Cyprus · Citizenship by investment
Cyprus Investment Programme (Scheme for Naturalisation of Investors by Exception)
Abolished with effect from 1 November 2020 after an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and a critical Audit Office report. The Nikolatos inquiry committee subsequently found that a majority of passports granted under the scheme — reported at 53% — were issued unlawfully. Revocation proceedings and criminal investigations have continued through 2025.
Cyprus is the cautionary tale that Malta's lawyers should have read. The programme's collapse shows that the real risk in citizenship by investment is not that the programme closes — it is that the state retrospectively re-examines grants already made, which is exactly what Cyprus has been doing since 2021. Anyone naturalised under a scheme later found defective carries that exposure for life.
Qualifying routes
plus a mandatory EUR 500,000 permanent residence; route abolished 2020
route abolished 2020
route abolished 2020
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €2M
- Total landed cost
- Historically EUR 2m investment plus EUR 200k of mandatory donations to the Research and Innovation Foundation and the Land Development Corporation, plus fees. Academic only.
- Timeline
- 6–8 months — historic
- Physical presence
- Historically effectively none — a visit to provide biometrics
- Family
- spousedependent children up to 28parents of the main applicant (on an additional EUR 500,000 residence)
- Permanent residency
- n/a
- Citizenship
- closed
- Language test
- none was required
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- no longer applicable
- Closed since 1 November 2020. Any 2026 offer of Cypriot citizenship by investment is fraudulent.
- Revocations are live, not theoretical: the Council of Ministers has stripped citizenship from holders whose files failed retrospective review.
- The Audit Office quantified losses of roughly EUR 200m in taxes and EUR 25m in uncollected fees, which sustains the political appetite for further review.
- In December 2025 Cyprus moved to close the residual Cabinet discretion that had allowed naturalisation by exception outside the ordinary rules — removing the last theoretical back door. This entry's characterisation of that December 2025 step rests on a secondary news report that could not be re-fetched; the underlying amendment should be confirmed before advising on it.
- Cyprus's own citizens naturalised in 2013–2020 continue to face heightened bank onboarding friction.