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

Almost every page about forming a Cyprus company from Turkey opens with the 15% rate. This one opens with the fact that changes the arithmetic underneath it: there is no double tax treaty between Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus, and no social security agreement either. Turkey charges no exit tax, so the cost is not on the way out — it is in what you build.

Updated for 2026 Cyprus tax law and regulations.

One provider for the Cyprus company, the books and the filings, from Turkey

Sumly is the fully digitalized, one-stop way for a founder in Turkey to create a Republic of Cyprus company, move a business onto it, and then actually run the thing — from İstanbul, from Limassol, or from an airport in between. We register the company, open your books on the day you order, prepare every Cyprus return box by box, and handle the tax residency and non-dom application as a fixed-price service. One dashboard, one provider and four published prices, instead of a lawyer for the incorporation, a bookkeeper for the ledgers and nobody at all for the year that follows.

Most of the primary material behind this guide is published only in Turkish — the consolidated statutes on the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, the Revenue Administration's own taxpayer guides, the Social Security Institution's agreement register, and the Central Bank's price and exchange-rate releases. Every figure below links to the document itself rather than to somebody's summary of it, and every Turkish figure carries its tax year, because Turkish thresholds are re-set annually and a stale number is the fastest way to spot a page that has not been opened since last year.

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.

Is there a Turkey–Cyprus double tax treaty, and what changes without one?

There is not, and this is the first thing to settle because it silently rewrites every other answer on the page. Turkey has a large treaty network. The Republic of Cyprus is outside it, and so is the Turkish social security network.

The Turkish Revenue Administration publishes the list of double taxation agreements actually in force. Read it and you get 93 numbered counterpart states, with the neighbours you would expect — Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Malta all appear. Search the same document for Cyprus under any spelling and it returns nothing. There is no entry.

Four things follow, and each of them is load-bearing.

• No reduced withholding, in either direction. Turkish domestic rates apply in full. There is no treaty rate to claim on a dividend, an interest payment or a royalty, and no residence certificate that lowers one.
• No tie-breaker for you. If Turkey says you are still settled there and Cyprus says you are resident under its own test, nothing arbitrates. You can be inside both systems at once and neither has agreed to give way.
• No tie-breaker for the company. The residence article that normally rescues a company claimed by two states is simply absent. This is the sharp one, and it has its own section below.
• No permanent-establishment threshold and no mutual agreement procedure. Whether the Cyprus company has a Turkish taxable presence is decided purely by Turkish domestic law, which is a lower and less predictable bar than a treaty article, and a transfer-pricing dispute has no bilateral route to a corresponding adjustment.

Say this plainly, because the marketing does not. Cyprus formation providers advertise the island's treaty network as a headline benefit — you will see "60+ treaties" and "65+ treaties" on the same pages a Turkish founder lands on. That network is real, and it does not include the reader's own country. A structure built on the assumption that a Turkey–Cyprus treaty exists is built on nothing.

None of this makes the move impossible, and it is not a reason to stay. It means the two sides are governed by two sets of domestic rules that were not written to fit together, so the parts you control — where the company is genuinely managed, how the money moves, what the paperwork shows — carry more weight than they would in a treaty country. That is a project, not an obstacle.

Is there a Turkey–Cyprus social security agreement?

No, and the same verification method settles it. The Social Security Institution publishes its own register of social security agreements, and that register carries 35 agreements, including Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy, Croatia, Czechia, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland. The Republic of Cyprus does not appear on it.

The practical consequence is narrow and concrete. There is no totalisation of insurance periods between the two systems, so Turkish contribution history and Cypriot contribution history do not aggregate to reach a qualifying threshold on either side. There is no posting or certificate-of-coverage mechanism of the kind that exists with Germany or the Netherlands. A founder who moves is freezing one record where it stands and opening a second one from zero.

Two adjacent questions come up constantly and we are not going to answer them from memory. Whether you can pay to have periods spent abroad counted toward a Turkish pension, and whether you continue to owe premiums as a partner in a Turkish company while living abroad, both turn on rules outside the statutes cited here. Put them to SGK directly, in writing, before you leave — the answers are cheap to obtain in advance and expensive to discover late.

Does Turkey charge an exit tax when you move to Cyprus?

No. There is no deemed disposal of your shares on emigration, no settlement of unrealised gains, and no charge on a company that moves assets or residence abroad. Turkey is not bound by the EU anti-tax-avoidance directive, and it has not legislated an equivalent of its own.

Because this is a negative, it is worth saying how it was established rather than asserting it. A full-text search of the complete consolidated Income Tax Law No. 193 and the complete consolidated Corporate Tax Law No. 5520 for the Turkish terms for a departure charge returns no occurrences in either statute. There is no provision to point at because there is no provision.

Two things get mistaken for one, and both are worth naming so you can stop worrying about them separately.

The first is the small fixed levy paid by individuals leaving the country on a Turkish passport. It is a travel duty, it is charged per departure, and it has nothing to do with gains or wealth. It has been increased more than once, so check the current amount at the point of payment rather than trusting a figure on a blog; we deliberately do not publish one here.

The second is the final return, which is a filing obligation rather than a charge, and which has a deadline most people miss.

What actually creates a cost on the way out is therefore none of the things founders fear. It is the ordinary tax on any realisation you choose to do before you go, the controlled foreign company rules, and the residence of the new company. Those three have the next three sections.

When does Turkish tax residency actually end for a founder?

It ends when you stop being "settled in Turkey" under the statute — and the definition is shorter, blunter and more mechanical than most people expect, with one clause that runs in the opposite direction to everything else.

Article 3 of the Income Tax Law charges worldwide income on two categories of person. The first is those settled in Turkey. Article 4 defines that as either having a domicile in Turkey within the meaning of the Civil Code, or residing continuously in Turkey for more than six months in a calendar year, with the statute adding expressly that temporary absences do not break the period.

Two details get misread. The six-month test runs inside a calendar year, not on a rolling twelve months, so a departure in July does not undo a residence already established by June. And short trips out do not reset the clock — the statute closes that door in terms. If you are planning the year of departure, plan it from January.

Article 5 lists people who are not treated as settled despite a stay over six months: foreigners who come for a specific and temporary assignment, for study, treatment, rest or travel, and people detained by circumstances beyond their control. Read it once and then set it aside, because it is a carve-out for foreigners arriving, not a relief for a Turkish founder leaving.

The administrative side — closing the individual file at the tax office, the forms, the sequencing — is not written into the statutes above, and we are not going to invent a procedure for it. Ask your vergi dairesi what it wants and get the answer in writing.

Can Turkey treat your Cyprus company as a Turkish company?

Yes, and this is the largest live risk in the whole move. It is also the point where the missing treaty stops being a talking point and starts costing money.

Turkish corporate residence runs on two alternative connecting factors, and either one is enough. A corporation is a full taxpayer — taxed on its entire income, earned inside and outside Turkey — if either its legal seat or its business seat is in Turkey. Limited liability applies only where both are outside. The legal seat is the one named in the articles. The business seat, iş merkezi, is defined as the centre where transactions are, in fact, concentrated and managed from a business standpoint.

Read the words "in fact" carefully, because they carry the whole provision. Registering in Nicosia fixes the legal seat and nothing else. If the decisions are taken in Turkey, the contracts negotiated and concluded there, the staff and the operations directed from there, then the business seat is in Turkey, the Cyprus company is a Turkish full taxpayer, and Turkey taxes its worldwide profit at the corporate rate. The certificate of incorporation does not argue back.

Now add the missing treaty. In a treaty country, a company claimed by two states invokes the residence article, and if it loses it gets relief and access to a mutual agreement procedure. Here there is no article and no procedure. A Cyprus company found to have its business seat in Turkey is a Turkish resident on worldwide income while remaining Cyprus-resident under Cypriot law, and the only thing standing between that and genuine double taxation is whatever unilateral credit each side happens to give. That is the honest, entirely non-political reason substance in Cyprus matters more for a Turkish founder than for a German one.

What protects you is unglamorous and cheap: decisions taken and minuted in Cyprus, a board that genuinely decides rather than signing what it is sent, material spending and strategy approved on the island, contracts concluded there, and records that match the story rather than contradicting it. Our guide to nominee directors in Cyprus sets out where a nominee helps and, more usefully, where a nominee does nothing at all.

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

Not on the headline rate — but "Cyprus is 15%, so the CFC rules never apply" is the single most confidently wrong sentence in this market, and it is wrong for a reason worth understanding.

Article 7 of the Corporate Tax Law taxes the profit of a controlled foreign company in Turkey whether or not it is distributed, but only where control is present and three conditions are met together. Control means that resident individuals and resident corporations, directly or indirectly, separately or jointly, hold at least 50% of the capital, the dividend rights or the voting rights. Note two things about that: it aggregates individuals with companies and direct holdings with indirect ones, and the ratio taken is the highest held at any date during the accounting period, so selling down before year-end does not help.

The third condition is a de minimis expressed in a currency denomination retired in 2009 and, on the face of the consolidated text, never uprated. We do not publish the number, because we could not verify whether any later instrument moved it and because quoting it would imply it is a shelter. Treat it as met.

The second condition is where the reasoning has to be exact. It is not a comparison of headline rates. The statute measures the total tax burden borne on commercial balance sheet profit, computed the way the participation exemption computes it: taxes on income divided by distributable corporate income plus accrued tax. That is an effective rate on book profit. A Cyprus company can post a 15% statutory rate and still land under 10% effective wherever exemptions and deductions shrink the taxable base against the book figure — a large slice of exempt participation income or dividends will do it, and so will a substantial regime deduction. The company most likely to be in that position is a holding-type company earning mostly passive income, which is precisely the profile the first condition is looking for.

There is a second line drawn just above the first, and the two together form a pincer. Turkey's participation exemption lets a Turkish company take dividends from a foreign subsidiary free of corporate tax where it holds at least 10% of paid-in capital continuously for at least one year, the subsidiary bears a tax burden of at least 15% in its own country, and the income is transferred to Turkey by the corporate tax return deadline. Below 10% effective and the CFC charge bites; below 15% effective and the exemption is lost. Cyprus's headline rate sits exactly on the upper line, so the effective computation decides both questions and a small base reduction can break the exemption.

There is a cleaner route for a founder who owns the company outright. Where a Turkish company holds at least 50% of the foreign subsidiary's paid-in capital and repatriates the dividend by the corporate tax return deadline, a 50% exemption applies without the other conditions — no one-year holding period, no 15% burden test. The individual-level equivalent works the same way: half of a dividend received by a Turkish-resident individual from a foreign company is exempt from income tax where the individual holds at least 50% of the paid-in capital and the dividend is transferred to Turkey by the filing deadline for that year's return.

None of this produces an outcome for your company, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it produces is the right question: not "what is the Cyprus rate", but "what is this company's effective burden on its book profit, and how much of its revenue is passive". Put that question to a Turkish adviser with your actual accounts in front of you.

What does a Turkish company and its owner actually pay in 2026?

More than the headline suggests, because there are now two floors under the corporate rate and the dividend rate moved without much of the market noticing.

The general corporate rate is 25%, rising to 30% for banks, financial leasing, factoring and financing companies, electronic payment and e-money institutions, authorised FX bureaux, asset management companies, capital markets institutions, and insurance, reinsurance and pension companies. Two reductions cut against it, applied as percentage-point reductions on the qualifying slice of the base rather than on the whole profit: a five-point reduction for export activity, taking that income to 20%, and a one-point reduction for manufacturing, taking it to 24%. A Turkish exporter is therefore not at 25% on export income, and any comparison against Cyprus that pretends otherwise is not honest.

Under that sits the domestic minimum corporate tax, which is in force and which is the change most published comparisons have not absorbed. Corporate tax computed in the ordinary way cannot be less than 10% of corporate income before deductions and exemptions, a rule added by Law No. 7524 of 28 July 2024 and first applying to income earned in 2025. The base is commercial balance sheet profit plus non-deductible expenses, less the exemptions specifically carved out of it, and it is computed at the advance-tax stages too. Free zone income, technology development zone income and R&D and design deductions are among the carve-outs, so those incentives are not clawed back by it. Newly established companies are outside the minimum tax for three accounting periods from the period activity begins — but a company formed by merger, transfer, type change or division does not count as newly established.

A third floor exists and will not touch you. Turkey has enacted a global minimum top-up tax at 15%, scoped to groups whose ultimate parent has consolidated revenue above the lira equivalent of EUR 750 million in at least two of the four preceding periods. It is mentioned here only so that nobody has to wonder.

Then the owner takes the money out, and this is where a lot of published content is simply out of date. Dividend withholding is 15%, applied from 22 December 2024 by Presidential Decision No. 9286. The same 15% applies under article 30 of the Corporate Tax Law to dividends paid by a resident company to a non-resident company. If you are reading a page that still says 10%, you are reading a page written before the end of 2024. Half of a dividend from a resident company is exempt at the individual level and the remainder is declared where taxable income exceeds a threshold set at 330,000 TL for 2025 income declared in 2026, with the withholding fully creditable and any excess refundable.

Personal income runs a five-band tariff. These are the 2026 figures, uprated by the 2025 revaluation rate of 25.49%, and they move every single year:

The tariff is set for 2026 by General Communiqué No. 332, published in the Resmî Gazete of 31 December 2025. Notice the split from the third band onward: a founder's dividend and business income runs the non-wage column, so it reaches 27% at 400,000 TL and 35% at 1,000,000 TL — earlier than salary income does.

Put the corporate and the shareholder layer together at headline rates and the combined charge on distributed profit is 36.25% before the individual's own tariff does anything, because the 15% withholding falls on what is left after a 25% corporate charge.

Will Turkey tax your shares, your wealth or your estate?

There is no net wealth tax, there is a capital gains regime with a relief that does not extend to a Cyprus company, and there is an inheritance and gift tax that most founders have never priced.

No net wealth tax. Verified the same way as the exit tax: a full-text search of both consolidated codes for the Turkish term returns nothing in either. Say it precisely though, because Turkey does levy asset-specific taxes that are not wealth taxes — property tax, motor vehicles tax, and the inheritance and gift tax below. And the fact that Turkish treaties are titled as covering taxes on income and on capital is standard OECD wording, not evidence of a wealth tax.

Capital gains on shares, with a trap. Gains on disposing of securities are taxable as value-increase gains, but the statute carves out share certificates of full-taxpayer corporations held for more than two years. Two limits matter to you. The relief is written for issued share certificates, so a limited şirket participation that never issued any does not obviously get it. And it is a relief for shares in resident corporations, so shares in a Cyprus company do not qualify for it at all. The annual exemption of 150,000 TL for 2026 expressly does not apply to gains from securities. Immovable property is taxable if disposed of within five years of acquisition.

Inheritance and gift tax. Turkey does levy one, and the gift column is steep. The bands below are the amounts applicable from 1 January 2026:

The 2026 exemptions were set by General Communiqué No. 57: 2,907,136 TL per descendant or spouse where there are descendants, 5,817,845 TL for a spouse where there are none, and 66,935 TL for gratuitous transfers. Gifts between parents, spouses and children are taxed at half the gift column.

On the other side there is nothing to compare against: Cyprus charges neither a net wealth tax nor an inheritance tax. That is not a rate difference; it is a whole column that disappears.

Can you legally move the money, and who gets told?

You can, it is free, and two ministries hear about it within a month. This is the section competitors skip entirely, and it is the one that decides whether the first ninety days go smoothly.

Decree No. 32 on the Protection of the Value of Turkish Currency is the governing instrument, and its capital-export article is permissive. Turkish residents are free to export capital — cash capital through banks, capital in kind under customs rules — for the purpose of establishing a company abroad, participating in a partnership or opening a branch. No permission, no application, no prohibition, and nothing in the Decree that singles out any destination.

The reporting is automatic and it is not optional. Banks and customs administrations must report residents who export capital for foreign investment or commercial activity to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and to the Ministry of Trade within 30 days of each transaction. Separately, residents and non-residents may transfer foreign exchange abroad through banks freely, but banks report transfers exceeding USD 50,000 or its equivalent, other than import, export and invisible transactions, within 30 days. Taking cash foreign exchange above EUR 10,000 out of the country is done under principles set by the Ministry.

So the move is lawful and it is visible. Founders who assume that capitalising a foreign company is a private act are wrong: their own bank tells the state, by rule, on a fixed clock. That is not a reason to hesitate. It is a reason to have the paperwork consistent, because the file exists whether or not you thought about it.

One more thing belongs here, stated as a limit rather than as a claim. We could not document, on any official source in either direction, a published rule about how Turkish banks handle payments and documents to and from the Republic of Cyprus. We are not going to assert that a restriction exists, and we are not going to reassure you that none does. Ask your own bank how it handles the flows you need, in advance, and get the answer from the bank rather than from a forum.

What happens to your existing A.Ş. or Ltd. Şti.?

It stays where it is, whatever you decide, because Turkey does not offer outbound redomiciliation. A Turkish company cannot move its seat to Cyprus and continue as the same legal person. Anyone offering to "migrate" it is describing something else. That leaves three real routes.

Keep it as a Turkish subsidiary. It remains a full taxpayer at 25%, under the 10% minimum tax, and dividends up to a Cyprus parent bear the 15% withholding described above. This is the point where the missing treaty costs actual money, and it belongs in the arithmetic rather than in a footnote: in a treaty country that 15% would usually be reduced, and here it is not.

Liquidate. The liquidation period replaces the accounting period for tax, and it begins on the date the resolution to enter liquidation is registered and ends on the date the closing resolution is registered, with the stretch to each calendar year-end counting as an independent period. The final return is filed within 30 days of the date liquidation is concluded, with a schedule of everything distributed to shareholders attached. Two features are genuinely favourable and worth knowing: if the liquidation closes at a loss, the result is corrected back through the earlier liquidation periods and tax overpaid in them is refunded; and if the liquidation is abandoned, the returns already filed stand in place of normal ones. One is not: for a liquidation lasting more than a year, the assessment limitation period starts from the year following completion, which lengthens the audit window. And the distribution of liquidation proceeds is still a distribution, so the 15% withholding applies to it.

Restructure. Transferring the shares into a Cyprus holding company, or moving assets across, engages transfer pricing and the disguised profit distribution rules, and a share transfer is a disposal at the individual level under the capital gains rules above. The tax-neutral merger and division reliefs in the Corporate Tax Law are framed around resident corporations, and we are not going to tell you a Cyprus holding insertion is neutral. If this is the route you want, it is the one that needs a Turkish adviser before anything is signed, not after.

For most founders the honest answer is the same as it is almost everywhere: build fresh in Cyprus, and decide the fate of the Turkish company on its own facts and its own timetable rather than as a side effect.

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 Turkish founder?

Flat, and short enough to hold in your head. A Cyprus limited company pays 15% from tax year 2026 on taxable profit — one rate, no bands, no minimum-tax floor sitting under it, the same on €50,000 of profit as on €5 million. Income qualifying under the IP Box is taxed at an effective 3% from tax year 2026.

Then the owner takes the money out, and the gap opens. Non-dom status, which almost every arriving founder qualifies for, means a Cyprus tax resident who is not domiciled here owes no Special Defence Contribution on dividends across 17 years of Cyprus residence, and dividends sit outside personal income tax entirely. What remains is the health contribution at 2.65% on income up to €180,000 a year — a hard ceiling of €4,770, whatever the distribution. A domiciled shareholder pays 5% on dividends from 2026 profits instead, which is why the non-dom registration is not an optional extra.

Salary, if you take one, runs a progressive scale from 0% to €22,000 rising to 35% above €72,000. On the VAT side the registration line sits at €15,600 of taxable turnover and the standard rate is 19%. There is no net wealth tax and no inheritance tax. The full picture is in Cyprus tax benefits for foreigners and what changed in the 2026 reform.

How does a Turkish founder become Cyprus tax resident?

Usually through the 60-day rule, which the 2026 reform made easier rather than harder. The familiar route is 183 days a year on the island. The alternative asks for far fewer days and rather more commitment on the ground, which suits a founder who still travels.

From tax year 2026 the rule has four conditions, after the old fifth was removed from the 60-day rule: at least 60 days in Cyprus in the tax year; no more than 183 days in any other single state; a business, employment or office in a Cyprus tax-resident person held throughout the year; and a permanent home in Cyprus, owned or rented. The condition that was dropped was "not tax resident anywhere else", and for a Turkish founder the change is worth understanding precisely. Cyprus no longer disqualifies you because another state also claims you. Turkey, however, has no treaty with Cyprus, so a competing Turkish claim does not resolve itself under an agreement — it resolves under the residence rules of each country, which is why the earlier section on ending Turkish residence matters as much as this one.

A directorship of your own Cyprus company can be the office the third condition asks for, which is why forming the company and establishing residency are normally one project rather than two. The mechanics are in the Cyprus 60-day rule and non-dom status.

On immigration status, we will be exact rather than encouraging. The Yellow Slip is a registration certificate for citizens of European Union member states exercising free movement rights. That is European Union law, not a Sumly policy, and Turkish citizens are outside it. We promise nothing about it. The routes that do apply to third-country nationals are the ones we work with, and we bring in immigration specialists where a particular file needs them — the company formation itself does not depend on any of it.

Why do people choose Cyprus over other tax havens?

Because it is somewhere people actually want to live, which is not true of most of the alternatives on the list. The rate is what makes a founder open the tab; it is very rarely what makes them stay after the first year.

Cyprus is an English-speaking country in every way a business cares about — banking, professional services, contracts and courts all run in English, which removes the largest single friction of moving anywhere else in the European Union. Violent crime is among the lowest in the EU. People from every part of the world are here already, so no newcomer is the only foreigner at the table. Business and property are both running hot, and the state stays open to people who want to trade rather than wrapping the whole thing in regulation. Groceries — meat, fruit and vegetables — are genuinely affordable. And the beaches are not a footnote: a Cyprus winter still leaves you able to go to the beach, and the summers are what people fly across the world for. For a founder coming from Turkey there is also the plain geography of it, and a Mediterranean daily rhythm that needs no adjustment at all.

The push side we will state as measured facts with their dates, and then stop. Consumer price inflation stood at 31.75% year on year in July 2026, with producer prices at 27.83%, and it was 30.89% in December 2025. The euro selling rate moved from 15.2616 lira on 3 January 2022 to 56.0853 lira on 28 August 2026. The policy rate is 37.00% on the one-week repo. Those are the figures. We are not going to characterise policy, forecast, or use the word crisis — a Turkish reader lives this and does not need it explained. The narrow business point is this: revenue and pricing denominated on that path carry a planning problem that euro denomination removes, and the article 4(g) restriction above blocks the obvious domestic workaround of simply re-pricing contracts between residents in euro.

The second push factor is the pace of change itself, and it is documentable straight from the amendment footnotes. Inside the Corporate Tax Law alone: Law 7524 of 2024 introduced both the domestic minimum tax and the entire local and global top-up regime in one instrument; Law 7491 of 2023 rewrote the foreign participation exemption; Presidential Decision 9286 raised dividend withholding by half; and Law 7582 of May 2026 amended the minimum tax article again, four months ago. Meanwhile every monetary threshold in the income tax tariff and the inheritance brackets is re-set annually by the revaluation rate. A number that was correct last year is not evidence of anything this year.

And a fairness note, because a guide that pretends Turkey offers nothing deserves to be distrusted. Income earned exclusively from software, design and R&D activity in a technology development zone is exempt from income and corporate tax until 31 December 2028, with substantial payroll relief alongside it, and free zone production income sold abroad is exempt on an open-ended basis, with the wage exemption conditional on exporting at least 85% of FOB value. Zero beats 15%. If your business fits inside a technopark, that is a real reason not to move, and we would rather say so than have you find out later. The honest Cyprus case is not that it beats zero — it is that the technopark exemption is activity-restricted, location-restricted and dated to the end of 2028, that free zone relief still leaves the dividend withholding intact, and that neither addresses currency or EU market access. Cyprus is the durable answer, not the cheapest possible one.

Can a Turkish e-commerce brand sell into the EU through Cyprus?

Yes, and for a Turkish seller the strongest argument is not the one the market repeats. It is not the EUR 10,000 distance-selling threshold, which mostly does not apply to you. It is the intermediary.

Here is the mechanism. A supplier established outside the European Union may use the Import One Stop Shop directly, without an intermediary, only if it is established in a third country with which the EU has concluded a VAT mutual assistance agreement. The European Commission's own guidance for the e-commerce rules states that such an agreement has been concluded with only Norway, and the Commission's earlier one-stop-shop guide says the same. Turkey is not in that arrangement.

So a Turkish-established seller must act through an EU-established intermediary. Three consequences follow, and all three cost real money today. The intermediary is jointly liable for the VAT, which is why they charge for the risk and why they are selective about who they take. The registration is made in the Member State where the intermediary is established, so the seller does not choose its own state of registration. And the arrangement is a dependency: change intermediary and the registration moves with them.

A Cyprus company removes the requirement outright. An EU-established supplier registers for the import scheme directly in its own Member State of establishment and may appoint an intermediary rather than having to. It also removes the exposure to a fiscal-representative requirement that some Member States impose on non-established taxable persons, and it makes the Union scheme an establishment-based route rather than a tolerated one.

Two further points, because a guide published now is wrong within months without them. The customs duty relief for consignments up to EUR 150 was abolished on 1 July 2026 and replaced, on a temporary basis, by a fixed customs duty of EUR 3 per item under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, running to 30 June 2028. Under the import scheme there is no VAT on that EUR 3 at import, but where it is charged to the consumer at the moment of sale it forms part of the consideration and enters the VAT taxable amount. And the VAT in the Digital Age package, Council Directive (EU) 2025/516, brings single VAT registration changes that bite from 1 January 2027 with more from mid-2028.

Two honest caveats. The EUR 10,000 threshold that lets a small EU seller charge home-country VAT does not apply to distance sales of imported goods at all, and it stops applying once you are established in more than one Member State — so if the stock actually ships from Turkey, incorporating in Cyprus does not unlock it for that flow. And the pin-point article references behind the EU rules above come from Commission guidance that states expressly that it is not legally binding; we cite the guidance rather than pretending to a statutory citation we did not read.

The bookkeeping is where a store usually breaks, because it throws off thousands of small transactions in several currencies with a VAT treatment that changes by customer type and country. Sumly's Shopify and WooCommerce plugins pull orders, refunds, fees and payouts into the books with the right Cyprus VAT codes, so the return is assembled out of the sales rather than reconstructed from an export the week it falls due.

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 depend on your own facts and on how quickly the Turkish side can be tidied, so read this as shape rather than schedule. The one fixed structure is the Turkish calendar: the fifteen-day pre-departure return, and the six-month residence test that is measured inside a calendar year.

• Before anything — and this is where we start. We put a Turkish adviser from our network on the departure year and on the fate of the existing company. They ask SGK, in writing, about your record and about premium liability from abroad, and we ask your bank how it handles the flows you will need.
• Month 1. We form the Cyprus company, ordered online, with your books open the day you order, and start the residence paperwork. The capital moves through a bank and we expect the 30-day report to happen — we track it rather than leaving it to chance.
• Months 1–3. We register for Cyprus VAT and, where relevant, social insurance, employees and the UBO filing, and get banking and EU payments moving. You take up the directorship that anchors the 60-day rule.
• Months 3–6. You rent or buy the permanent home the 60-day rule requires, and we tell you what qualifies. You move real decision-making to Cyprus and we minute it from the first board meeting rather than backfilling later. Your Turkish adviser times the pre-departure return so it lands inside its fifteen-day window.
• Month 12 onward. Once you are through a first clean calendar year, we apply for the tax residency certificate and the non-dom registration. Then we keep the board records and the day counts genuine, because the business-seat question is answered by the record, not by the certificate.

What mistakes do Turkish founders actually make?

The expensive ones are ordinary, and most of them are timing.

Leaving in the second half of the year after more than six months in Turkey, and being surprised that the departure did not end residence for that year. Assuming short trips out reset the six-month clock. Missing the fifteen-day pre-departure return because the March deadline was the only one anybody mentioned. Moving personally while the business stays headquartered in Turkey, and staying inside worldwide liability under the very provision they thought was a relief. Registering in Cyprus and continuing to run everything from Turkey, then discovering that a business seat is decided on facts and that there is no treaty to argue under. Reading "Cyprus is 15%, so the CFC rules cannot apply" and taking it as a conclusion rather than as a computation nobody has done. Building a plan around treaty withholding relief that does not exist. Publishing or relying on a 10% dividend withholding figure that changed at the end of 2024. And re-pricing contracts with Turkish staff or contractors in euro, straight into the article 4(g) restriction.

Almost all of them share one root: treating the move as a registration rather than as two domestic systems that never agreed on how to hand over.

Two worked examples

A consultancy distributing €250,000 of profit. In Cyprus the company pays 15%, or €37,500, leaving €212,500. A non-dom shareholder pays no Special Defence Contribution and no personal income tax on the dividend, and the health contribution is capped, so the charge is €4,770 and roughly €207,730 arrives. Run the same profit through a Turkish company at headline rates and the corporate charge is 25%, with the 15% withholding falling on what is left — 36.25% of pre-tax profit gone before the shareholder's own tariff, where a founder's non-wage income reaches 35% above 1,000,000 TL. The difference on one year is large. The calculator at the top of this page compounds it, because each year's saving is invested and Cyprus does not tax the return.

A software company at €600,000 of profit with qualifying intellectual property. If the income qualifies under the IP Box, the effective rate on that slice is 3% rather than 15%, and the dividend still meets only the capped health contribution. This is the profile where the gap stops being incremental and becomes structural. It is also the profile with the closest domestic competition: a technopark exemption at 0% until the end of 2028 genuinely beats it on rate. The comparison to make is not one year against one year, but a dated exemption against a durable regime with EU market access and euro revenue attached — and whether your income qualifies for either is a computation, not a headline. The IP Box application is complex expert work and it starts as a conversation.

Both examples assume full distribution at headline rates. Your own reliefs, timing and the effective-burden computation change the answer, which is what a 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 routes are real and we sell both. Doing it yourself means the Registrar's forms and fees, a registered office you arrange, VAT and VIES registration, provisional tax twice a year, annual statements and books that will stand up to an auditor — on top of a two-country move you are already running. Sumly's route is four published prices: formation from €950 one-time, the software from €39 a month, your own Sumly certified bookkeeper at €390 a month, and tax residency with non-dom at €750 per person.

The software alone runs the company from either country: invoicing, AI double-entry bookkeeping that books your documents itself, 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.

And every one of these is offered to everyone: a virtual address with a PO box, with your mail scanned and delivered into the dashboard wherever you are that month; nominee director and secretary where a structure genuinely calls for them; all the registrations — VAT, social insurance, employees and UBO; audit through Partner Auditors; banking and EU payments sorted with you, though never a promise about a particular bank's decision; and the Yellow Slip for EU citizens, which is not the Turkish route.

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, since it is complex expert work and exactly the kind of thing that should be looked at with you before anybody quotes a number. No hourly billing.

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 founder in Turkey that division of labour is the whole point. The Turkish side of this decision needs a Turkish adviser, and we will say so every time rather than bluffing. Everything on the Cyprus side of the line — incorporation, ledgers, returns, residency — arrives from one provider, in one dashboard, at four prices you can read before you buy. That is what makes Sumly the best choice for Turkish 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 is a sentence we are happy to defend anywhere, and the evidence sits underneath it.

The two Cyprus-built alternatives a founder arriving from Turkey will be shown are 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.

Put plainly, and in one line: the best support, the best bookkeeping software, the best AI for bookkeeping, the best bookkeeper, the best prices, and everything done easily. The detail is published rather than asserted: Sumly vs Cybooks, Sumly vs Balabook, and for the international tools you may already run, Xero, QuickBooks and Sage.

On the IP Box specifically, one line 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. The application starts as a conversation, which is another reason the meeting comes before the quote.

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 Turkish founders actually ask

Frequently asked

Is there a double tax treaty between Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus?

No. The Turkish Revenue Administration publishes the list of double taxation agreements in force. It runs to 93 counterpart states, and the Republic of Cyprus is not one of them, while Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Malta all are. That means no reduced withholding in either direction, no residence tie-breaker for you or for your company, no treaty permanent-establishment threshold, and no mutual agreement procedure. It does not make the move impossible. It makes it a question of two sets of domestic rules rather than one agreed rulebook, which changes how you build the Cyprus side.

Does Turkey charge an exit tax when you move to Cyprus?

No. There is no deemed disposal on emigration for an individual and no charge on moving assets or residence abroad for a company. A full-text search of the consolidated Income Tax Law No. 193 and Corporate Tax Law No. 5520 finds no departure charge in either. Two things get mistaken for one: the small fixed travel levy paid by individuals leaving the country, which is not a tax on gains or wealth, and the final return that has to be filed in the fifteen days before you go, which is a deadline rather than a charge.

Do Turkish CFC rules catch a Cyprus company because Cyprus is at 15%?

Not on the headline rate, but the headline rate is not the test. Article 7 of the Corporate Tax Law needs three conditions together: control of at least half the capital, dividend rights or votes; at least a quarter of gross revenue being passive; and an effective tax burden of less than 10% measured on commercial balance sheet profit. Cyprus at 15% clears the 10% line on the face of it. A company whose book profit is largely exempt income can still fall below 10% effective, and that is exactly the holding-company profile the first condition describes.

Can a Cyprus company still be taxed as a Turkish company?

Yes, if it is run from Turkey. A corporation is a Turkish full taxpayer if either its legal seat or its business seat is in Turkey, and the business seat is defined as the centre where transactions are in fact concentrated and managed. Registering in Cyprus fixes only the legal seat. Because there is no treaty between the two states, there is also no tie-breaker article to resolve a company claimed by both — which is why substance in Cyprus matters more here than it would in a treaty country.

Can you legally move money out of Turkey to capitalise a Cyprus company?

Yes. Decree No. 32 makes it free for Turkish residents to export capital in order to establish a company abroad, take a partnership share or open a branch. There is no permission requirement and no prohibition. There is reporting: banks and customs administrations must notify the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and the Ministry of Trade within 30 days of each such transaction, and banks report transfers above USD 50,000 within the same window. The move is lawful and it is visible.

Does Turkish social security follow you to Cyprus?

No, and nothing coordinates the two systems. The Social Security Institution lists 35 social security agreements in force, and the Republic of Cyprus is not among them, although Germany, the Netherlands and a dozen other EU states are. There is no totalisation of insurance periods and no certificate-of-coverage mechanism. Your Turkish record freezes where it stands and a separate Cypriot record begins. What you can do about periods spent abroad is a question to put to SGK directly, because the answer turns on rules we are not going to summarise second-hand.

What happens to an existing A.Ş. or Ltd. Şti.?

It cannot migrate. Turkey does not offer outbound redomiciliation, so a Turkish company cannot move its seat to Cyprus and remain the same legal person. The realistic choices are to keep it as a Turkish taxpayer at 25%, to liquidate it under article 17 of the Corporate Tax Law, or to restructure. Keeping it has a price the missing treaty makes visible: dividends up to a Cyprus parent bear 15% Turkish withholding with no treaty rate to reduce it.

Why does a Turkish e-commerce seller need an EU company for IOSS?

Because a seller established outside the EU may use the Import One Stop Shop directly only if its country has concluded a VAT mutual assistance agreement with the EU, and the European Commission's own guidance says one country qualifies: Norway. A Turkish-established seller therefore has to appoint an EU-established intermediary who is jointly liable for the VAT, and registers in the Member State where that intermediary sits rather than one of its own choosing. A Cyprus company removes the requirement outright.

Does Sumly advise on Turkish tax?

No. Sumly builds and runs the Cyprus side: the company, the books from day zero, Cyprus VAT, VIES, provisional and corporate returns, and the tax residency and non-dom application. This guide quotes Turkey's own published law and its tax administration's own guides so you can see the shape of the decision, but how those rules land on your facts belongs with a Turkish adviser. Where a case needs one, we connect you with expert lawyers from our network, and the first step either way is a meeting.

Keep reading

• Every country's route to Cyprus — the departure guide for wherever you are now
• Company formation for non-residents — the route that applies outside the EU
• How to register a company in Cyprus and what it costs
• Cyprus non-dom status — the 17-year exemption in detail
• The Cyprus 60-day rule — day counting and the residency certificate
• What changed in the 2026 Cyprus tax reform

The calculator on this page uses headline rates, an assumed 10% annual return and full distribution of profit, so it shows the shape of a difference rather than your own return. Turkish figures are stated for tax year 2026 unless the text names another year, and Cyprus figures apply from tax year 2026. Turkish thresholds are re-set annually, so check the year before you rely on one. All Sumly prices exclude VAT, and government expenses on a formation are invoiced separately once your application is approved.