Cyprus will tighten its golden visa before joining the Schengen Area, Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection Nicholas Ioannides told the House audit committee on September 24. His officials are also checking whether holders of approximately 12,000 permits issued since 2013 still meet the program’s conditions, according to Cyprus Mail.
Over the past two years, Cyprus issued about 1,500 golden visas, Ioannides told MPs. He has sent proposals to the other ministers involved, arguing that Schengen membership will make the program more attractive.
Unpublished proposals
No text of the proposals has surfaced publicly. Among the options under study is whether program investment could also flow into education, defense, and innovation, according to the Cyprus News Agency.
Ioannides still wants the capital, telling MPs that “we need investment” as long as it arrives “in a controlled manner.” Nothing in his remarks indicated which of the current terms would change.
Those terms require that investors put at least €300,000 (approximately US$342,000) into one of four assets. Qualifying assets are new residential property, commercial property, shares in a Cypriot company with at least five employees, or units in a Cypriot investment fund.
Holders must prove each year that they still own the investment and must visit Cyprus at least once every two years. Some reports of the hearing described the 12,000 as passports. Regulation 6(2) of the Aliens and Immigration Regulations grants permanent residence, not citizenship; Cyprus closed its citizenship-by-investment program in November 2020.
Greek template
Practitioners have not seen the proposals either. For Demetris Demetriades, Managing Partner at Andreas Demetriades & Co, it is “too early to know exactly what the changes will look like.”
His “one strong possibility” is a higher threshold, “either across Cyprus or perhaps with different thresholds for certain areas, somewhat along the lines of the Greek model.” Greece has used tiered thresholds since September 2024. The minimum is €800,000 (approximately US$911,000) in Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini, and islands of more than 3,100 residents, and €400,000 (approximately US$456,000) elsewhere.
A higher bar “could also help address the growing concerns we are hearing about foreign investment and its impact on housing affordability for local buyers,” Demetriades argues. He also expects more emphasis on steering capital into sectors such as innovation and education.
On security, applicants already face criminal record and source-of-funds checks, and Cypriot banks are “particularly strict” on anti-money laundering compliance, in his view. Any further tightening, he expects, will “focus more on ongoing monitoring and on making sure the investment brings wider benefits to the Cyprus economy.”
Elena Ruda, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Immigrant Invest, also points to Greece. She expects new minimums using Greece Golden Visa numbers “as reference,” with capital pushed “away from saturated residential real estate towards funds, commercial development and strategic regional projects.” Tighter checks are likely too: Ruda anticipates “stricter due diligence and annual reporting.”
Her advice to prospective applicants is not to wait for the amendments. In past reforms, she notes, investors who had signed a purchase agreement or paid a deposit before the cutoff date usually kept the old terms. The new terms, in her experience, “are usually less favorable for clients.”
Conflicting counts
Data given to MPs in April showed 7,088 golden visas issued since 2013, all still valid, according to Cyprus Mail. That falls well short of the 12,000 now under review.
A finance ministry letter to an opposition MP in 2025 comes closer. It counted 28,660 permits including family members, drawn from 14,646 applications, with 1,209 rejected and 1,248 pending.
Subtracting those leaves 12,189 applications neither rejected nor pending, close to the deputy minister’s figure. Ioannides did not specify which measure his 12,000 uses.
April bill
In April, the government argued that it alone should set the program’s criteria. An opposition bill from the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) would require that the government issue formal regulations within three months, or the fast-track route would end.
Giving parliament a say risked “constraining” the program’s “flexibility,” the Migration Department warned MPs, according to Cyprus Mail. Full jurisdiction, it recommended, should stay with the executive.
Since June 17, 2024, that department has answered to Ioannides’ deputy ministry rather than the Interior Ministry. The transfer date appears in the deputy ministry’s response, published in an April 2025 Audit Office report.
AKEL’s bill went from the House Interior Committee to the April 23 plenary, parliament’s last session before the May 24 elections. Five months on, the program remains in force, Alma party leader Odysseas Michaelides told the September 24 hearing.
A former auditor general, Michaelides leads a party that entered parliament in May. He argued that the program adds to housing pressure and will draw more interest once holders can move freely within the EU.
Property limits
On September 3, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou described to parliament a working draft on property purchases by non-EU nationals, according to Cyprus Mail. It would bar purchases on agricultural land and near the ceasefire line and critical infrastructure, and limit plot sizes and the surface area of homes. Details of the home-size limit are still under negotiation.
Ioannou has not said whether those size limits would apply to golden visa purchases. Purchases by companies go before the House Interior Committee in October, according to AKEL MP Aristos Damianou.
Schengen holdouts
Accession still needs a unanimous decision from the EU member states inside the Schengen Area. In July, the European Commission gave Cyprus a positive readiness assessment.
Member states first discussed the file formally on September 15, in the Council’s Schengen Matters working party, according to Ant1. Eight or nine states, including Greece, Italy, and Spain, backed Nicosia. Neither the Netherlands nor Austria, both hardliners on Schengen matters, took a position.
Brussels also wants Cyprus to write its Green Line crossing procedure into EU law and upgrade checks at the two British Bases crossings, according to Ant1. Opposition MPs have warned since July 2025 that Schengen access could draw golden visa applicants mainly interested in EU mobility.
Exit records
Enforcing the program’s visit rule depends on reliable arrival and departure data. The Audit Office’s April 2025 report counted 289,599 non-EU nationals who entered legally between 2014 and 2023 and still had no recorded departure on March 31, 2024. Ioannides expects a new system tracking non-EU nationals from entry to exit to go live in March.
