How much does it cost to form a company in Cyprus?

What are the Registrar of Companies fees to form a Cyprus company?

The Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property publishes fixed fees, and they are lower than most quotes suggest. Name approval costs €10 for each proposed name, or €30 if you want it accelerated. Incorporation itself costs €165 for the HE1, HE2 and HE3 bundle, rising to €235 for a company without share capital, with a further €100 to accelerate. Having the incorporation certificates issued at registration costs €120 if you supply a copy of the memorandum and articles, or €130 if you do not, again plus €100 to accelerate. A file of certified translations adds €160, and public companies also file form HE5 for €20.

How much does it cost to form a company in Cyprus in total?

The statutory floor is €175: €10 for name approval plus €165 to incorporate. Take the incorporation certificates as well and it is €295, or €515 with every step accelerated. Those Registrar fees are only part of the bill, because a practising Cyprus advocate must draft the memorandum and articles of association. Market rates for a straightforward single-shareholder private company put that professional element at roughly €900 to €3,500, so a realistic first-year budget is €1,500 to €4,000. This page answers what formation costs at the counter; our five-year cost breakdown models the full cost of owning the company, and our registration FAQ covers the filing procedure itself.

What does the professional fee cover and why does it vary?

A formation quote is mostly professional time, not government fees. It typically covers drafting the memorandum and articles, which is reserved work, running the name search, preparing and swearing form HE1, filing HE2 and HE3, and the first beneficial ownership entry. Many providers bundle a registered office and company secretary for the first year, which is why headline prices differ so widely. As a market range rather than a quotation, expect roughly €900 to €3,500 for the legal work. Complexity is the main driver: multi-tier or non-resident shareholder structures take longer, certified translations add €160 at the Registrar, and nominee arrangements are a separate annual cost of roughly €3,000 to €5,000.

Do Cyprus companies still pay the €350 annual levy?

No. The €350 annual company levy was repealed for 2024 and every year after it by the Companies (Amendment) Law N.25(I)/2024, published in the Official Gazette on 15 March 2024, and companies that had already paid for 2024 received refunds. What survives is history: levies for 2011 to 2023 remain payable if they were never settled, and those historic years still carry the original surcharges of 10 per cent if paid within two months of 30 June and 30 per cent within five months. Any cost guide still listing €350 as a live annual charge is out of date, which matters because the levy was once the single largest fixed government cost of holding a Cyprus company.

What does a Cyprus company cost to run each year?

The only fixed government charge each year is the annual return. Filing form HE32 costs €20, or €40 if you accelerate it. Under the Companies Law Cap. 113 the return is made up to the company's reference date and delivered to the Registrar within 28 days, and a new company's first reference date falls the day after eighteen months from incorporation, so the first filing is not due in year one. Everything else is professional cost: bookkeeping, statutory accounts, the audit or review, tax filings, and registered office and secretary services if you use them. Market rates run from roughly €2,400 a year for a dormant holding company to €12,000 for an active trader.

Does a Cyprus company need an audit, and what does that cost?

Yes. Article 152A of the Companies Law Cap. 113 requires a company's financial statements to be audited by a statutory auditor. Following the amendment made by Law 2(I)/2026, a company may substitute a cheaper review engagement where net turnover does not exceed €300,000 and the balance sheet total does not exceed €500,000, provided it has stayed within both limits for at least two consecutive financial years. Two conditions are widely missed: net turnover for this test includes rent, interest, dividends and royalties, and a parent company that must prepare consolidated accounts, or its subsidiary, cannot use the review at all. Market rates put a full audit at €1,200 to €3,500 and a review at €600 to €1,500.

What are the penalties for filing late in Cyprus?

Late filing of the annual return is charged under the Companies (Amendment) Law N.18(I)/2024, published in the Official Gazette on 5 March 2024. For returns with a reference date in 2021 or later, the Registrar imposes a penalty of up to €50 on the first day of non-compliance plus €1 for every further day it continues, capped at €150, and a separate €20 fee applies to the overdue filing. A company that lets the annual return slip by a year therefore pays about €190 rather than €20. The penalty does not reach returns with a reference date up to 31 May 2021. Continued non-filing also exposes the company to being struck off the register.

Can I register a Cyprus company myself without a lawyer?

Only partly, and the boundary is a criminal one. Article 11(5) of the Advocates Law Cap. 2 makes drafting the memorandum and articles of association of any company the exclusive work of a practising Cyprus advocate, who must certify and stamp the documents. A memorandum or articles drafted by anyone else is void and of no legal effect, and drafting them without being an advocate is a criminal offence. The compliance declaration on form HE1 may be sworn either by that advocate or by a person named in the articles as a director or secretary. The cheapest lawful route is therefore to pay an advocate for the constitutional documents, then file HE1 to HE3 yourself for €165 and act as your own director, secretary and registered office.