Cyprus Property Sales Reach 13,288 in Eight Months as Larnaca Jumps 35 Percent in August

Cyprus recorded 13,288 property sale contracts in the first eight months of 2026, 13.7 percent more than the same period last year, with August alone at 1,241 contracts, 10 percent above August 2025. The figures come from the Department of Lands and Surveys and were analysed by BuySell.

Buyers from other EU countries and from outside the bloc accounted for around 47 percent of sale contracts over the eight months.

What the districts show

The national increase of 1,599 contracts was not evenly spread. Limassol and Paphos together produced 1,070 of those additional contracts, about 67 percent of the total growth.

For the eight-month period, Limassol led on volume with 4,354 contracts, up 17 percent. Larnaca recorded 2,898, up 13 percent. Nicosia recorded 2,789, up 6 percent. Paphos recorded 2,654, up 20 percent, the fastest growth rate of any district. Famagusta recorded 593, up 8 percent.

August broke the pattern. Larnaca posted 299 contracts, up 35.3 percent year on year, the strongest monthly gain in the country. Limassol slipped to 395 contracts, down 5 percent, its first negative month against a run of double-digit annual growth. Paphos was up 19.7 percent for the month and Nicosia up 8.2 percent. Famagusta fell to 55 contracts, down 8.3 percent.

Sales to buyers from other EU member states rose 23 percent over the eight months. Sales to buyers from outside the EU rose 19 percent.

The mechanism behind the split

Cyprus separates buyers into three legal categories, and the split matters more than the headline number.

Cypriot nationals and EU citizens buy freehold property without restriction and without prior approval. Buyers from outside the EU need prior permission to acquire immovable property, granted at district level, and face a limit on how much they may hold. The contract can be signed and deposited with the Department of Lands and Surveys before that permission comes through, which is why sale contract counts move ahead of title transfers and why this series is the timelier read on demand.

That structure explains why EU buyer volumes and non-EU buyer volumes are growing at different rates, and why the Department of Lands and Surveys contract series is the timelier indicator of foreign demand than the transfer series.

What it means for a foreign buyer

Three things follow from these figures.

Pricing power is shifting district by district rather than nationally. Paphos at 20 percent eight-month growth and Larnaca at 35.3 percent in August are absorbing demand that Limassol, which fell 5 percent in August, has been carrying. A buyer working from a national growth figure of 13.7 percent will misprice both ends of that spread.

Foreign participation is now close to half the market. At roughly 47 percent of contracts over eight months, non-domestic demand is not a marginal segment in Cyprus, which is exactly why it has become a political question. Parliament reopened four bills earlier this month aimed at restricting foreign property purchases, and the data released this week is the evidentiary backdrop against which those bills will be argued. Anyone planning a purchase into 2027 should follow what those four bills would change rather than assume the current permission regime holds.

The August Limassol reading is a single month and should be treated as one. Limassol remains the largest district by volume at 4,354 contracts and up 17 percent on the eight-month view. One negative month against a high 2025 base is not a turn.

Context

Cyprus has run a broadly open property market for foreign buyers since EU accession, with the non-EU permission requirement the main friction. Its citizenship-by-investment programme was shut down in 2020, so the residency route rather than a passport route is what draws non-EU property capital today. That shift is visible in the composition of the current growth, which is coming from EU buyers faster than from non-EU buyers, 23 percent against 19 percent over the eight months.

Two structural risks remain independent of the volume data. Title deed delays are a long-standing feature of the Cypriot market, where a developer's mortgage over a project can block issuance of individual title to a buyer who has already paid in full. And the northern part of the island operates a separate and legally contested property regime that a buyer should not conflate with the Republic. Both are worth understanding before signing, and both are covered in the Cyprus legal guide.