Immigration & residence permits

Cypriot passport and citizenship: what they offer and how to get them

What Cypriot citizenship gives you, which legal routes to it exist after the 2023 amendments, and how a citizen gets a passport: where to apply, how long it is valid and the fee.

Cyprus InformEditorial team

13 May 2016 10 min read

Cypriot passport and citizenship: what they offer and how to get them

Checked: 29 October 2026.

Cypriot citizenship and passport: the essentials

Citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus (κυπριακή υπηκοότητα) is governed by the Civil Registry Law 141(I)/2002 (Ο περί Αρχείου Πληθυσμού Νόμος). There are three routes: birth or descent; registration through marriage or Cypriot origin; and naturalisation based on years of lawful residence.

A Cypriot citizen is also an EU citizen, and an ordinary Cypriot passport (κυπριακό διαβατήριο) is issued only to citizens of the Republic. For foreign nationals the law provides only special documents, such as a refugee passport or a temporary passport. The investment programme is closed: according to the European Commission, Cyprus stopped accepting new applications under it on 1 November 2020.

Citizenship and passports are handled by the Civil Registry of the Ministry of Interior (Υπουργείο Εσωτερικών). In 2024 the former Civil Registry and Migration Department (CRMD) became the Migration Department of the Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection, while citizenship, passports and identity cards remained with the Ministry of Interior.

What Cypriot citizenship gives you

Cyprus has been an EU member since 1 May 2004, and every Cypriot citizen is a citizen of the Union. As the European Parliament explains, Union citizenship is additional to national citizenship and does not replace it.

According to the European Commission’s list, an EU citizen can live and move freely within the Union, vote and stand as a candidate in European Parliament elections and in local elections where they live, and, outside the EU, in a country where their own state has no embassy, get help from the consulate of any EU country.

Cypriot law generally allows dual citizenship (dual nationality): the law expressly refers to citizens of the Republic who also hold a foreign citizenship. In naturalisation cases, the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister, may reject an application if the applicant does not renounce their other citizenship, and whether the previous citizenship is kept also depends on the law of the other country.

Travelling on a Cypriot passport

Within the EU, and in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, according to the EU’s Your Europe portal, a Cypriot citizen needs only a passport or an identity card, which is also issued by the Civil Registry of the Ministry of Interior.

Cyprus is not yet fully part of the Schengen area: according to the European Commission, the Council of the EU has not lifted controls at its internal borders, so travellers between Cyprus and Schengen countries show their documents at the border.

For other countries you need a passport, and for some of them a visa as well; before you travel, check the country’s entry rules and the travel advice of the Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs on gov.cy.

Birth, descent and marriage

A person born on or after 16 August 1960 is a Cypriot citizen if at least one parent was a citizen of the Republic at the time of their birth. Birth in Cyprus to foreign parents does not in itself confer citizenship, and for those born in Cyprus the rule does not apply if either parent’s entry or stay was unlawful, unless the Council of Ministers decides otherwise.

For people born abroad, citizenship is formalised by registering the birth on form M121; for a minor, the citizen parent submits it. If a parent became a citizen only after the child was born, the minor is registered as a citizen on form M126. Adults born on or after 16 August 1960 submit form M123 if an ancestor became a British subject under the Cyprus Annexation Orders, or was born here between 5 November 1914 and 16 August 1960 to parents habitually resident in Cyprus.

The spouse or civil partner of a citizen submits form M125 after three years of marriage or partnership, the Ministry of Interior says on its page of 1 July 2025; if the couple live in Cyprus, they must spend at least six months a year here and at least two of the last three years. This route is closed to those who entered or stayed in Cyprus unlawfully, except where the Minister exempts a spouse who stayed unlawfully in the areas controlled by the Republic.

Naturalisation and the 2023 changes

Naturalisation is the general route for foreign nationals. Its conditions were updated by Law 149(I)/2023, in force, according to the Ministry of Interior, since 19 December 2023, and then refined by Law 76(I)/2024. You must have lived in Cyprus lawfully and continuously for the 12 months before applying; absences totalling up to 90 days do not break this period.

In addition, in the 10 years before those 12 months you need at least seven years of lawful residence or service in the public service of the Republic. Also required are good character; Greek at B1 level, from which graduates of a lyceum or university taught in Greek are exempt; a pass in the exam on contemporary life in Cyprus; accommodation; a stable income; and the intention to live in the Republic. Time spent on a student permit, as an applicant for international protection, or under subsidiary or temporary protection does not count.

Highly qualified employees of companies that meet criteria set by the Council of Ministers need four years instead of seven with Greek at A2, or three with B1. According to the Ministry of Interior, they must have worked for such a company for at least two years before applying and be employed there on the day the application is submitted and on the day it is examined; accelerated examination, taking no more than eight months, costs €5,000. The procedure and documents are covered in our guide to Cypriot citizenship by naturalisation.

How a Cypriot citizen gets a passport

According to the Ministry of Interior’s page of 20 June 2025, passport applications are made online at gov.cy or in person: by law, they are accepted by District Administrations, Citizen Service Centres (KEP) and Citizen Centres at post offices (KEPO), and abroad by consulates. In every case you must attend in person to give a photograph, fingerprints and a signature; children under twelve do not give fingerprints or a signature.

You will need the application form, a photograph, your identity card and your previous passport, if you had one; citizens by naturalisation or registration who do not have a Cypriot identity card also need the originals of their foreign birth certificate and of their certificate of naturalisation or registration. For a child, both parents must consent unless one of them has sole custody.

An adult passport is valid for 10 years and a child’s for five, while teenagers aged 15 to 18 who have not completed their military service receive a passport of limited validity. At the time of checking, an adult passport costs €70 and a child’s €45, and the accelerated service costs €50 more. A standard passport is ready in about 15 working days, or up to three months through a consulate; it is collected where the application was made, and an accelerated passport at the Nicosia District Administration.

What to check before you apply

The current rules. The law changes often, and naturalisation applications are examined under the rules in force at the time of examination, so check the conditions, forms and fees on gov.cy and cylaw.org.

Your route. Each route has its own form, documents and fee, and foreign documents must be officially translated and certified.

Guarantees. Official pages give no processing times for citizenship applications other than accelerated naturalisation, and meeting the conditions does not guarantee approval. Citizenship obtained by fraud or by concealing facts can be revoked. There is no provision for buying citizenship: the provision on the investment programme was deleted by Law 224(I)/2025, and the former rules apply only to applications submitted no later than 30 October 2020.

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Official sources

The flags of Cyprus and the EU above central Nicosia · Photo: EUCyprus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · converted to WebP and resized.

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