Cyprus

Key facts Cyprus taxation

The significant features of a Cyprus company:

  • A minimum of one Shareholder is required. Nominee Shareholders are allowed and widely used. A foreign corporate or individual Shareholder is permitted
  • A minimum of one Director and one Secretary is required. A corporate entity, foreign or domestic, may act as a Director. Director’s information is available in the public record
  • There is no minimum share capital. It is customary to have an authorised share capital of €5,000 and an issued share capital of €1,000
  • Different classes of shares with different rights, such as profit sharing, redeemable preference shares and voting rights may be issued
  • Shares are issued in registered form only
  • The company must have a Registered Office address in Cyprus
  • Meetings of Shareholders may be held abroad. Written unanimous consent resolutions may be used
  • Audited annual financial statements and annual return must be submitted to the Registrar of Companies in both English and Greek
  • Although Shareholder information is part of the public record, beneficial ownership information is not disclosed to any regulatory authority

Taxation:

  • differentiation between 'tax residents' and 'non tax residents'
  • corporate tax is only 12,5 %, very low tonnage tax for ship-owning and shipping companies, 2,5 % on income from Intellectual Property
  • no corporate tax for 'non tax resident' companies
  • no Cyprus tax on disposal or trading of securities
  • no Cyprus tax on income from dividends on company level (for a period of four years)
  • no Cyprus withholding tax on dividends paid to shareholders outside of Cyprus
  • no Cyprus tax on dividend income for non-domiciled but tax-resident individuals
  • no Cyprus tax on interest income on account of non-residents with banks in Cyprus
  • no Cyprus tax for International Trusts
  • full adoption of the EU-Parent-Subsidiary-Directive (dividend payments of the subsidiary to its parent are tax-exempted)
  • full tax group relief (profits of one group company are offset against losses of another group company)
  • offshore entities from other countries are allowed as shareholders
  • rigid appliance of all relevant EU directives