Cyprus does not have a golden visa anymore. The government cancelled the cash-for-passport Citizenship by Investment scheme back in November 2020 after an Al Jazeera investigation exposed abuse of the program, and it has stayed cancelled ever since. Anyone still advertising a "Cyprus golden visa" in 2026 is either out of date or selling something that doesn't exist.
What Cyprus does still offer is a set of legitimate, EU-recognised residency routes. None of them hand you citizenship for a lump sum, but several are faster and cheaper than what most people assume, and one in particular pairs extremely well with the island's tax regime.
Why the Golden Visa Disappeared
The original Citizenship by Investment scheme let non-EU nationals obtain a Cypriot passport, and with it full EU citizenship, for an investment starting around EUR 2 million. It ran from 2013 to 2020 and became one of the most scrutinised programs in Europe after journalists demonstrated how easily it could be gamed, including cases involving individuals with serious legal issues in their home countries.
The EU applied sustained pressure, and Cyprus scrapped the scheme entirely rather than reform it. There is no successor "investment citizenship" program, and none is currently planned. What replaced it is a residency-first model: routes that grant the right to live in Cyprus, sometimes permanently, but not an automatic passport.
Route 1: Category F Permanent Residence
Category F is the closest thing Cyprus has to a fast-track permanent residence permit. It's aimed at financially independent applicants who can show a stable income from abroad, typically pensions, dividends, rental income, or interest, without needing to work locally.
The financial threshold is modest compared to citizenship-by-investment programs elsewhere in Europe, and processing can take a matter of months rather than years. Category F grants permanent residence, not citizenship, but it comes with no requirement to spend a minimum number of days per year in Cyprus, which makes it attractive for people who want the option to live there without committing full-time immediately.
Route 2: The Yellow Slip (EU/EEA Citizens Only)
If you're an EU or EEA national, none of the above applies to you because you already have freedom of movement. The only document you need is the Yellow Slip guide, the MEU1 registration certificate confirming your right to reside once you pass 90 days on the island. It requires proof of employment or means of support, a lease agreement, and a bank statement. No investment threshold, no waiting on a government committee.
Route 3: The Digital Nomad Visa
For remote workers employed by or running a business outside Cyprus, the Digital Nomad Visa allows legal residence without local employment. It's capped at a limited number of permits annually and requires proof of remote income above a set monthly threshold, but it does not require any property purchase or capital investment. Renewal is possible, and time spent under this visa can, under the right conditions, count toward tax residency.
Route 4: Standard Non-EU Work and Investment Permits
The remaining path is the conventional route: an Employment Permit tied to a Cyprus employer, an EU Blue Card for highly skilled professionals, or a Self-Employment permit tied to setting up and running your own company. None of these are "golden" in the instant-approval sense, but combined with Cyprus's corporate structure they can lead to permanent residence over a few years.
The Part Most Golden Visa Searches Miss: Tax
Residency status and tax status are two separate questions, and conflating them is the most common mistake among people researching Cyprus. Whichever residency route you take, becoming a Cyprus tax resident is what unlocks the real financial upside.
Cyprus tax residency can be established either through the standard 183-day rule or through the 60-day tax residency rule, a mechanism unique among EU states that allows qualification with significantly less physical presence, provided you meet conditions on business ties, property, and not being tax resident elsewhere in the same year.
Once tax resident, the number that changes everything is Cyprus Non-Dom status. Non-Dom exempts dividend and interest income from the Special Defence Contribution for seventeen years, which brings the effective tax rate on investment income down to roughly 5% once GHS healthcare contributions are included. This is the actual reason so many people research a "Cyprus golden visa" in the first place, even if the term itself no longer describes anything real.
Bottom Line
There is no golden visa in Cyprus in 2026, and there hasn't been one for six years. What exists instead is a menu of legal, transparent residency routes, Category F for the financially independent, the Yellow Slip for EU citizens, the Digital Nomad Visa for remote workers, and standard work permits for everyone else. None require a EUR 2 million cheque. The route you pick should depend on your citizenship and income source, not on chasing a program that was shut down in 2020. And once you've picked a route, the real work is making sure your tax residency and Non-Dom status are set up correctly, because that is where the actual savings live.
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