Cyprus UBO Register: Guidelines for submission in 2026, deadlines and penalties

Key facts at a glance

• What: Every Cypriot company and professional must register its ultimate beneficial owners in the electronic register at ubo.meci.gov.cy. Registration is mandatory, online, and free.
• Who is a UBO: any natural person who owns more than 25% of the shares or voting rights, or otherwise exercises control over the entity.
• Time limits: 90 days after incorporation · 45 days to report a change · annual confirmation 1 October to 31 December (mandatory, even if nothing has changed).
• Fines (since December 2024): €100 for the first day, €50 per day thereafter, with a maximum of €5,000. For the company, not for the directors. Repeated non-compliance may lead to removal from the Commercial Register.
• Login: via the CyLogin / Ariadni government portal; the company profile must first be verified (usually in person at a Citizens Service Centre).
• Public access: none since January 3, 2023. Only authorities and entities subject to AML legislation (banks, lawyers, accountants) can view the data.

If you miss a deadline, the fines start automatically the next day, without warning and without a grace period.

This guide is current in 2026, including the change to fines from December 2024, which most older guides still display incorrectly.

What is the UBO register in Cyprus?

The Cyprus UBO Register (Register of Ultimate Beneficial Owners) is a central electronic database managed by the Department of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property (the Cypriot registrar).

It establishes which natural persons ultimately own or have control over Cypriot entities, so that the true persons behind each structure are known to the State and to regulated gatekeepers.

Two things people stumble over:

• It is a separate system from the main register of companies. Your e-filing codes for HE forms do not on the UBO portal (which has its own access method).
• It is not public. General access was discontinued on January 3, 2023.

Legal basis

The register is based on the Cypriot Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2007 (Law 188(I)/2007), which transposes the 4th, 5th and 6th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directives (AMLD).

The most important recent change is L.141(I)/2024 (6 December 2024), with implementing directive KDP423/2024, which has rewritten the fine regime. Any guide mentioning higher fines predates this Act.

Who needs to register?

• Companies incorporated in Cyprus under the Companies Law, Cap. 113
• European public limited companies (SE) registered in Cyprus
• General partnerships and limited partnerships (personal companies) registered in Cyprus

Exempt: listed companies subject to EU transparency rules; entities in liquidation or deregistration that commenced on or after 12 March 2021; foreign companies that have registered only a branch in Cyprus (they fall under their home jurisdiction).

Who is a beneficial owner? The 25% rule

A beneficial owner is any natural person who, directly or indirectly, owns more than 25% of the shares , holds more than 25% of the voting rights , or otherwise exercises control (veto rights, the power to appoint or dismiss directors, shareholders' agreements).

Indirect interest counts: if you own 30% of Holding A, and A owns 100% of Operating Company B, then you are the UBO of B. If no one reaches the 25% threshold after the entire chain has been mapped out, the company registers its senior executives (the directors) instead— a fallback option, not a loophole.

Trusts, foundations, and nominees are thoroughly reviewed. For a trust, you list the founder (settlor), the trustee(s), the protector (if present), and the beneficiaries; for a foundation, the founder, the council, and the beneficiaries; and for a nominee, the nominator. This is the person on whose behalf the nominee acts. Registering the nominee instead of the actual principal is a common, serious mistake.

What information do you need to submit?

No costs, no paper forms. For each ultimate beneficial owner: identity (full name, date of birth, nationality, residential address, ID or passport number), nature of the interest (percentage of shares or voting rights, or the type of control) and dates (when the person became a UBO, ceased to be a UBO, or when details changed). For trusts and foundations, the same level of detail applies to each role.

UBO register Cyprus: deadlines

The annual confirmation is the pitfall: you must actively confirm, even if nothing has changed. Silence is treated as non-submission, not as “no changes”.

Please note also: a shareholder increasing from 24% to 26% exceeds the 25% threshold and creates a new UBO, which triggers the 45-day period; a change in the threshold is a notifiable event, even if no new person enters the structure.

Cyprus UBO Register: fines (updated December 2024)

This is where most older articles are now wrong. L.141(I)/2024 reduced the fines and liability from individual officers to the company:

In addition to the amounts, three things have changed:

1. The company bears the fine, not the directors individually. The old fine per director and per secretary has been abolished.
2. Directors are not exempt: they can still jointly and severally liable for the company's fine in the event of refusal, default, or negligence. Liability has shifted from automatic to fault-based, not to zero.
3. The Registrar of Companies has been given more clout: it can now strike the entity from the register in the event of persistent non-compliance and seek a court order . Striking off terminates the legal existence of the company and can expose directors personally to future debts. The maximum of €5,000 is the soft sanction; striking off is the hard one.

Fines increase automatically, without prior warning. If your figures do not match this table, please refer to a guide from before December 2024.

UBO Register Cyprus login: how to log in

Submissions are made at ubo.meci.gov.cy, via the government portal. Not via the corporate e-filing system.

1. Create a CyLogin / Ariadni account. The UBO portal only allows users who have been verified on the government portal. You can link existing e-filing accounts; otherwise, register as a new user.
2. Authenticate the company profile. Logging in as an individual is simple; having the company profile authenticated (so that it displays the correct Unique Identifier) ​​usually requires an in-person appointment at a Citizens Service Centre or a Cyprus Post centre (Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos, and others). Your e-filing authorization codes are not transferred. Please set aside time for this before a deadline.
3. Submit: select the entity by registration number, add each beneficial owner (ultimate beneficial owner or senior manager), choose the structure type (natural person, trust, foundation, other arrangement, or listed company), fill in the details, and submit.
4. Annual confirmation: log in during the window of Oct. 1 – Dec. 31 and confirm or update.

The real 'bottleneck' is not the form, but getting CyLogin and the company profile authenticated on time. For a non-resident UBO without a Cypriot ID, that authentication is significantly more difficult, the main reason why owners outsource the submission to a Cyprus-based service provider, such as Cyprus-Consult.

Who has access to the UBO register?

Public access was declared invalid by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in November 2022 (joined cases C-37/20 and C-601/20) as a disproportionate infringement of the right to privacy; Cyprus stopped access on 3 January 2023.

Data on ultimate beneficial owners is therefore not searchable by competitors, journalists, or the public.

How Cyprus-Consult helps

We handle the UBO obligation from start to finish, so you never have to use the portal yourself:

• First registration within the 90-day window, as part of the incorporation or as a separate correction.
• Annual confirmation submitted within the October–December window, followed up alongside your other Cypriot deadlines.
• Structural analysis for trusts, foundations, and layered holdings before filing.
• Notification of change within 45 days when the interest shifts.
• Recover if you have already missed a deadline, before it approaches the maximum or results in a cancellation.

Frequently Asked Questions