Cyprus Stamp Duty Abolished from 1 January 2026 — What Changes for Contracts, Loans, and Property Transactions

What Was Repealed

Under the previous regime (Stamp Duty Law, Cap. 228), Cyprus stamp duty applied to a wide range of documents: contracts (€0.07–€2 per €1,000 with caps), receipts, charters, bills of exchange, letters of credit, share-purchase agreements, intercompany loan agreements, mortgages, and others. The administrative friction was significant — small Cyprus deals routinely had to budget €5,000–€20,000 in cumulative stamp duty.

The Stamp Duty (Repealing) Law of 2025 (Law 239(I)/2025), enacted in December 2025, repeals Cap. 228 in its entirety with effect from 1 January 2026. No transitional rate applies; the levy is gone for documents executed from that date.

What Now Replaces Stamp Duty

Nothing replaces stamp duty as a transaction-level levy. The repeal is net, not a swap. The Cyprus Treasury accepted the modest revenue loss (approximately €25–35M annually) in exchange for transactional simplicity and competitiveness vs. EU jurisdictions like Ireland and the Netherlands that have largely phased their own stamp-duty regimes out.

Note that the repeal does NOT affect:

• Transfer fees on Cyprus immovable-property transactions, which are charged separately by the Department of Lands and Surveys (3–8% sliding scale) and remain in force.
• VAT on supplies of goods and services (governed by Law 95(I)/2000), which is unchanged at 19% standard rate.
• Capital gains tax under the Capital Gains Tax Law of 1980 (also amended in 2026 — see separate article).
• Special Defence Contribution under Law 117(I)/2002 (rates revised by the same 2026 reform package).

Transitional Rules

Documents executed before 1 January 2026 remain subject to the old stamp-duty obligations. The 30-day stamping deadline that applied under Cap. 228 continues to run for late-2025 documents. If you executed a contract on, say, 15 December 2025, you must still pay the stamp duty on it before 14 January 2026 to avoid penalties.

If a document is amended on or after 1 January 2026, only the amending document is exempt — the original document's stamp-duty obligation crystallised at the original signing date. We recommend completing all 2025 stamping before mid-January 2026 to clear the legacy regime cleanly.

Practical Implications

For most international founders the practical effect is that Cyprus contracts, intercompany loan agreements, and share transactions no longer carry an upfront filing-and-stamping step. This removes a 1–2 week administrative bottleneck on M&A and financing transactions and removes a small but recurring cost line.

For Cyprus-resident corporates the simplification is cumulatively significant — a typical mid-sized Cyprus group might have stamped 50–150 documents per year (intercompany loan top-ups, supplier contracts, share transfers, leases). Those filings disappear entirely from 2026 onward.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Tax laws change frequently. Consult a qualified Cyprus adviser for guidance specific to your situation. The information on this page is general guidance only and does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, immigration or financial advice. Specific advice should be obtained based on the facts of each case.