You can bring your family only after two years of residence, and permanent status is out of reach on the main route: permits are issued in a way that never adds up to five consecutive years.
On paper the door is wide: several routes work, the main one has no pay threshold above the minimum wage, there are no integration courses or tests for residence, and children attend state school free. But the employee route is built so that you can hardly settle on it: permits are issued for 4 years at most (with exceptions for some sectors), while EU long-term resident status requires 5 years of continuous residence. In 2026 applications for that status are being processed from the 2020 queue.
The status rests on the employer. To change jobs you need written consent from the old employer, a new contract stamped by the Department of Labour and a new procedure; no more than three changes within one sector and occupation, and a fourth only after leaving the country for at least 2 years. On dismissal the permit is cancelled and the residence card becomes invalid even if its date has not passed. We found no grace period set in law to find new work; lawyers describe a short window of about 30 days to find a job, leave or switch status.
Pressure on residents is mostly aimed at irregular stay and asylum, but it reaches legal residents too. In 2026 employer inspections check the documents of every worker, current permit holders included; in May there were 43 arrests and 37 deportation orders, and the fine for overstaying rose from €500 to €1,000 a month. The state keeps revoking citizenships granted under the investment programme closed in 2020. The Greek exam for naturalisation introduced by the 2023-2024 reform was extended to people already living there.
Families wait long: a worker may apply for reunification only after 2 years of legal residence in Cyprus, and the law allows up to 9 months for a decision. There is no fixed income threshold, only stable and sufficient resources, housing and insurance, judged at the agency's discretion; a spouse has no free right to work. Banks bring friction: the Association of Banks reports that about 19% of foreigners' account applications were rejected in 2024. The state does not publish permit refusal statistics.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa for up to 90 days, per the Cyprus Foreign Ministry list. Cyprus is not in the Schengen area. For living there, the same route through employment or the digital nomad visa.
No visa for up to 90 days with a biometric passport, per the Cyprus Foreign Ministry list. EU temporary protection is extended to 4 March 2028; since 31 July 2026 new applicants must show they left in line with their military obligations, while people who already hold the status are not affected.
A visa is required, with no facilitation since 2022; there is no formal bar on residence permits. EU banks may not accept deposits above €100,000 from Russian citizens without EU residence or citizenship, Bank of Cyprus closed about 4,000 accounts of Russian citizens in 2024, and since late October 2025 Revolut has been blocking their accounts en masse, EU residence holders included. Passports granted under the closed investment programme are being revoked, including from Russian citizens.
There is no formal bar on residence permits. Since late October 2025 Revolut has been blocking accounts of Belarusian citizens en masse, EU residence holders included.
The place interval 59-71 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Access to entry: 80 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.7. The weakest is Path to citizenship: 40 against 57.1. Above the world average: 2 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The migration department decides within 3 months, plus a month if it requests documents; with digital filing it takes 4-6 weeks in practice, but it can take six months. Before that the employer goes through the labour market test: 21 days of advertising and a Department of Labour recommendation, a stage with no deadline.
Through the digital nomad visa if you earn €3,500 net a month or more, but it runs under a quota of 1,000 permits and intake has been suspended before. Visitor and passive-income permits give no right to work.
We have not checked the official tariff. According to law firms, the first permit with registration as a foreigner costs about €150 per person, plus a medical exam and health insurance until you join GESY.
Yes: on dismissal the permit is cancelled, and we found no grace period set in law to find new work. You may change employer no more than three times, and only with written consent from the old one.
On the employee route permanent residence is effectively out of reach: permits are capped at 4 years, while 5 continuous years are needed. Citizenship requires 7 years of residence out of the last 10, Greek at B1 and an exam on Cypriot culture; dual citizenship is allowed.
Workers are welcome but kept on a short leash: status is tied to the employer, families wait 2 years, and the path to permanent status through employment is closed. The 2026 campaign against irregular stay also reaches legal workers during inspections.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.