Cyprus mortgages for foreign buyers: what a bank may lend

These limits are not a bank's own terms. The Central Bank of Cyprus sets them for every credit institution operating in Cyprus, and its latest Financial Stability Report lists them as still in force. A bank may lend less, ask for more security or decline; it may not lend beyond them.

On a loan to buy a home, the loan may be at most 80% of the property's value where it will be the borrower's main and permanent home, and at most 70% in every other case, which includes a holiday home and a home bought to let.

The value is the property's market value as the bank's valuer assesses it, not the asking price. If the price is higher than the valuation, the difference falls on the deposit.

Net disposable income is the borrower's total monthly income less their total monthly expenditure, as set out in the personal financial statement the bank collects. A bank must check that income, count interest, alimony, overtime or bonuses only once it is satisfied they are steady and recurring, and allow for living costs and a possible rise in rates on a variable loan.

All of a borrower's loan repayments together, not only the new mortgage, may take at most 80% of that net disposable income, and at most 65% when the loan is in a currency other than the euro.

If the loan would run past the borrower's expected retirement age, the bank must take account of whether their income in retirement will still cover the instalments.

A bank lending in a currency other than the one a borrower earns in must explain the exchange-rate risk, including what a sharp fall in the borrower's own currency would do to the instalments, and must assess that extra risk before lending.

Borrowing in euro against an income in pounds, dollars or another currency moves that risk to the borrower instead: the loan stays fixed in euro while the income that repays it moves against it. Ask to see the instalment after a sharp fall in your own currency before choosing either route.

Each bank decides for itself which foreign income it will count and how. Expect to be asked for tax returns, payslips or accounts, bank statements and a credit report from the country where you earn, and ask early which of them must be translated or certified.

The European Central Bank publishes the average rate on new loans for house purchase in Cyprus each month. It was 3.29% in July 2026, against 3.35% a year earlier. It is an average over every new loan that month, fixed and variable, so an offer to one borrower can be higher or lower.

The table above turns that average into a monthly repayment on the largest loan each limit allows. A real offer also carries the bank's own fees, insurance and the terms for changing the rate, so compare offers on their total cost over the life of the loan, not on the headline rate alone.

A reservation payment and a signed contract are commitments, and a loan is not certain until the bank has valued the property and approved the borrower. Ask for an agreement in principle before paying anything you cannot recover, and set the contract's timetable to leave room for the bank's valuation and its own legal checks.

Count the whole cash need, not only the deposit. VAT or transfer fees, legal and valuation fees and the bank's charges usually have to come from your own funds, on top of the part of the price the bank will not lend.