Golden visa: Cyprus minister flags curbs, possible new uses for funds

Cyprus’s deputy migration minister told a parliamentary committee on 24 September that decisions to tighten the country’s investor residence programme, known as the golden visa, were expected, and that holders of about 12,000 permits issued since 2013 were being checked, according to press reports. The government has published no draft, threshold or timeline, and the €300,000 permanent residence route is unchanged. Separately, the European Union has set no date to decide on Cyprus’s full entry into the Schengen area.

What the deputy minister said

Nicholas Ioannides, the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection, was scheduled to appear on 24 September before the House committee that oversees public spending, during a session on an Audit Office report on migration management. According to Cyprus Mail and the Cyprus News Agency, as published by Politis, he said about 1,500 golden visas had been issued in the past two years and that a strict check was under way on whether holders of about 12,000 issued since 2013 still meet the programme’s conditions. These are residence permits, not passports, although the Cyprus News Agency’s Greek report called them passports; Cyprus ended its citizenship-by-investment scheme in 2020.

He said decisions on tightening were expected and that he had sent proposals to other ministers. According to the reports, he noted that joining Schengen makes the programme more attractive. Among the issues being examined, he said, is whether programme funds could also go to education, defence and innovation. “We need investment,” he said, according to Cyprus Mail’s translation, but it had to happen “in a controlled manner”.

The deputy ministry’s written statement after the session did not mention the programme; its only figure of 12,000 refers to pending asylum applications. The reports do not say whether the 12,000 includes permits issued to family members, and no official figure or cancellation from the check has been published.

What the current policy requires

The investor permit policy in force since 2 May 2023 grants permanent residence, not citizenship. Holders must provide evidence each year that the investment is maintained and, if they are no longer covered by Cyprus’s national health system, that they hold health insurance; the holder and adult family members must also provide clean criminal records from their countries of origin and residence every three years. Failure to provide the evidence leads to cancellation of the permit for the holder and the family. The permit lapses if the holder and dependants acquire permanent residence elsewhere or are absent from Cyprus for two years. The reports do not say which criteria the check applies, and the policy does not say how it treats permits issued under earlier versions.

TLT’s reading: because the permit rests on a ministerial policy under Regulation 6(2), now in its fourth revision, a tightening could come as a further revision rather than a new law. Nothing published says whether changes would apply to existing holders or to pending applications.

No date for a Schengen decision

The European Commission’s evaluation page, dated 18 March 2026, lists Cyprus as the only “Schengen State” not yet fully part of the area without internal border controls; Ireland takes part in the rules only in part, by choice. The agenda for the Council’s Schengen working party on 15 September listed a presentation by the Commission of its evaluation of Cyprus, with no decision attached. The provisional agenda for the home affairs ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on 1 October lists no item on Cyprus; decisions adopted without discussion are listed separately.

Under Article 3(2) of the 2003 Act of Accession, the Council decides whether to apply the rules in full to Cyprus once a Schengen evaluation has verified that the conditions are met and after consulting the European Parliament; the decision needs the unanimous agreement of the EU countries already applying the rules and of Cyprus. The Act sets no deadline. The Council can also decide by written procedure, as it did on 30 December 2023, when it decided that checks at Bulgaria’s and Romania’s internal air and sea borders would be lifted in 2024 and left land borders to a later decision. Holders of residence permits issued by Cyprus are currently registered in the EU’s Entry/Exit System when they cross the Schengen area’s external borders, the Commission says; this concerns registration, not whether a visa is required.

For Vietnamese permit holders

Cyprus Mail reported in May 2025, citing a letter from the finance minister, that 412 of 28,660 permits issued since 2014, including dependants, went to Vietnamese nationals. The 28,660 and the 12,000 come from different sources and periods and cannot be compared. The current policy says a permit lapses after two years’ absence from Cyprus and requires the investment to be kept. The current policy remains in force.