The power of attorney in Cyprus

A power of attorney is a document by which one person, the grantor, appoints another, the attorney, to act on their behalf. Cyprus has no notaries. A signature on a power of attorney is certified by a certifying officer, appointed and dismissed by the Minister of the Interior under the Certifying Officers Law 165(I)/2012.

Cyprus law recognises two types of power of attorney: general and special. The special power of attorney limits the attorney's authority to named tasks or a set period. The general power of attorney gives broad powers.

What is a power of attorney in Cyprus?

A power of attorney lets you appoint one or more people to act for you during your lifetime. In Cyprus it takes the form of a signed written statement, and in practice the signature on it is certified so that banks, registries and government departments will accept it.

• The person giving the power of attorney is called the grantor or principal.
• The person receiving it is called the grantee, attorney or agent.

Types of power of attorney in Cyprus

The power of attorney is a legal way of giving someone the authority to manage your affairs and to make decisions on your behalf. There are many types of power of attorney, though the two broad types of power of attorney in Cyprus are the general and the special.

General vs special power of attorney

The general power of attorney is vast and gives the person appointed (the "attorney" or "agent") the broad authority to act on your behalf in a variety of fields, such as finances, setting up a company, signing contracts and so on. The special power of attorney is created for a specific action or a specified number of actions. These actions are described in the document.

A special power of attorney cannot be used for anything outside what it names. That is its point, and it is why a special power of attorney is the safer instrument in most transactions.

How to make a power of attorney?

The grantor signs the power of attorney in front of a certifying officer, who then certifies the signature.

Certification is not what makes the authority real. Under sections 146 and 147 of the Contract Law Cap. 149, an agent's authority can be given orally, in writing, or implied from the circumstances. What certification does is make the document usable: the Land Registry, banks and the Registrar of Companies will not act on a power of attorney whose signature nobody has verified.

The grantor must be capable of contracting. Under sections 11 and 12 of the Contract Law Cap. 149 that means being of sound mind, able to understand the document and to judge what it will do to your interests, and not disqualified by any other law. Anyone under 18 is treated under the English rules on minors' contracts, so in practice we draft for adults.

The rule for the attorney is looser than it looks. Under section 144 of the Contract Law Cap. 149 anyone can act as an agent as far as third parties are concerned, and it is only liability to the grantor that requires contractual capacity. In practice appoint an adult, because an attorney who cannot be held to account is worth nothing to you. There is no requirement that your attorney be a lawyer.

The text of the power of attorney must contain the following information:

• Date and title of the document.
• Information about principal/grantor and agent/attorney (full name, place and date of birth, residence address, and all passport data).
• Rights for the exercise of which the power of attorney has been issued.
• Expiry date of the document (if necessary).
• Signature of the person who issued the power of attorney.

A foreign citizen can grant a power of attorney in the same way as a Cyprus citizen. They will need a valid passport number to verify their identity and signature.

Signing from abroad

You can sign a power of attorney abroad. Two routes work.

The first is a Cyprus embassy, high commission or consulate. Prepare the document before you go, book an appointment, attend in person with a passport or national identity card, sign in front of the consular officer and have the signature certified. Cyprus missions do not draft the document for you, and each mission publishes its own fee: the Cyprus Embassy in Berlin, for example, charges €8.54 in cash for certifying a signature.

The second is a local notary plus an apostille. Sign in front of a notary or other officer who has power under local law to certify signatures, then get the notary's signature apostilled by the competent authority of that country. A Cyprus mission does not issue apostilles.

Either way, send the original to Cyprus. For a land transaction, section 10(3)(b) of Law 9/1965 accepts a consular certification, or, where the Republic has no consular officer in the country, the certification of any person the Director of the Department of Lands and Surveys is satisfied may certify signatures there.

Using a Cyprus power of attorney abroad

A document going the other way, signed in Cyprus for use in another country, takes three steps and two fees.

First, sign in front of a certifying officer, who certifies your signature. For a document of one or two pages with a single signatory that costs up to €5.

Second, the certifying officer attends the relevant District Administration to have their own signature certified. They may charge up to €2 per document for making that trip, and the charge is theirs to declare in advance.

Third, the document goes to the Ministry of Justice and Public Order in Nicosia or Limassol, or to a Citizen Service Centre or Citizen Centre, for the apostille. The apostille costs €5. That fee is a charge for the service and it was not affected by the repeal of stamp duty.

Build the time in. Each step is a separate visit, and the certifying officer's trip to the District Administration is not something you can do for them. If a deadline abroad is driving the transaction, talk to us before you start rather than after the first step.

How much does a power of attorney cost?

Our fee for drafting a power of attorney in Cyprus is €100 to €200, depending on how much work the document takes.

For a power of attorney signed on or after 1 January 2026, no stamp duty is payable. Law 239(I)/2025 repealed the Stamp Duties Laws, and the old charge of €2 on a special power of attorney and €6 on a general one went with them.

A document signed by even one party on or before 31 December 2025 stays under the old regime and still has to be stamped, now through the Tax For All portal and a District Tax Office.

The one official charge left is what the certifying officer takes for verifying your signature. The Minister of the Interior caps it at €5 for a document of one or two pages with a single signatory, €10 for three to ten pages, €25 for eleven to one hundred pages, and €40 beyond that. Each additional signatory or seal adds up to €2.

If you ask the officer to come to you rather than going to their office, they may charge their actual travel cost, up to €10, and must tell you before they do.

How long does a power of attorney last?

Cyprus law sets no expiry date. A power of attorney runs until you revoke it, until the business it was given for is finished, or until one of the other events in section 161 of the Contract Law Cap. 149 ends the agency.

Age still matters in practice. Under the proviso to section 10(1) of the Transfer and Mortgage of Immovable Property Law 9/1965, the Director of the Department of Lands and Surveys can demand evidence that an authority has not been revoked, and the Law names a long gap between signature and use as a reason to ask. Banks apply their own limits on how old a document they will accept, as a matter of internal policy rather than law.

The clean answer is to put an expiry date in the document. A special power of attorney written for one transaction, with a date on it, avoids the argument entirely.

When you need a power of attorney

Granting a power of attorney for opening a company in Cyprus

You can appoint someone, usually your lawyer, to sign the incorporation documents for you. That covers the memorandum and articles as a subscriber, the forms the Registrar of Companies requires on formation, and the follow-up filings that come with a new company.

Most clients who set up from abroad use a special power of attorney naming the company and the steps, rather than a general one. It keeps the authority tied to the transaction and it satisfies the Registrar without further questions. Our page on Cyprus company formation sets out the timetable, the documents and the cost.

Voting at a company meeting

The instrument for this is a proxy, not a power of attorney. Section 130 of the Companies Law Cap. 113 lets any member entitled to attend and vote appoint someone else, member or not, to attend and vote in their place, and in a private company the proxy may speak at the meeting too.

Check the articles for the deposit deadline. A company can require the proxy form in advance, but section 130(3) voids any article demanding it more than 48 hours before the meeting. Proxies are normally given for one meeting, so expect to sign a fresh form each time.

Two more default rules apply in a private company where the articles are silent. You may appoint only one proxy for the same occasion, and your proxy votes only on a poll.

The power of attorney in real estate transactions in Cyprus

A power of attorney lets your attorney sign the sale or rental contract and appear at the District Lands Office to register or transfer the property for you. Section 10 of the Transfer and Mortgage of Immovable Property Law 9/1965 is what governs it, and it sets conditions worth knowing before you rely on the document.

The attorney has to prove to the Director of the Department of Lands and Surveys that you gave a written authorisation certified by a competent authority. The Director can demand evidence that you have not revoked it, and the Law names a long gap between signature and use as a reason to ask. A power of attorney signed three years ago and never touched since is the kind that gets questioned.

A second power sits beside that one. The Director can refuse to act on the document where the authority is defective or ambiguous, where there is doubt about who signed it, or where there is doubt about whether the authority that certified it abroad had power to do so. The original is then deposited at the District Lands Office and kept there, so give your attorney a document you are content to part with.

Appoint your lawyer for this. Our property team handles the certification, the deposit and the Land Registry appointment as part of the transaction, and our guide to title deeds in Cyprus explains what the registration itself involves.

Children travelling: consent, and who has to sign it

For a child coming into Cyprus on a visa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asks for a birth certificate and a power of attorney of travel consent. The signature that matters is the one of the parent who is not travelling. Where the child travels unaccompanied, both parents sign, and the document has to name the adult who will be responsible for the child in Cyprus.

There is a form for this. The Minor Travel Consent Form on gov.cy has a block for each parent, three boxes for travelling unaccompanied, with both parents or with one, and a certification box for the certifying officer. Where a parent has died, is divorced from the other or lives abroad, the official handling the file records that instead.

Taking a child out of Cyprus is a different question with no form attached to it. Both parents hold parental care jointly under article 5(1)(a) of the Parents and Children Relations Law 216/1990.

Removing a child abroad against the other parent's custody rights is a wrongful removal under the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980, and inside the EU under Regulation (EU) 2019/1111. Nobody checks a consent letter at the airport, and that is not the risk. The risk is a return order.

If you are separated and planning to travel with your child, get the other parent's written and certified consent before you book. Our family team can draft it.

Power of attorney in inheritance and succession cases

There is no power of attorney after death in Cyprus. It is possible to appoint an executor in your will. This person will apply to the court for letters of probate, giving them the authority to act as executor.

Where can a power of attorney be certified in Cyprus?

A power of attorney is certified before a certifying officer. Cyprus does not have notaries, so anyone who has been told to find a notary here is looking for a certifying officer.

Certifying officers are appointed by the Ministry of the Interior. Their authority is for a specified area, and they have the right to verify signatures and identities. Certifying officers have a seal approved by the Ministry of the Interior. They will verify the signature and identity of a person:

• Whom they know personally
• Who is known to two persons, personally known to the certifying officer
• Who produces a valid ID card or passport

The certifying officer checks that the signature is yours. They do not check what the document says, and they carry no responsibility for its content.

The document itself has to pass a check as well. Under section 8 of the Law the officer refuses to certify anything that is not legible, continuous and free of erasures, gaps or blank spaces, and the document has to be an original. A certifying officer cannot produce a certified copy of an official document, only the department that issued it can.

For property transactions there is a second route. The Department of Lands and Surveys accepts a signature certified by the community leader of a town, village or parish, in your presence, under section 82(2) of the Immovable Property Law Cap. 224 and section 10(3)(a) of the Transfer and Mortgage Law 9/1965. The form used comes from the Third Schedule to Cap. 224.

The Ministry of the Interior keeps a list of the appointed certifying officers, which you can access here: Certifying Officials - gov.cy

Official power of attorney templates

The Department of Lands and Surveys publishes sample general and special power of attorney documents on its own portal. The Department says on that page that they are aids, that it takes no responsibility for their use, and that the grantor may adapt the wording to the case.

Treat them as a starting point. What the form cannot tell you is who has to certify your signature, whether the Land Registry will accept a document of that age, or whether the wording in front of you makes the authority irrevocable. Those questions sit outside the template and they are the ones that cost money when they go wrong.

Cancellation of the power of attorney in Cyprus

Section 161 of the Contract Law Cap. 149 ends an agency in five ways:

• The grantor revokes the authority.
• The attorney renounces the appointment, by a declaration in the same form as the document that gave the authority.
• The business the power of attorney was given for is finished.
• Either the grantor or the attorney dies, or loses soundness of mind.
• The court declares the grantor bankrupt or insolvent.

Revocation is not finished when you sign it. Under section 168, the end of the authority does not bite on the attorney until they know about it, and does not bite on a third party until that third party knows. A bank that has not been told is entitled to keep acting on the old document.

So write to the attorney and to every bank, registry and counterparty that has seen the power of attorney, and keep proof that you did.

Section 166 requires reasonable notice of a revocation, and whoever revokes without it has to make good the damage that follows. Section 164 blocks revocation as regards anything the attorney has already done under the authority.

One power of attorney resists revocation. Where the attorney has an interest in the property that is the subject of the agency, section 162 stops the grantor ending it to the prejudice of that interest, absent an express term saying otherwise. Cyprus developers sometimes ask buyers to sign a power of attorney of exactly this shape, and our note on Cyprus property law explains what else to look for. Have a lawyer read it before you sign.

What happens if the grantor loses mental capacity

A Cyprus power of attorney ends the moment the grantor loses soundness of mind. That is section 161 of the Contract Law Cap. 149, and it is the opposite of what people who have dealt with a lasting power of attorney elsewhere expect.

Cyprus has no lasting power of attorney and no health and care power of attorney. There is nothing you can sign that keeps your attorney in place once your capacity goes.

What takes over is a court application under the Management of the Property of Incapacitated Persons Law 23(I)/1996. The Law treats someone as an incapacitated person where a mental disorder, dependence, brain or other physical injury, or another condition leaves them unable to exercise their judgment and will, so that they cannot manage their property or direct their affairs.

The application goes to the District Court for the place where that person lives, and to the Nicosia District Court where there is any doubt. A spouse, a parent, a descendant, the Director of Mental Health Services, the Director of Social Welfare Services, or anyone who satisfies the court of an interest in the property may apply. The court appoints an administrator of the property by order, with the powers the order gives them.

The appointment ends when the person recovers capacity, when they die, or where the administrator acts fraudulently or negligently.

This route is slower, more expensive and more public than a power of attorney, and the family carries it at the worst possible time. That is the argument for signing a power of attorney early, when signing one is still an option. Our family lawyers handle these applications.