Cyprus President: Ready to Join the Schengen by End of 2025, Visa-Free USA Travel

Republic of Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides made an announcement this past Sunday that sparked headlines across the investment migration industry. Even if those headlines didn't exactly convey the full nuance of what the politician said, everyone on the island of Cyprus and those who would like to share its prosperity can appreciate that Greek Cypriots are getting one step closer. That is, Greek Cypriots and long-term residents of the island will soon be enjoying the same visa-free Schengen privileges as other citizens of the EU, perhaps as soon as mid-2026. For those who don't know exactly what the Schengen visa-free movement for 90 days zone is, it includes several non-EU member states:

The Schengen area encompasses over 4 million square kilometers and covers nearly 420 million people across 29 countries. It includes 25 EU member states, the European Free Trade Association nations (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland), Croatia (since 2023), and, as of January 2025, Bulgaria and Romania. However, internal border checks with Cyprus are still in place, and Ireland is not within the zone.

The Cypriot President Christodoulides made his remarks on January 12th at the "Beyond Sea and Sun" conference in Nicosia, hosted by Hermes Airports. Christodoulides added that Cyprus will be negotiating with the incoming Administration to achieve visa-free travel to the USA for Cypriots. The first Trump Administration was highly Hellenic-friendly, so we'll see how soon visa-free travel can be established between the U.S. and Cyprus. But the main headliner has clearly been Cyprus' long-delayed accession to the Schengen Zone.

Photo credit above: Republic of Cyprus. Limassol. Sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea. Uploaded to AdobeStock by Grispb photo ID: 285868395

A lingering reason for this years-long delay, for those who don't know much about the recent history of Cyprus, is most definitely not a lower standard of living on the island that would make Cypriots an overstay risk in other EU countries. In fact, many Cypriots like many Greeks live better than some northwestern Europeans these days, and many British expats from the rest of England that's attached to London can testify to this. In early 2024, Romania and Bulgaria, which are among the poorer per-capita countries in the EU, received full Schengen privileges. While we personally work with some great Bulgarians, a cynic might suggest that this decision was at least partially, a reward to these governments for geopolitical adherence to EU/NATO mainline policies (the recently cancelled Romanian elections were a pre-emptive strike against any deviation).

According to economic data compiled as early as 2011 following the Global Financial Crisis, Nicosia had become the 10th richest city in per capita purchasing power within the entire EU. A statistic which actually passes the eyeball test for anyone who's looked up Nicosia beachfront properties or walked the Limassol waterfront lately (pictured above). Cyprus offers highly favorable tax and incorporation laws compared to the EU average.

No, the real reason behind this EU feet-dragging is, as President Trump would say: Russia, Russia, Russia. Note that many of the claims made in the CBS 60 Minutes report from a year ago are misleading, at best, and outright false at worst, selectively interviewing mostly critics of the former Cypriot CBI program. While the Cyprus passport by investment program was terminated, with several Russian citizens having their passports revoked, the opportunity to obtain a Cyprus golden visa through investment remains. And now Cyprus is becoming more attractive to Chinese and Arab investors as well as Russians thanks to the prospect of full Schengen access for legal residents.

Photo credit above: Russian-style Orthodox Church of St. Andrew in the village of Episkopeio, Nicosia district, completed in 2016

Uploaded to iStock by Evgeni AdobeStock photo ID: 270534416

Moscow on the Mediterranean

For decades the warm Mediterranean climate, shared Orthodox Christian civilizational heritage with Greek Cypriots, and a light-touch regulatory environment have all drawn thousands of Russian expats and investors to the Republic of Cyprus. This trend of affluent Russians as well as well-to-do Ukrainians buying property continued all the way through 2022, despite being diminished by the notorious bank bail-ins of Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus in March 2013. Bail-ins which the EU, led by today's economically sick men of northern Europe, justified at that time as a soaking of Russian oligarchs, and an antidote to repeating the so-called PIIGS bailouts of the Global Financial Crisis. This disgusting justification was promoted across the British tabloids and respectable Fleet Street press, despite the collateral damage of many British military retirees funds also being locked up at Laiki and BoC. The Russophobic EUrocrats justification for the EU casting off a regulators' velvet glove in favor of the confiscatory fist took place a full year before Russia re-annexed Crimea.

A female violinist at the Cyprus-Russian Festival June 2019

Source: VestnikKipra Facebook page

Clearly the primary reason Cyprus has yet to receive full Schengen access is geopolitical: the Brussels bureaucrats are worried about thousands of Russians who have lawfully obtained citizenship or legal permanent residency on the island being able to freely travel through the EU. Regardless of the fact that thousands of Russian Cypriots have already traveled to and from the EU prior to 2022 and many Russians have done so since the intensifying Western sanctions regime and mass 'cancellation' of all things Russian.

The secondary reason for the EU's foot-dragging on Schengen status for Cyprus is the division of the island between Greek and Turkish Cypriots imposed after 1974. The EU has a lot at stake in its relations with the Republic of Türkiye and by extension, the exclusively Turkish-recognized Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Not coincidentally, after Cyprus came under heavy pressure from the EU authorities in 2022 the TRNC as well as Turkey became more favored by Russians looking to acquire Mediterranean real estate.

How Cyprus Stacks Up Compared With Other Mediterranean Residencies:

Nicosia Takes a Step Forward While Madrid and Lisbon Take Steps Back

Christodoulides announcement is welcome news for the investment migration industry, at a time when governments in southwestern Europe, led by Spain's ruling Socialists as well as the Portuguese, are becoming less open to foreign investment migration. Spain is proposing a 100% tax on all non-EU real estate purchases, effectively doubling the cost of properties. Like most socialist policies, Madrid's new law is likely to backfire by pricing out mass affluent businessmen from the UK and USA in favor of less desirable foreigners who might not care, eg the idle rich or shady characters and relatives of corrupt officials who won't mind the new tax while laundering their embezzled funds into Spanish villas.

Meanwhile in Lisbon, as we've heard from an American who applied for permanent residency with his Brazilian wife and their child, the legal migration situation is...not great. By October 2024, Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA) had racked up a staggering backlog of over 400,000 visa applications. Even with multiple lawsuits against AIMA from Golden Visa applicants who've been waiting for nearly three years to convert their temporary residency into permanent residency, the reputational damage to Portugal's still-highly coveted Golden Visa is approaching irreparable proportions.

With Cyprus still being the premier business-friendly Mediterranean country, the competition faced by the Spaniards and Portuguese for foreign resident investors is intensifying. Greece is continuing its successful non-dom tax regime (even as the Labour government in the UK abolishes theirs), Montenegro's application to join the EU is advancing (even if the historically Russophilic Montenegrin Serbs won't be admitted into the Schengen Zone for years to come), plus Schengen member Black Sea country Bulgaria maintains an attractive Golden Visa and the European conservative powerhouse Hungary has relaunched its own program.

The pro-business government of Cyprus is clearly not treading water, but gaining strokes on the Spanish and Portuguese governments in 2025's choppy residency by investment waters.