The EU has closed its case over a Cyprus scheme that ended in 2020

Cyprus terminated its investor citizenship programme in 2020, and on 11 March the Law Office of the Republic said the European Commission had communicated its decision to close the infringement case that the programme had drawn. A former Chief Justice had run an inquiry, some grants were taken back, and the law was amended in co-operation with the Commission. What the Migration Department publishes under the heading for investors today is a residence permit.

What the Law Office says closed

The Law Office of the Republic of Cyprus published a statement timed at 14:25 on 11 March 2026. Its first sentence is that the European Commission had “officially communicated today” its decision to close the infringement procedure begun against Cyprus over the granting of citizenship to foreign investors through the Cyprus Investment Programme.

That is the date the decision was communicated. When the Commission took it, the statement does not say.

It does give the reason the case existed: the Commission “came to the conclusion that the granting of Cypriot citizenship through the CIP violated EU Law”.

On the programme’s own end, the statement says only that “the government terminated the CIP in 2020”. No day, no month, no instrument.

What the statement records

In September 2020 the Attorney General appointed an ad hoc inquiry committee headed by Myron Nicolatos, a former President of the Supreme Court of Cyprus. The Law Office presents that appointment as a response to the Commission’s own recommendation that there be a “judicial type” examination of everything connected with the programme. The statement does not place the appointment before or after the termination, and nothing read here supplies that order.

On the findings of that committee and of a second one, the Kalogirou Committee, the Council of Ministers “revoked a number of granted citizenships”. The statement does not say how many.

Terminating the programme did not end the matter. The Commission also asked for the national legislation to be amended. A bill was drafted by the Law Office in co-operation with the Commission, approved by the Council of Ministers, and voted into law by the House of Representatives within three months of being tabled. The statement does not name the law.

Three meetings mark the intervening years: Brussels and Cyprus in October 2021 and May 2023 with Didier Reynders, then the Commissioner for Justice, and Brussels in June 2025 with his successor Michael McGrath.

The investor route that is published now

The Migration Department publishes criteria under the heading “Immigration Permits for Investors”, in a document marked as the fourth revision of May 2023, on a page dated 29 December 2025. It grants residence, not citizenship.

The legal basis is Regulation 6(2) of the Aliens and Immigration Regulations. Under it the Minister of the Interior, having notified the Council of Ministers, decides to issue an immigration permit to third-country applicants whose investment meets the policy.

The minimum investment is €300,000, and the residential category states it plus VAT. A house or apartment qualifies only as a first sale from a development company. Other real estate — offices, shops, hotels — qualifies at €300,000 and may be a resale. The money must be shown to have reached Cyprus from abroad, from the applicant’s or the spouse’s account, and to have been paid from the applicant’s account to the seller’s account at a financial institution in Cyprus.

These are the investment conditions and not the whole of the test. The same policy carries quality criteria and income requirements that are not set out here, and this article does not state what an application costs in total or what it requires to succeed.

The permit that policy grants is residence. A count over the published page finds neither citizenship nor naturalisation nor the name of the programme that closed — a fact about that page, not about what other legislation may allow.

A closed scheme still leaves paperwork

The programme’s full name was the Scheme for Naturalisation by Exception of non Cypriot Investors/Entrepreneurs. It survives in a consular visa checklist served from a path whose address carries 2025/07.

Item six on that checklist asks for a letter from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus stating that the applicant has applied for naturalisation as an investor and that the application has already been approved.

The checklist therefore serves people holding an approved application. It does not say when those approvals were given, and nothing read here dates them against the termination. What it is not is evidence of fresh intake: it asks for an approval already in hand, not for a way to seek one.

Two documents no longer served at their published addresses

Two documents that might have been read on this subject could not be opened.

The Ministry of the Interior announcement from 2020 sits at a Lotus Notes address on the old moi.gov.cy. Calling it now returns the Ministry’s homepage on the newer gov.cy platform, which does not carry the 2020 text.

An Audit Office report on the granting of Cypriot citizenship sits at a comparable address on audit.gov.cy. Calling it returns the HTML of gov.cy/audit rather than the PDF. What period it covers and what it concludes are not things this article can say, because it could not be opened.

Both observations are of redirects, and a redirect does not say why. The documents may exist at new addresses. What was measured is only this: the addresses at which they were published no longer serve them.

What this article does not establish

It does not establish the date of the 2020 termination, or the instrument that carried it. The only source read here says “in 2020” and no more, so this article says no more either.

It does not establish what became of applications that were pending when the programme ended.

It does not establish how many citizenships were revoked, or on what grounds in any individual case.

It does not establish the name, number or date of the amending law the Law Office describes.

It does not establish whether a permit under Regulation 6(2) leads to citizenship, or on what timetable. The policy is silent, and nothing else was read on the point. Nor does it establish that the Regulation 6(2) permit is the only route open to an investor; it is the one the Migration Department publishes under that heading.

It does not cover what the residence routes require by way of income. That was measured separately in this publication on 14 September.