According to data from the Registrar of Companies and Official Receiver, the number of applications for new company registration in March 2016 came to 1,205, compared to 980 in March last year.

This is the seventh consecutive month and the 18th in the last 27 months that an increase in the number of new company registration applications was recorded.

Cyprus has a corporate tax rate of 12.5%. While technically no longer a tax haven or offshore centre, it still offers a significant amount of business services to foreign companies.

On a monthly basis, the number of applications made in March 2016 increased 8.1% compared to the previous month.

According to the data, the number of applications for company name approvals in March totalled 2,378 compared to 2,178 in March 2015, an increase of 8.1%. In the first quarter of 2016, the number of applications for name approval came to 6,783. For the whole of 2015, applications for the authorisation of company names had risen to 24,316.

The Registrar of Companies’ data showed that the total number of registered companies in Cyprus at the end of March totalled 202,764.

New additional registrations relating to foreign companies in the first quarter of 2016 came to 19, while for the entire 2015 the figure came to 71.

Source: InCyprus