Country Note Cyprus 2026

The Republic of Cyprus’ (RoC), as a Member State of the European Union (EU), proceeded with the publication on 14/11/2025 of the Establishment of the Framework for the Direct Foreign Investment Screening Law of 2025 (Law no. 194(I)/2025) (the FDIS Law), which entered into legal effect on 02/04/2026.

As it will be illustrated in this CELIS Country Note, the FDIS Law:

• fleshes out the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (the EU FDIS Regulation) concerning the establishment of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) National Screening Mechanism;
• respects the spirit of the EU FDIS Regulation, by echoing Preamble Recital (6), to the effect FDI falls within the field of the common commercial policy, concerning which EU has exclusive competence as per Article 3(1) indent (e) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); and
• abides by the RoC duties to uphold the common values of solidarity and justice, under Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), and the Principle of Sincere Cooperation, under Article 4(3) first indent TEU.

This Country Note focuses on the recent developments regarding the FDIS landscape in the RoC, pertaining not only to the recently introduced FDIS Law and related thereto recent initiatives of the RoC Ministry of Finance, but also on pre-existing FDIS related legislative mechanisms with parallel application vis-avis the FDIS Law.