Country-wide policy
Cypriot Residence Law Is Written in Terms of the Areas the Government Controls, and Says So in Its Own Words
Four separate statutes of the Republic express the same territorial qualification, and they do it in the operative text rather than in a preamble. The free-movement Law 7(I)/2007 defines the phrase: areas controlled by the Government of the Republic means those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic exercises effective control. The Aliens and Immigration Law uses it where it matters to a resident - five years of lawful residence in those areas for long-term resident status, two years there for the sponsor of a family reunification, a residence address there on a single permit. The General Healthcare System Law makes habitual residence in those areas the first condition of being a beneficiary, and gives a separate right to Cypriot citizens habitually resident in the territory of the Sovereign Base Areas of the United Kingdom in Cyprus. The Civil Registry Law reaches the same ground from the other side, listing among the indicia of good character for naturalisation that the applicant has not behaved in a way amounting to acceptance of the unlawful administration in the areas not controlled by the Republic. What none of these texts says is how a day spent, or a home held, in an area the Government does not control is treated for any purpose outside those provisions - including the day count that decides tax residence, which the Income Tax Law expresses simply as presence in the Republic.
Topics it changes
- Residency on passive income
- Residency through work
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Becoming a citizen
- When you become a tax resident
- Access to healthcare
What it requires
- Hold your residence permit against an address in the areas controlled by the Government of the Republic
- Expect qualifying periods for long-term residence, family reunification and healthcare to be counted in those areas
At a glance
- The statutory phrase
- Areas controlled by the Government of the Republic
Defined in section 2 of Law 7(I)/2007 as those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic exercises effective control.
- Long-term resident status
- Five years of lawful residence in those areas
Article 18Θ(1) of Cap. 105. The five years and the territorial phrase sit in one sentence that the two-column edition splits with a marginal note.
- Family reunification
- Two years of lawful stay in those areas by the sponsor
Article 18ΛΒ(α) of Cap. 105.
- Healthcare
- Habitual residence in those areas, plus one of the listed statuses
Article 16(1) of Law 89(I)/2001, which also covers Cypriot citizens habitually resident in the Sovereign Base Areas in its subsection (2).
- Tax residence
- Expressed as presence in the Republic, with no territorial qualification in the text
The definition of κάτοικος της Δημοκρατίας in article 2 of Law 118(I)/2002 counts days spent in the Republic and says nothing about which areas.
What the law says
«"areas controlled by the Government of the Republic" means those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic exercises effective control;»The Republic's own definition, in the Office of the Law Commissioner's English edition.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Republic's law revision office. It prints bound editions of Cypriot statutes - a Greek consolidation of a colonial-era Chapter, an English translation and consolidation of a modern Act - and gov.cy serves them as PDFs from https://www.gov.cy/media/sites/287/. The Aliens and Immigration Law (Cap. 105) is at .../2026/03/o-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-nomos-kef-105.pdf, 549,910 characters, August 2024 edition, amendments to Law 111(I)/2024. Its Regulations and the Visa Regulations 2004 are in one volume at .../2026/03/oi-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-kanonismoi-toy-1972-mechri-2013-kai-peri.pdf, December 2017 edition. The free-movement Law 7(I)/2007 is at .../2026/06/L_7_I_2007.pdf, May 2024 edition, amendments to Law 96(I)/2023, in English. The addresses are stable and answer a plain request; no proxy, no warm-up, no session.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Each edition says on its own first page that it is not a consolidation.** The Greek Cap. 105 edition prints, in terms, that it does not constitute a consolidation in the proper sense of the term because the sections were not renumbered and the House of Representatives never approved it, that it is issued for practical convenience without replacing the text of the laws consolidated, and that only the texts published in the printed Official Gazette of the Republic are authentic. The English Law 7(I)/2007 edition says the same and adds that it is a translation. So nothing here may be cited as the authentic text of anything, and the date on the title page is a cut-off rather than a statement about the law today - the Regulations edition is nine years old and the last regulation it carries is of 1 February 2013, which is why it still names the Minister where the Migration Department now names the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection. Two mechanical limits matter. The PDFs are set in two columns with the amending Act printed as a marginal note, and the project's extraction preserves the physical page, so a marginal reference lands inside the sentence it annotates: a quotation that crosses one cannot be taken whole, and several quotations in the Cyprus records stop short of the end of a subsection for that reason. The English edition's text layer is itself a recognition - it prints the amending Acts as 7(1) of 2007 and 8(0) of 2013, reading the Roman numeral I as a digit - so a citation copied from it has to be checked against the Act number rather than trusted. It consolidates only what it has published: there is no edition here of the Income Tax Law, the Civil Registry Law, the General Healthcare System Law, the Driving Licence Law or the payment accounts Law, and for those the only consolidated text is the Bar Association's.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«(δ) Η διαμονή του στις ελεγχόμενες από την κυβέρνηση της Δημοκρατίας περιοχές να μην έχει εξασφαλιστεί με δόλο ή ψευδείς παραστάσεις.»Our translation - not official
(d) His residence in the areas controlled by the government of the Republic must not have been secured by fraud or false representations.
One of the four cumulative conditions for long-term resident status, and the one where the phrase can be quoted without crossing a marginal note.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Republic's law revision office. It prints bound editions of Cypriot statutes - a Greek consolidation of a colonial-era Chapter, an English translation and consolidation of a modern Act - and gov.cy serves them as PDFs from https://www.gov.cy/media/sites/287/. The Aliens and Immigration Law (Cap. 105) is at .../2026/03/o-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-nomos-kef-105.pdf, 549,910 characters, August 2024 edition, amendments to Law 111(I)/2024. Its Regulations and the Visa Regulations 2004 are in one volume at .../2026/03/oi-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-kanonismoi-toy-1972-mechri-2013-kai-peri.pdf, December 2017 edition. The free-movement Law 7(I)/2007 is at .../2026/06/L_7_I_2007.pdf, May 2024 edition, amendments to Law 96(I)/2023, in English. The addresses are stable and answer a plain request; no proxy, no warm-up, no session.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Each edition says on its own first page that it is not a consolidation.** The Greek Cap. 105 edition prints, in terms, that it does not constitute a consolidation in the proper sense of the term because the sections were not renumbered and the House of Representatives never approved it, that it is issued for practical convenience without replacing the text of the laws consolidated, and that only the texts published in the printed Official Gazette of the Republic are authentic. The English Law 7(I)/2007 edition says the same and adds that it is a translation. So nothing here may be cited as the authentic text of anything, and the date on the title page is a cut-off rather than a statement about the law today - the Regulations edition is nine years old and the last regulation it carries is of 1 February 2013, which is why it still names the Minister where the Migration Department now names the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection. Two mechanical limits matter. The PDFs are set in two columns with the amending Act printed as a marginal note, and the project's extraction preserves the physical page, so a marginal reference lands inside the sentence it annotates: a quotation that crosses one cannot be taken whole, and several quotations in the Cyprus records stop short of the end of a subsection for that reason. The English edition's text layer is itself a recognition - it prints the amending Acts as 7(1) of 2007 and 8(0) of 2013, reading the Roman numeral I as a digit - so a citation copied from it has to be checked against the Act number rather than trusted. It consolidates only what it has published: there is no edition here of the Income Tax Law, the Civil Registry Law, the General Healthcare System Law, the Driving Licence Law or the payment accounts Law, and for those the only consolidated text is the Bar Association's.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«(β) ο υπήκοος τρίτης χώρας είναι κάτοχος έγκυρης άδειας διαμονής στη Δημοκρατία, εάν υποβάλλει αίτηση αυτοπροσώπως, με διεύθυνση διαμονής στις ελεγχόμενες από την Κυβέρνηση της Δημοκρατίας περιοχές·»Our translation - not official
(b) the third-country national holds a valid residence permit in the Republic, if he submits the application in person, with a residence address in the areas controlled by the Government of the Republic;
A condition of the single residence and work permit.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Republic's law revision office. It prints bound editions of Cypriot statutes - a Greek consolidation of a colonial-era Chapter, an English translation and consolidation of a modern Act - and gov.cy serves them as PDFs from https://www.gov.cy/media/sites/287/. The Aliens and Immigration Law (Cap. 105) is at .../2026/03/o-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-nomos-kef-105.pdf, 549,910 characters, August 2024 edition, amendments to Law 111(I)/2024. Its Regulations and the Visa Regulations 2004 are in one volume at .../2026/03/oi-peri-allodapon-kai-metanasteyseos-kanonismoi-toy-1972-mechri-2013-kai-peri.pdf, December 2017 edition. The free-movement Law 7(I)/2007 is at .../2026/06/L_7_I_2007.pdf, May 2024 edition, amendments to Law 96(I)/2023, in English. The addresses are stable and answer a plain request; no proxy, no warm-up, no session.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Each edition says on its own first page that it is not a consolidation.** The Greek Cap. 105 edition prints, in terms, that it does not constitute a consolidation in the proper sense of the term because the sections were not renumbered and the House of Representatives never approved it, that it is issued for practical convenience without replacing the text of the laws consolidated, and that only the texts published in the printed Official Gazette of the Republic are authentic. The English Law 7(I)/2007 edition says the same and adds that it is a translation. So nothing here may be cited as the authentic text of anything, and the date on the title page is a cut-off rather than a statement about the law today - the Regulations edition is nine years old and the last regulation it carries is of 1 February 2013, which is why it still names the Minister where the Migration Department now names the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection. Two mechanical limits matter. The PDFs are set in two columns with the amending Act printed as a marginal note, and the project's extraction preserves the physical page, so a marginal reference lands inside the sentence it annotates: a quotation that crosses one cannot be taken whole, and several quotations in the Cyprus records stop short of the end of a subsection for that reason. The English edition's text layer is itself a recognition - it prints the amending Acts as 7(1) of 2007 and 8(0) of 2013, reading the Roman numeral I as a digit - so a citation copied from it has to be checked against the Act number rather than trusted. It consolidates only what it has published: there is no edition here of the Income Tax Law, the Civil Registry Law, the General Healthcare System Law, the Driving Licence Law or the payment accounts Law, and for those the only consolidated text is the Bar Association's.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«16.-(1) Δικαιούχος υπηρεσιών φροντίδας υγείας είναι κάθε πρόσωπο που έχει τη συνήθη διαμονή του στις ελεγχόμενες από την Κυβέρνηση της Δημοκρατίας περιοχές και το οποίο είναι- (α) Πολίτης της Δημοκρατίας:»Our translation - not official
16.-(1) A beneficiary of healthcare services is any person who has his habitual residence in the areas controlled by the Government of the Republic and who is - (a) A citizen of the Republic:
Quoted from the Bar Association's consolidation, which is where the Health Insurance Organisation itself sends readers for the consolidated text.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legal-information service of the Cyprus Bar Association at https://www.cylaw.org/, and in practice the only place a consolidated Cypriot statute can be read. Each Act has an address of the form /nomoi/enop/non-ind/<year>_<part>_<number>/full.html - the Income Tax Law 118(I)/2002 at /2002_1_118/full.html, the Civil Registry Law 141(I)/2002 at /2002_1_141/full.html, the General Healthcare System Law 89(I)/2001 at /2001_1_89/full.html, the Driving Licence Law 94(I)/2001 at /2001_1_94/full.html, the research-and-studies Law 7(I)/2019 at /2019_1_7/full.html, the payment accounts Law 64(I)/2017 at /2017_1_64/full.html. Every page opens with an Ιστορικό Τροποποιήσεων listing each amending Act in order, and each provision is followed by the Acts that made it, so the amendment chain is readable rather than inferred. The consolidations are materially more current than the state's own: the Income Tax Law here carries amendments to 67(I)/2026 where the Tax Department's PDF stops at 219(I)/2025. The pages are served in a non-Unicode encoding that a plain client renders as mojibake; the project's fetcher handles it and the stored text is clean Greek.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **It is not a government publisher.** It is the Bar Association's service, it carries no statement of authority, it states no cut-off date for any consolidation, and nothing on it has legal force - the authentic text is the printed Official Gazette, as the Office of the Law Commissioner's own editions say. It must therefore never be the only source behind a topic: every Cyprus record that quotes it also carries a government source. It cannot be cited as proof that a provision is in force, only as the best available reading of what it now says, and a figure taken from it that contradicts a government publication has to be reported as a contradiction rather than resolved in its favour. It is worth noting who relies on it anyway: the Health Insurance Organisation, a statutory body of the Republic, links its own readers here for the consolidated text of the General Healthcare System Laws.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(ii) δεν έχει συμπεριφερθεί κατά τρόπο που συνιστά αποδοχή της παράνομης διοίκησης στις μη ελεγχόμενες από τη Δημοκρατία περιοχές, δεν κατέχει οποιοδήποτε αξίωμα σχετιζόμενο με αυτή και ούτε κατέχει, έχει παράνομα εισέλθει, προκαλέσει ζημιά ή παρέμβει σε ακίνητη ιδιοκτησία που βρίσκεται στις εν λόγω περιοχές η οποία ανήκει σε άλλο νόμιμο ιδιοκτήτη·»Our translation - not official
(ii) he has not behaved in a way that constitutes acceptance of the unlawful administration in the areas not controlled by the Republic, does not hold any office connected with it, and neither holds, has unlawfully entered, caused damage to or interfered with immovable property situated in those areas which belongs to another lawful owner;
The second of nine indicia of good character for naturalisation. Quoted in full because the provision is specific and summarising it would substitute our words for the statute's.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legal-information service of the Cyprus Bar Association at https://www.cylaw.org/, and in practice the only place a consolidated Cypriot statute can be read. Each Act has an address of the form /nomoi/enop/non-ind/<year>_<part>_<number>/full.html - the Income Tax Law 118(I)/2002 at /2002_1_118/full.html, the Civil Registry Law 141(I)/2002 at /2002_1_141/full.html, the General Healthcare System Law 89(I)/2001 at /2001_1_89/full.html, the Driving Licence Law 94(I)/2001 at /2001_1_94/full.html, the research-and-studies Law 7(I)/2019 at /2019_1_7/full.html, the payment accounts Law 64(I)/2017 at /2017_1_64/full.html. Every page opens with an Ιστορικό Τροποποιήσεων listing each amending Act in order, and each provision is followed by the Acts that made it, so the amendment chain is readable rather than inferred. The consolidations are materially more current than the state's own: the Income Tax Law here carries amendments to 67(I)/2026 where the Tax Department's PDF stops at 219(I)/2025. The pages are served in a non-Unicode encoding that a plain client renders as mojibake; the project's fetcher handles it and the stored text is clean Greek.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **It is not a government publisher.** It is the Bar Association's service, it carries no statement of authority, it states no cut-off date for any consolidation, and nothing on it has legal force - the authentic text is the printed Official Gazette, as the Office of the Law Commissioner's own editions say. It must therefore never be the only source behind a topic: every Cyprus record that quotes it also carries a government source. It cannot be cited as proof that a provision is in force, only as the best available reading of what it now says, and a figure taken from it that contradicts a government publication has to be reported as a contradiction rather than resolved in its favour. It is worth noting who relies on it anyway: the Health Insurance Organisation, a statutory body of the Republic, links its own readers here for the consolidated text of the General Healthcare System Laws.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
What the instruments read for this record do not say is how presence in, or property in, an area the Government of the Republic does not control is treated for tax residence, for the day counts in the Civil Registry Law, or at the crossing points. Nothing here should be read as an answer to that.
The Sovereign Base Areas appear in Cypriot law in their own right: article 16(2) of the General Healthcare System Law makes a Cypriot citizen habitually resident there a beneficiary of the system.