Opening a Cyprus company from Ukraine

For Ukrainian founders, a Cyprus company usually solves two problems at once: it puts the business inside the EU — with EU clients, EU banking and EU-standard contracts — and it gives an owner who relocates a genuinely favourable personal tax position. Corporate income tax is 15% from 2026, registration runs remotely from Ukraine or from wherever you are now, and there is no nationality or residency requirement to own or direct the company. We handle this work in Ukrainian, and this page is the honest version of what to expect.

Why Ukrainian founders choose Cyprus

Three reasons come up again and again. First, EU standing: since 2022 a great many Ukrainian teams have needed an EU counterparty their clients and payment providers are comfortable with, and a Cyprus entity provides exactly that. Second, IT fit — Cyprus is a long-established base for Ukrainian software companies, with the IP Box regime for qualifying software income and an English-language legal and banking layer. Third, relocation: for founders who have moved, or are moving, Cyprus lets you put the company and your own residency in the same place.

Cyprus company law (Cap. 113) is familiar and documented in English, and the professional layer works in English by default — the switching cost from a Ukrainian structure is lower than in most civil-law EU countries.

Registering remotely — from Ukraine or from abroad

You do not need to be in Cyprus to incorporate. The process runs on certified copies:

• Passport and recent proof of address for each shareholder and director
• Source-of-funds evidence — statements, contracts, dividend records, not adjectives
• A plain description of what the company sells, to whom, and the countries its payments flow through
• For a corporate shareholder: the certificate chain, apostilled

One well-assembled pack feeds the Registrar, the tax registrations and the bank file. After incorporation, the beneficial-owner (UBO) filing is due within 90 days — late filing is penalised at €100 for the first day and €50 per day after, capped at €5,000 — so we run it inside the setup batch rather than leaving it hanging.

Moving your team or operations across

Most Ukrainian founders do not run a formal cross-border merger. The practical route is to set up a Cyprus company and migrate to it: move client contracts, IP and key people over on a timeline that keeps the business running. Whether a fresh company plus migration or a redomiciliation fits depends on where your contracts, assets and people actually sit — that is the first thing we scope.

Where staff are relocating, real substance in Cyprus — an office, resident management, people on the ground — is both a tax-residency question for the company and a credibility question for banks. It is worth planning at setup, not retrofitting.

Temporary protection, residency and non-dom

Two different statuses often get blurred, so to be precise:

Temporary protection for people from Ukraine has been extended across the EU until 4 March 2027; Cyprus applies it and grants immediate access to the labour market, with no separate work permit needed. Tens of thousands of people are in Cyprus under it. It lets you live and work — which in turn supports building substance — but it is not a tax status.

Tax residency and non-dom are separate. Once you spend enough time and hold enough ties in Cyprus to become tax resident (the 183-day and 60-day rules are on the tax residency page), non-dom status can remove the Special Defence Contribution on dividends, leaving only a capped health-system (GESY) charge. The full picture, including what you still pay, is on the non-dom page.

You can hold and run a Cyprus company without moving at all — you simply get the corporate EU benefits without the personal tax layer until you relocate.

How we run it

1. Scope in Ukrainian. One call to establish whether this is a fresh EU company, a migration of an existing Ukrainian operation, or a relocation of you and your team.
2. KYC in parallel. We collect and pre-check the document pack while the company name clears — a complete file moves in days, gaps stall for weeks.
3. Filing. Constitution drafted for your real cap table, HE1 pack filed, accelerated track where timing matters.
4. Registrations. Tax number, VAT/VIES, employer and UBO filings as one batch, with deadlines on our calendar.
5. Account and handover. Bank or EMI file prepared and driven to a working account, then a clean handover into monthly accounting — with the ongoing cost picture set out plainly, not buried.