Cyprus VAT refund: who can claim, deadlines and how to apply

Cyprus VAT refund for foreign businesses and for companies registered in Cyprus: three routes

Cyprus VAT paid on business costs comes back by the route that fits the claimant. Most costs carry 19%, and hotels and restaurants 9%.

A business that sells in Cyprus cannot use the second or the third route. It registers and deducts through its own return: VAT registration in Cyprus.

A company registered in Cyprus: refund of the credit in the VAT return

Each quarter a registered company sets the VAT on its costs against the VAT on its sales. Where the costs carry more, the return shows a credit, and the credit moves to the next return by itself. The company can ask for it in cash on one of six grounds.

• The credit cannot be used up by the last return of the following year.
• The credit has stood for eight months from the end of the period in which it arose.
• It comes from zero-rated sales, such as exports.
• It comes from sales made outside Cyprus that would be taxable if made in Cyprus.
• It comes from financial or insurance services to customers outside the EU.
• It comes from the purchase of capital assets of the business.

What the Tax Department checks before it pays

• A valid IBAN is registered for the company.
• No VAT return is outstanding.
• The income tax returns of the last six years are filed, including years with nothing to declare.
• The company's status is normal: it is not in liquidation, for example.
• The company was VAT registered in the period of the claim.

How to file the request

1. File the VAT return of the quarter in Tax For All, the Tax Department's portal.
2. Open Services in the main menu and choose Refund request. The portal shows the periods with a credit, and each request covers one period.
3. State the period and the reason for the credit. No documents are attached.
4. Answer the officer who examines the request, who may ask for the books and the invoices.
5. The refund arrives in the registered bank account and in no other.

No request can be filed once six years have passed since the period of the credit. The department pays interest where a refund takes more than four months from the request, or more than eight months where it audits the company first.

EU businesses: the electronic claim under Directive 2008/9/EC

A taxable person established in another member state, with no establishment and no sales in Cyprus, claims through the electronic portal of its own tax authority. That authority checks the claimant and passes the claim to Cyprus. Sales in Cyprus on which the customer accounts for the VAT under the reverse charge do not block the claim. The Cyprus rules are in the Refund Regulations, K.D.P. 95 of 2010.

• Period: three months to one calendar year, or less for the rest of a year.
• Deadline: 30 September of the year after the period. For invoices of 2026 that is 30 September 2027.
• Smallest claim: €400 for a period under a year, €50 for a year or the rest of one.
• Content: for each invoice the supplier's name, address and VAT number, the date and number, the taxable amount, the VAT and one of ten codes for the kind of cost. A Cyprus VAT number has the letters CY, eight digits and a letter.
• Copies: an invoice of €1,000 or more is attached, and a fuel invoice of €250 or more.

The Tax Commissioner decides within four months of receiving the claim, or within eight where more information is requested twice. The money follows within ten working days, and interest runs where it is late. A Cyprus company that paid VAT in another member state uses the same system in reverse, through the Tax Department's VAT Refund portal.

Businesses from outside the EU: form VAT 109 and reciprocity

A trader established outside the EU, who is not a taxable person in Cyprus, reclaims VAT under Part XIV of the VAT General Regulations, the Cyprus rules for the EU's 13th Directive. Two conditions come first. Where the trader's country has a comparable turnover tax, it must give Cyprus businesses the same refund, unless the Tax Commissioner allows otherwise. And the Commissioner may require the trader to appoint a VAT representative registered in Cyprus.

1. Complete form VAT 109 in Greek, in capital letters. It covers three months to one year inside the prescribed year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June.
2. Attach a certificate from the tax authority of your country that you are a taxable person there. One certificate serves for 12 months.
3. Attach the original invoices and import documents. The department stamps them and returns them when the claim is settled.
4. Describe the activity in Cyprus that the costs served, for example a stand at a trade fair.
5. File within six months of the end of the prescribed year: by 31 December.

The smallest claim is €205.03 for a period under a year and €25.63 for a full year or its last part. The Commissioner gives the decision within six months of a complete claim and may deduct bank charges from a refund sent abroad. For costs from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 the form is due by 31 December 2026.

A claimant who files a false or altered document can be refused every refund for two years from that claim.

Which business expenses qualify for a Cyprus VAT refund

The test is the same on all three routes: the VAT must be one that a Cyprus-registered business could deduct. That rules out private costs, the costs of exempt activities, and two items that the VAT Special Provisions Regulations block for every business.

Meals and hospitality for the company's own employees and directors are outside the block, unless they come as part of entertaining others. Ask for a VAT invoice in the company's name for every cost: a retailer has to issue one to a business customer who asks, where the price is above €85. Keep the invoices, the proof of payment and the evidence of the business purpose, such as itineraries, invitations and contracts, for six years.

The claim in five steps

1. Collect the documents: VAT invoices that show your company's details and the VAT, proof of payment, and evidence of what each cost was for.
2. Choose the route by where the business is registered: the Cyprus return, the portal of your EU country, or form VAT 109.
3. File the claim with its period, its amounts and, where the route asks for them, the invoices.
4. Answer the Tax Department's questions. On the EU route a reply within one month brings the decision within two months of that reply.
5. Book the refund against the original costs when it arrives, so the accounts and the next claim agree.

Deadlines, interest and penalties

The return for October to December 2026 is due by 10 February 2027. The other filing dates of a company are in the guide to the Cyprus tax calendar.

When to register for Cyprus VAT in place of claiming refunds

The refund routes serve a business with costs in Cyprus and no sales there. Once it sells in Cyprus, it registers. A business established in Cyprus registers when its taxable turnover passes €15,600 in 12 months. A business with no establishment there has no threshold. It registers as soon as it intends to make taxable sales in Cyprus for which the customer does not account under the reverse charge. The registration form, T.D.1101, is in Greek and goes to a district tax office in the original.

The guide to Cyprus VAT registration for non-EU companies covers the representative and the first return, and the guide to VAT on property in Cyprus the rules for land and buildings.

One change is on the way. In 2025 the EU Council adopted the VAT in the Digital Age package, which will make e-invoicing the rule for sales between businesses in different member states. Check the invoice rules of the year before you claim.

A founder who buys and sells through a Cyprus company recovers the VAT in that company's own returns. Our VAT registration in Cyprus costs €350 before VAT, and we claim the company's credits as part of accounting in Cyprus, from €290 a month. The company itself starts with company formation in Cyprus.