the family sleeps, where the economic activity is directed from, what the pattern of nights actually looks like.

Practically, that means the exit file is a file. Lease terminations, the Cyprus lease or purchase, the school registration, the day-by-day travel record, the date the Czech operating role ends, the certificate of Cyprus tax residence. People who assemble that in advance have an uneventful year. People who assemble it two years later, in response to a question from a finanční úřad, do not.

Can Czechia treat your Cyprus company as a Czech taxpayer?

Yes, and it is the quietest way a well-intentioned structure fails. The Financial Administration states that a corporate taxpayer is a Czech tax resident if it has on Czech territory either its sídlo or its místo vedení, and it defines the second of those as adresa místa, ze kterého je poplatník řízen — the address of the place from which the taxpayer is directed. A Czech tax resident company is taxed on Czech-source and foreign-source income alike.

So there are two doors, and incorporating in Cyprus only closes one of them. The registry entry moves; the direction of the company does not move by itself. If the board meets in Brno, if the decisions that matter are taken there, if the person who actually runs the business does so from a desk in Czechia, then the Cyprus company has its místo vedení in Czechia and is a Czech tax resident on its worldwide profits. Nothing about the Cyprus certificate of incorporation prevents that conclusion.

Notice how this interlocks with § 23g. A Czech company that moves its place of management out is caught by the exit charge; a Cyprus company whose place of management never really arrives is caught by residence. The two provisions close the loop from opposite ends, and both are answered by the same evidence — where the direction genuinely happens. That is also why nominee arrangements are a governance tool for the cases that need them and never a substitute for management, which is exactly how we treat them when we scope a structure.

What happens to your Czech s.r.o. and its dividends once you leave?

Nothing dramatic, and that is worth saying because founders often expect a liquidation event where there is none. If the s.r.o. keeps its sídlo in Czechia it stays a Czech tax resident, taxed at 21% on worldwide profit, with the calendar year as the normal tax period — a taxpayer may instead use a fiscal year or an accounting period, provided that period does not exceed twelve consecutive months.

On the way out to a shareholder, profit shares are taxed by withholding under the special rate in § 36 ZDP. The rate is 15%, deducted by the payer rather than declared by you. There is also a punitive rate: capital income paid to persons who are neither EU or EEA residents nor residents of a state with an effective double tax treaty is taxed at 35%. Cyprus is an EU member state with a treaty in force, so that rate is not in play for a Cyprus-resident shareholder — one of the plainer arguments for choosing an EU destination over an offshore one.

What the treaty rate on those dividends is, and what conditions a Cyprus parent would have to meet for the domestic participation exemption in § 19 ZDP, are questions this guide deliberately does not answer with numbers. The reason is set out below, and it is a sourcing reason rather than a legal one.

What does the Czechia–Cyprus treaty actually settle?

Less than a Czech reader hopes, and more than the Czech search results explain. The instrument in force is the treaty published as 120/2009 Sb. m. s., effective 26 November 2009, which replaced the old Czechoslovak-era agreement. Both states are parties to the BEPS multilateral instrument, so the treaty as applied is the treaty as modified by it.

We are not publishing the article-level rates. The consolidated Czech text sits behind an interface that serves no readable text to a fetch, and the commercial mirrors that carry it are not sources this site cites. Quoting a dividend, interest or royalty rate we could not read on an official page would be exactly the kind of confident wrong number that these guides exist to displace. What can be said safely: the treaty is a modern OECD-model agreement as amended by the multilateral instrument, so the corporate tie-breaker is likely to be resolved by agreement between the competent authorities rather than by a bare place-of-effective-management rule — which means you should not assume a POEM tie-break will rescue a company with a management problem. Independently of the treaty, EU directives apply between two member states, and that is the floor under CZ–CY flows.

Where the article-level detail matters to your case — a specific dividend stream, royalties, or a gain on a property-rich company — the text should be read by a Czech adviser from the Sbírka mezinárodních smluv itself, and the guide will not pretend to have done that for you.

What happens to your ČSSZ contributions and your Czech pension?

The contribution burden you are leaving is high in absolute terms, which is worth stating before anything about what replaces it. ČSSZ publishes the rates as 24.8% for the employer and 7.1% for the employee, and 28% pension insurance for the self-employed, with voluntary sickness insurance at 2.7%. There is a ceiling: the maximum assessment base for 2026 is 2,350,416 CZK, expressly 48 times the average wage. Public health insurance is charged separately from these, administered by the health insurance companies rather than by ČSSZ, and this guide states no rate for it because none was confirmed on an official page.

Because both states are inside the EU, which system you belong to is decided by the coordination regulation rather than by choice. A founder who genuinely relocates becomes subject to Cypriot social insurance, and Czech pension rights already accrued are preserved and aggregated rather than lost — you do not forfeit the years you have paid for by leaving. What you do give up is further accrual in the Czech system, and what you take on is the Cypriot contribution position, which is scoped alongside payroll when we set the company up.

Health cover on the Cyprus side runs through GeSY, funded by a contribution of 2.65% on income up to €180,000 a year. For a founder living on distributions, that ceiling is the entire personal cost of the health system, and it is the number that does most of the work in the examples further down.

Does Czechia tax your wealth or your inheritance after you leave?

No, and this is a genuine advantage that deserves to be conceded rather than buried. The Financial Administration's own description of the tax system, stated current as at 1 January 2026, enumerates the taxes in force — the income taxes, value added tax, road tax, the gambling tax, excise and energy taxes, and the tax on immovable property — and contains no net wealth tax. The annual charge on immovable property is a property tax on a specific asset, not a levy on net worth, and the two should not be confused when comparing Czechia with the states that do run wealth taxes.

The separate inheritance tax and gift tax are gone as well. Since 2014 a gratuitous acquisition is dealt with as income under the Income Tax Act, and inheritance is exempt under § 4a ZDP. Cyprus, for its part, levies neither a net-wealth tax nor an inheritance tax, so on this axis the move is neutral rather than an improvement — which is a better reason to trust the rest of the comparison, not a worse one.

What does a Czech founder pay today, and what would Cyprus cost?

Put the two positions side by side and the honest headline is that the corporate gap is real but modest, and the shareholder gap is where the difference lives. Czech corporate tax stands at 21% for 2026, having risen from 19% with effect from the 2024 tax period — a live grievance rather than a talking point. Personal income tax runs at 15%, with 23% on the part of the base above 36 times the average wage, and that multiple was cut from 48 times with effect from the 2023 tax period, which pulled a great deal of founder income into the higher band. Content written in 2021 and 2022 still says 48, and it is the most commonly stale figure in Czech-language tax writing.

Where exactly does 36 times land in 2026? The Financial Administration does not publish the crown amount in that form, so it has to be computed: ČSSZ fixes the maximum social-insurance base at 2,350,416 CZK and defines it as 48 times the average wage, which puts the average wage near 48,967 CZK a month and the 23% band a little above 1.76 million CZK of annual base. Treat that as arithmetic on two official figures rather than as a published threshold, and check the crown amount before you rely on it. The basic personal tax credit for 2026 is 30,840 CZK.

Cyprus personal rates run from 0% to €22,000 rising to 35% above €72,000, and the reason dividends behave so differently on the Cyprus side is the non-domicile rule: a person who is tax resident but not domiciled in Cyprus is outside the special defence contribution on dividends and interest for 17 years. A shareholder who is domiciled pays 5% on dividends from 2026 profits, which is the charge the 2026 reform reduced. Cyprus VAT registration starts at €15,600 of taxable turnover, and the standard rate is 19%.

Where Czechia genuinely beats Cyprus, and why we say so

Because a guide that only pushes is a guide you cannot use. Four things about the Czech position are good, and two of them are unusually good by European standards.

The absence of an individual exit tax is the headline, and it is worth more than several points of corporate rate to a founder with a valuable shareholding — a German or a French founder in the same position starts the conversation with a valuation exercise and a payment plan. The absence of a net wealth tax, an inheritance tax and a gift tax is the second. The third is simplicity: two personal rates, one corporate rate, no minimum corporate tax, no local business tax stacked on top, no municipal surtax. The fourth is that Czechia legislated ATAD at its minimum rather than gold-plating it — no stricter third-country CFC option, and the substance exception left intact.

Against that, a founder who wants only a lower corporate rate is looking at a six-point gap, and six points is not on its own a reason to restructure a company, uproot a family and take on foreign compliance. If the corporate rate is the entire case, stay. The cases where the move actually pays are the ones where the shareholder position, the IP position or the personal residence position is doing the work — which is precisely what the two examples further down are there to show.

There is also a fair point about how well informed Czech readers already are on the destination. The Czech Embassy in Nicosia publishes its own note on the 2026 Cyprus tax reform, walking through the new corporate rate, the reduced dividend charge and the abolition of the deemed dividend distribution regime. It is accurate and it is official, and if you have read it you already know the destination side. What it does not contain — because it is not its job — is a single word about § 23g, § 38fa, § 2(4) or místo vedení. That gap is this page.

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 a Czech founder?

Familiar, which is the honest description. Cyprus is an EU member state in the eurozone, its company law descends from the English model, and the working language of professional life is English — so the reporting rhythm, the audit requirement and the VAT mechanics will feel recognisable to anyone who has run an s.r.o., even though the forms are new.

The company is a private limited company registered with the Registrar of Companies. It needs a registered office, a secretary and at least one director, files an annual return, and prepares audited financial statements — audit is universal in Cyprus rather than threshold-based, which is the biggest single procedural difference from Czech practice. Provisional tax is estimated and paid in two instalments during the year and trued up afterwards, VAT returns run quarterly, and VIES reporting is monthly where you sell to VAT-registered businesses in other member states. The process end to end is set out in how to register a company in Cyprus, and what it costs in Cyprus company formation cost.

The two structural reliefs to understand before you commit are the non-dom regime, covered in Cyprus non-dom status, and the IP Box, covered in claiming the Cyprus IP Box. What changed on 1 January 2026 across the whole system is collected in the 2026 Cyprus tax reform, and the general picture for arriving founders sits in Cyprus tax benefits for foreigners. If your case genuinely needs a nominee director or secretary, what a nominee actually does explains where the line sits.

How does a Czech founder become Cyprus tax resident?

Two routes, and the second one got easier this year. The ordinary route is 183 days in Cyprus in a calendar year. The alternative is the 60-day rule, and the 2026 amendment removed the condition that had disqualified the most people: you no longer have to prove you are not tax resident anywhere else. What remains is four conditions — 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 maintained through the year, and a permanent home in Cyprus that you own or rent. The requirement that was removed from the 60-day rule is the reason this route is now realistic for founders who travel.

For a Czech founder the two calendars have to be read together, not separately, and this is where most plans go wrong. The 60-day Cyprus rule tells you what you must do to become Cyprus resident. It says nothing about whether Czechia has stopped treating you as resident — that is answered by § 2 ZDP, by the bydliště, and by the 183-day whole-year effect described above. It is entirely possible to satisfy the Cyprus 60-day rule and still be a Czech tax resident for the same year, which is the definition of a badly sequenced move. Plan the Czech exit first and let the Cyprus arrival follow it.

As an EU citizen you also qualify for the Yellow Slip, the registration certificate for EU nationals residing in Cyprus — the Yellow Slip explained covers what it is and the Yellow Slip service covers how we handle it. The day counting and the certificate are set out in the Cyprus 60-day rule.

Why do people choose Cyprus over other tax havens?

Because the phrase is wrong about the place. Cyprus is an EU member state in the eurozone that files under EU directives, exchanges information, audits every company and publishes its tax law — and the ordinary reasons people move here have very little to do with a rate table.

Violent crime is among the lowest in the European Union, which changes how a family experiences a city rather than how a spreadsheet reads. The country works in English, so contracts, banks, schools and the Registrar all speak the language your business already uses. The people who arrived before you came from everywhere, and a Czech founder in Limassol is one of many rather than an oddity. Business and real estate are both visibly growing. Regulation is proportionate and the state is genuinely open to people who want to do business without treating that as a suspicious ambition. There are beaches you can use in a Cyprus winter, and summers people fly across the world for. Groceries — meat, fruit, vegetables — are affordable in a way that surprises arrivals from northern Europe.

The specific Czech push factors are the ones this guide has already documented, and they are worth listing plainly rather than dramatically: a corporate rate that went up rather than down, from 19% to 21%; a 23% personal band whose threshold was cut from 48 times the average wage to 36; a 15% withholding on dividends stacked on top of company-level tax; social contributions at 24.8% employer and 7.1% employee, or 28% for the self-employed, capped only at 2,350,416 CZK; and a residency rule that punishes sloppy exit timing with a whole year of worldwide taxation. None of those is scandalous. Together they are why the question gets asked.

Can a Czech e-commerce brand run through Cyprus?

Yes, and the operational argument is stronger than the tax one. A Czech store already sells inside the single market, so the customs question that dominates non-EU relocations does not arise — what changes is where the company is taxed and how much manual work the books demand.

The mechanics that break bookkeeping for online sellers are the same in any EU country: OSS returns for distance sales to consumers in other member states, marketplace facilitator rules that make the platform the deemed supplier for some transactions and not others, payment-processor fees that arrive net so gross revenue has to be reconstructed, refunds and chargebacks landing in later periods than the sales they reverse, and multi-currency settlement. Doing that by hand across a Czech accounting package and a Shopify export is where most sellers lose their evenings.

Sumly's Shopify and WooCommerce plugins put the store's books on autopilot: orders, fees, refunds and payouts flow into the ledger with the right Cyprus VAT treatment, reconciled against the payment processor rather than typed in after the fact. For a brand that also sells beyond the EU, running the company from inside the single market is the structural half of the answer and the plugins are the operational half.

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 here are honest ranges rather than promises, because the Registrar, the banks and your own calendar all move at their own speed. The sequencing, though, is not optional — the Czech exit question has to be settled before the Cyprus arrival is designed around it.

The single most valuable line in that table is the first one. Everything else can be repaired; a year in which you accidentally clear 183 days cannot.

What mistakes do Czech founders make when moving to Cyprus?

Leaving in September. The most expensive mistake on this page, and the easiest to avoid. If the presence test is met, the whole calendar year is Czech, in both directions. Count first.

Assuming an exit tax exists and over-engineering around it. The opposite error, and it costs money in fees rather than in tax. There is no individual charge; structures built to dodge one are structures built for nothing.

Registering in Cyprus and directing from Czechia. Místo vedení is where the taxpayer is directed, not where the certificate was issued. A company run from a Prague desk is a Czech taxpayer.

Treating the IP Box as free. At an effective 3% it sits below half of Czech corporate tax, which matters the moment a Czech company is in the ownership chain. Claim it deliberately, with the substance file built alongside it.

Forgetting the notification on exempt income. Above 5,000,000 CZK, item by item, with escalating penalties. Exemption is not invisibility, and a departure year is exactly when a large exempt receipt tends to occur.

Believing the treaty will fix a management problem. Tie-breakers engage only when both states claim you, the burden of proof is on you, and a modern treaty as modified by the multilateral instrument may send a corporate tie-break to competent-authority agreement rather than resolving it automatically.

Keeping a Czech holding company out of habit. § 38fa reaches controlling companies, not individuals. The shape of the holding decides the exposure before any rate does.

Underestimating audit. Every Cyprus company is audited, regardless of size. Books kept casually during year one become expensive in month fourteen.

Two worked examples

Both use headline rates, full distribution of profit, and the assumption that you have genuinely become a Cyprus tax resident and stopped being a Czech one. They are the shape of the difference, not your result.

A consultancy distributing €150,000 of profit. In Czechia the company pays 21%, €31,500, and the €118,500 distributed meets the § 36 withholding at 15%, €17,775 — so about €100,725 reaches you, an all-in 32.85%. Through Cyprus the company pays 15%, €22,500, and a non-dom shareholder distributing €127,500 meets no special defence contribution at all, only GeSY at 2.65%, about €3,379 — leaving roughly €124,121, an all-in 17.25%. The annual difference is around €23,400, against which you have to set the cost of real substance in Cyprus and a family move. For a solo consultant with no employees and no intention of actually living on the island, that gap is not as large as it looks, because the structure would not survive the substance question.

A software company at €500,000 of profit with qualifying IP. In Czechia the company pays €105,000 at 21%, the €395,000 distributed meets 15% withholding of €59,250, and about €335,750 survives — the same all-in 32.85%, because both Czech rates are flat. In Cyprus without the IP Box, tax of €75,000 leaves €425,000 to distribute against a GeSY ceiling of €4,770, so roughly €420,230 reaches you. With qualifying income inside the IP Box at an effective 3%, company tax is about €15,000, €485,000 is distributed, GeSY is still capped at €4,770, and roughly €480,230 survives. That is the profile where the move becomes structural rather than incremental — and it is also the profile that has to leave Czechia properly rather than halfway, because an effective 3% is below half of Czech corporate tax and royalties are named in the CFC included-income list.

The calculator at the top of this page runs Czechia at the 21% corporate rate and the 15% dividend withholding, which is the correct combination for a founder taking profit out of an s.r.o. It does not model the 23% personal band, the social-insurance ceiling, or your § 23g position, because none of those can be assumed from the outside. That 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

Both work, and the question is only how much unfamiliar administration you want to carry while you are also moving a family and closing a Czech year. Doing it yourself means the Registrar's forms and fees, a registered office you arrange, VAT and VIES registration, provisional tax twice a year, an audit to survive and books good enough to survive it — on top of the exit-side file described above. The Sumly route has three published prices and no fourth: formation from €950 one-time, the bookkeeping software from €39 a month, and your own Sumly certified bookkeeper at €390 a month.

The software alone is enough to run and operate the company, whether you are sitting in Limassol or still in Brno. It invoices, books your documents by AI in double entry, pulls live open-banking feeds, prepares every VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate return box by box, produces live reports, gives you a document inbox with its own email address, captures receipts from your phone so they book themselves, handles multi-currency invoicing and team roles, and answers questions through the AI assistant. Payroll is €15 per employee per month, IP Box tracking €50 a month, and Projects €10 a month, alongside the e-commerce plugins.

Everything in the catalogue is available to every client: a virtual address with PO box, including digital scanning of your post into the dashboard wherever you are; nominee director and secretary where a structure genuinely calls for them; the Yellow Slip, which as a Czech citizen you qualify for; tax residency and non-dom at €750 per person; and the registrations bundle — VAT, social insurance, employees and UBO — filed correctly the first time. Audit runs through our Partner Auditors.

Each of those is an extra, scoped to your case. Tell us what you need in the meeting and you get one clear package-deal offer covering all of it, the IP Box application included where it belongs — it is complex expert work and exactly the thing that should be examined with you before anybody quotes a number. 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 a Czech founder that division is the whole design. The § 23g valuation, the residency exit and the notification duty belong to a Czech daňový poradce, and we will keep saying so. The Cyprus half — the company, the books, the returns, the Yellow Slip, the residency and the non-dom — arrives from one provider, in one dashboard, on four published prices. That is what makes Sumly the best choice for Czech founders creating a company in Cyprus and moving their business here.

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 is a claim we are content to defend in public, and the evidence is below.

Once you are on the island, two locally built alternatives will be recommended to you: Cybooks and Balabook. We meet their former customers every week — 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.

Five claims, stated without decoration: the best support there is; the best bookkeeping software; the best AI for bookkeeping; the best bookkeeper; the best prices — and every one of those done easily rather than laboriously. The detail is published in Sumly vs Cybooks and Sumly vs Balabook, and for the international tools a Czech company may already be running, Xero, QuickBooks and Sage.

One line on the IP Box bears repeating, and it carries double weight for a Czech reader: 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. Here it is also the relief that brings § 38fa into play if any Czech company remains above you, so the tracking and the substance story have to be built together from the first month. The application starts as a conversation, and the IP Box service page sets out what we do.

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 Czech founders actually ask

Frequently asked

Does Czechia charge an exit tax when I move to Cyprus as an individual?

No, and this is established rather than assumed. The General Financial Directorate's own information on the ATAD directive states that the provisions transposing it into the Income Tax Act — the interest limitation, the exit tax in § 23g, the CFC rule in § 38fa and the hybrid-mismatch rule — apply exclusively to corporate income tax payers and their permanent establishments, and do not apply to individuals. Moving your personal tax residence out of Czechia therefore does not trigger a deemed disposal of your shareholding. Very few departure stories inside the EU are this clean.

What is the 183-day trap for a Czech founder leaving mid-year?

Meeting the 183-day presence test makes you a Czech tax resident for the whole calendar year, not for the part of it you were here. The GFŘ methodological information issued in January 2026 says the effect runs backwards to 1 January and, on departure, forwards to 31 December as well. Every commenced day counts, so an afternoon flight out still counts as a day in. Leave in September after 190 days and your worldwide income is Czech-taxable for the entire year, whatever date your Cyprus residence starts.

Do Czech CFC rules catch a Cyprus company taxed at 15%?

Not on the rate alone. § 38fa bites only where the foreign tax is lower than half the tax that would have been assessed had the company been a Czech resident. With Czech corporate tax at 21%, that line sits near 10.5%, and Cyprus at 15% is clearly above it. Two caveats matter. The test measures the actual burden, not the headline, so a company paying an effective 3% under the IP Box falls below the line. And § 38fa reaches controlling companies, not individuals — if you hold the Cyprus shares personally, you are outside it.

Can Czechia treat my Cyprus company as a Czech taxpayer?

Yes, and this is the quietest way a structure fails. The Financial Administration states that a corporate taxpayer is Czech-resident if it has its sídlo or its místo vedení on Czech territory, and defines místo vedení as the address of the place from which the taxpayer is directed. Incorporating in Limassol changes the registry entry, not where decisions are taken. If the board still meets and decides in Prague, the Cyprus company is a Czech tax resident on worldwide profits.

Does moving my Czech company itself to Cyprus trigger tax?

Yes. § 23g ZDP treats a transfer of assets without a change of owner as a sale to yourself at the price unrelated parties would have agreed. One of its three triggers is expressly a reallocation connected with moving the company's tax residence out of Czechia. So migrating the company, and not only its assets, is a taxable event on latent gains. § 38zg lets you apply to pay the attributable portion in instalments over at most five years where the destination is an EU or EEA state, and Cyprus qualifies.

Is there a Czech wealth tax or inheritance tax to plan around?

No to all three. The Financial Administration's description of the tax system, current as at 1 January 2026, lists no net wealth tax, and the separate inheritance and gift taxes were abolished — inheritance is exempt income under § 4a ZDP. What survives is not a tax but a duty: exempt income above 5,000,000 CZK, assessed item by item, must be notified to the tax administrator, with penalties of 0.1%, 10% or 15% of the unreported amount depending on how late the notification is.

What tax does my Czech s.r.o. pay on dividends after I leave?

Nothing changes at the company level: its sídlo stays in Czechia, so it remains a Czech tax resident on worldwide profit at 21%. Profit shares are taxed by withholding under the special rate in § 36 ZDP at 15%, deducted by the payer. The punitive 35% rate for capital income does not apply to you, because it targets recipients who are neither EU or EEA residents nor residents of a treaty state, and Cyprus is both an EU member and a treaty partner under 120/2009 Sb. m. s.

Will a hotel or an Airbnb keep me Czech tax resident?

It can. The GFŘ residency information is explicit that a bydliště means a stálý byt in circumstances from which an intention to dwell there permanently can be inferred, that ownership is irrelevant, and that hotel or short-let accommodation can qualify. It even addresses the departing taxpayer directly: end the lease, have the move slip, bridge the gap in a hotel, and the hotel is treated as the bydliště. The two residency tests run in parallel and neither outranks the other.

Does Sumly advise on Czech tax?

No. Sumly builds and runs the Cyprus half: formation, books from the day you order, Cyprus VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate returns, the Yellow Slip, and the tax residency and non-dom application. This guide quotes Czech statute and GFŘ information with links so you can see the shape of the decision, but how § 23g values your company's assets belongs to a Czech daňový poradce. 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 — the 17-year exemption in detail
• The Cyprus 60-day rule — day counting and the residency certificate
• The Yellow Slip explained — the EU registration certificate, step by step
• 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 whole picture in one place

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 runs Czechia at the 21% corporate rate and the 15% § 36 dividend withholding, while the 23% personal band and any § 23g exposure are handled in prose above because neither can be assumed for an individual company. Czech figures are stated for 2026 except where a source carries its own date, and the crown threshold for the 23% band is arithmetic on two official figures rather than a published amount. 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.