More than 60,000 work permits have been issued to foreigners in Cyprus, but not every one brings you closer to citizenship

According to the Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection, at the end of August 2026 there were 26,710 residence and work permits in force for third-country nationals in the general employment category, and another 33,919 permits in domestic work. The department cited these figures against the background of a continuing labour shortage in construction and tourism.

The largest group of workers in the general category comes from Nepal (28.8%), followed by India (21.9%), then Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Workers in this category may be hired in agriculture, livestock farming, food delivery, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade. Separate, more flexible programmes apply to highly qualified specialists and employees of companies with foreign interest.

Permits for domestic workers are issued under their own scheme, different from the general employment category. The main countries of origin here are different: Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, India and Vietnam.

This means that domestic staff have their own conditions of hiring and registration, and they cannot be equated with the general work category or with the schemes for qualified specialists.

Under Ministerial Decree No. 312/2023, asylum seekers obtain the right to work nine months after submitting an application, in agriculture, fishing, animal shelters, manufacturing, waste handling, trade, services, catering and laundries.

In practice a decision on an application is often made before this right arises: the queue of unprocessed applications fell from 24,000 in June 2024 to fewer than 12,500 by September 2026.

Students from non-EU countries may work from the first semester: up to 20 hours a week during term time and up to 38 hours during holidays, outside study hours. But not in every sector: work as domestic staff is permitted, as well as in specific sectors: hospitality, manufacturing, services, wholesale and retail trade, agriculture and livestock farming, and healthcare and social care.

In the 2023/24 academic year, 58,941 people studied in Cyprus, of whom 9,430 (16%) were citizens of non-EU countries.

Recruiting workers through employment agencies goes through a labour market test at the Department of Labour. “If the Department of Labour approves the employer's request and certifies the employment contract, it means the labour market test has shown that the employer's staffing needs could not be met from the available Cypriot or European workforce,” the Deputy Ministry of Migration explained.

Cyprus has also concluded structured labour mobility agreements with Egypt and India. This is a separate hiring channel that supplements ordinary work permits.

A work permit and the right to naturalisation are different things, and the difference lies not only in the period of residence. The current Article 111B of the Civil Registry Law (introduced by a 2023 amendment in place of the former Third Schedule) expressly excludes from the calculation of residence for naturalisation only three categories: time spent as an applicant for international protection, as a holder of subsidiary or temporary protection, and as a holder of a student permit. Domestic staff and the general employment category are not separately mentioned in this list.

But this does not mean that any work permit automatically counts as a full residence permit for citizenship purposes. The right to naturalisation depends not only on the number of years in Cyprus but also on the type and stability of the status, the category of permit and the other requirements of the law: lawfulness and continuity of residence, good reputation and other conditions are assessed together. So before counting years on a particular permit towards a future citizenship application, it is worth checking with a specialist about your specific status category.