Cyprus’s House Interior Committee is still debating an opposition bill that would move the country’s permanent residence-by-investment program from administrative practice to formal regulation. The committee met Wednesday in extraordinary session but took no vote.
Parliament self-dissolves on April 23 for May legislative elections. That leaves the opposition Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), the bill’s sponsor, roughly a week to push it to the plenum.
Under the proposed amendment to the Aliens and Immigration Law, the government must issue implementing regulations within three months of entry into force. Miss the deadline and the fast-track route terminates automatically. Permits already issued would remain valid.
Aristos Damianou, the AKEL MP who chairs the committee, has more than one bill in motion. His 250-page legislation aligning Cyprus with the EU Migration and Asylum Pact is scheduled for a plenary vote on April 23 itself, the day parliament dissolves. Whether the golden visa bill joins that agenda remains unclear.
What changes, and what doesn’t
Headline thresholds stay put. The €300,000 (approximately US$354,000) property minimum, €50,000 annual foreign income requirement, biennial visit, and seven-year naturalization path all continue unchanged. The change is procedural: Formal regulations would replace Cabinet decisions and Interior Ministry circulars.
Demetris Demetriades, Managing Partner at Andreas Demetriades & Co, argues the bill should not be read as a change to, or abolition of, the program itself. “What is being discussed is a proposal to require that the program operate under formal regulations rather than administrative practice alone,” he says.
“At present, the program already operates under existing criteria set by the executive through Cabinet decisions and Ministry of Interior policy.
The proposal does not change the investment thresholds, income requirements, or eligibility criteria. Instead, it would require these criteria to be formalized through regulations, with greater legal certainty and parliamentary oversight.”
Government pushback
The Migration Department has warned that parliamentary involvement in the criteria would “constrain” the program’s flexibility. Investment criteria have been revised four times since 2013 to track market conditions and EU pressure.
AKEL’s counter is that the program needs stronger guardrails after the golden passport affair, and that continued non-EU demand for property pushes up housing costs.
A parallel AKEL bill restricting foreign acquisition of Cypriot real estate cleared committee in March and reached the plenum on April 2.
The populism charge
Demetriades rejects the link to the golden passport affair. “The current political debate is, to a large extent, driven by a populist approach linked to the former citizenship-by-investment program, even though the Permanent Residence Program is fundamentally different and already subject to strict eligibility and due diligence requirements.”
AKEL itself invokes the abolished citizenship program to justify tightening a residency program that shares little with it beyond jurisdiction. Cyprus abolished the citizenship route on November 1, 2020, after Al Jazeera’s Cyprus Papers investigation. The European Commission closed its infringement proceedings against Cyprus in March 2026.
A Nicosia criminal court acquitted former parliament president Demetris Syllouris and ex-MP Christakis Giovanis, the two most prominent defendants, in February. Prosecutions continue against former transport minister Marios Demetriades and others.
Housing: A different problem
“Restricting access by third-country nationals to new-build properties is unlikely to resolve Cyprus’s housing challenges,” Demetriades says. “The real issues are insufficient housing supply, delays in planning and permitting, rising construction costs, and the lack of affordable housing stock.”
He made the same case in an opinion piece last May, noting that the fast-track program applies only to new-build properties and therefore does not compete with Cypriots buying resale homes.
The Schengen factor
Schengen accession explains part of the urgency. Once Cyprus joins, the permanent residence permit would carry visa-free Schengen access, and opposition politicians warned last July that the combination could draw applicants mainly interested in EU mobility.
AKEL’s current bill is a tougher version of a proposal it floated then, cutting the termination deadline from six months to three.
Data presented to MPs this week show 7,088 permits issued since 2013, all still valid. Finance ministry disclosures from 2025 put cumulative golden visa permits at 28,660 since 2014, including family members, with Chinese and Russian nationals leading by volume.
Two questions remain open: Whether the bill reaches the plenary agenda before April 23, and whether a post-election parliament revives it if it doesn’t.
Update courtesy of Demetriades: “The House Interior Committee completed its review of the AKEL proposal and decided to send it to the House plenary for a final vote on 23 April. The proposal remains exactly as discussed before: the Permanent Residence Programme would continue, but only if the government issues formal regulations within a specified period. Those regulations would then be subject to parliamentary oversight rather than being left entirely to ministerial discretion. No new investment thresholds, income requirements, or property criteria were introduced during the meeting.
According to Giorgos Loukaides, the objective is to limit the wide discretion currently exercised by the executive, create a clearer legal framework, and respond to criticism from EU institutions regarding investment-based residence schemes. He also repeated AKEL’s position that the programme contributes to housing pressures and rising rents. The bill is now expected to go before the final plenary session of parliament on 23 April.”
