Cyprus amends its Economic Citizenship Program by introducing Code of Conduct and Registry of Providers

The Cyprus Economic Citizenship Program has, as of the 21st May 2018 Decision of the Council of Ministers, been renamed to “Cyprus Investment Programme”. New regulations set in May and June 2018 are aiming to improve and modernise the program:

• An expert Committee of Supervision and Control is being established which will play the role of the regulator of the process.
• As of July 31 2018, any applications for the Cyprus Investment Programme may be submitted on behalf of the applicants only by persons registered with the Registry of Service Providers (Registry). All applications must be accompanied by a service provider’s and an applicant’s Self-Declaration form.
• A new Code of Conduct, which sets the professional ethics that need to be followed by all service providers dealing with the Program.
• There is now a prohibition on advertising and publicly promoting the program, even via the internet.
• The Council of Ministers has set a limit to accepting applications at 700 per year starting from 2018 and has determined the minimum expected time of examining the application submitted at six months.
• The period of three years of maintaining the investment, in the case of a property purchase, will now begin after the issue of a town planning permit and each application shall be subject to reinforced due diligence procedures for which the charge will be borne by the applicant. 

Ierotheou, Kamperis & Co. LLC, in fully compliance with the above amendments, abides by the Code of Conduct and has been registered to the Registry of Service Providers.