Selling Property in North Cyprus: Tax, Steps and Costs (2026)

Selling Property in North Cyprus: Tax, Steps and Costs (2026)

Selling property in North Cyprus (the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, TRNC) is taxed through a withholding that the Land Registry collects at the moment the title passes to the buyer. Under the Income Tax Law as consolidated on 25 May 2026, a seller who is not a property dealer is treated as having made a gain of 20% of the higher of the sale price and the Land Registry’s value; 30% of that deemed gain is exempt, and 20% of the remainder is withheld as final tax. The result is 2.8% of the value, which on a GBP 150,000 sale is GBP 4,200. Every rule and figure in this guide is stated as of 4 November 2026.

Two time limits sit behind the rest of the process. The numerical limits on what a foreign buyer may purchase come from Decree-Law 89/2026 (Resmi Gazete No. 147, 7 August 2026), a Council of Ministers decree whose 90-day validity ends about 5 November 2026 unless Parliament enacts it, and the Land Registry fee schedule that the buyer pays (Resmi Gazete No. 197, 7 October 2026) is valid only to 5 January 2027. This guide sets out the seller’s side in the order it happens: who can buy, the timeline from contract to funds, the withholding formula with worked arithmetic in sterling, why published rates differ, who pays which cost, what a seller may and may not sell to a foreigner, the position of owners who live abroad, and how proceeds leave the country. Most North Cyprus listings are priced in sterling while the state collects in Turkish lira, so the sterling figures below are arithmetic on a stated price, not a quotation.

Selling Property in North Cyprus at a Glance

The table gathers the main points of a sale and the instrument each one comes from. Rates are shown only where an official TRNC text states them; a figure marked as derived is arithmetic on those texts.

Legal Basis for Selling Property in North Cyprus: Decree-Law 89/2026 and the Dates That Matter

A sale to a buyer who is not a TRNC citizen runs through Law 52/2008 on the acquisition of immovable property by foreigners. The consolidated text of that law on the legislation portal still shows the stricter wording introduced by Law 39/2024: one property per foreign buyer, a six-month window to sign the transfer and 60 working days to pay the transfer fees. Decree-Law 89/2026 replaces several paragraphs of article 8 while it remains in force. It lets a foreign buyer hold up to three apartments, extends the transfer window to one year and the fee window to 75 working days. It is the re-issue of Decree-Law 63/2026 of 11 May 2026, which a press report in Bugün Kıbrıs says was re-issued because Parliament was in recess and could not pass the amendment its committee had begun to discuss. The decree states its own reason: the state was losing tax and fee income because foreign buyers and sellers could not meet the deadlines in the 2024 amendment, so a large part of it concerns when and how taxes and fees are paid. Our guide on whether foreigners can buy property in North Cyprus covers the buyer’s side in detail.

A decree-law is not an act of Parliament. Its 90 days run from 7 August 2026 and end about 5 November 2026, one day after the date of this guide. The Resmi Gazete issues from No. 197 (7 October 2026) to No. 215 (4 November 2026) that were available online contain Council of Ministers permit decisions under Law 52/2008, including decisions of 2 November 2026 that allow 340 and 513 foreign nationals to buy, in each case on condition that the property is free (serbest). None of the issues read contains an act of Parliament enacting Decree-Law 89/2026 or a new decree-law on foreigners’ acquisitions. A seller whose buyer is a foreigner therefore works with two possible texts: the decree while it is in force or enacted, and the stricter consolidated text if it is not. Every figure in this guide that depends on the decree says so.

The Land Registry has also changed where business is done. A notice of 15 July 2025 says that during the roll-out of the new automated system, transfers, mortgages and research documents are handled only at the district office where the property is registered. A seller who lives elsewhere in the country, or abroad, therefore deals with that one office, directly or through a lawyer or proxy.

Who Can Buy From You: Buyer Categories, Permits and the Fee Each Pays

The pool of buyers is set by law, and it shapes both the time a sale takes and what the buyer pays on top of the price. Law 52/2008 defines a foreigner as anyone who is not a TRNC citizen; a company with any foreign shareholding counts as a foreign legal person. A TRNC citizen buying from a seller needs no Council of Ministers permit. Everyone else does.

For a seller the practical consequence is timing. A sale to a TRNC citizen is registered after the fees are paid, with no permit in between. A sale to a foreign buyer waits for a Council of Ministers decision that neither the law nor the decree limits in time. An agency or developer may state a duration, but the texts read for this guide give none. The buyer applies through the Interior Ministry’s Immovable Property Unit, in person, through a lawyer or through a proxy, and pays a service fee equal to half the gross monthly minimum wage: TL 70,893 divided by 2 is TL 35,446.50. That fee falls on the foreign applicant, not the seller.

Under the consolidated text a foreign buyer can hold only one property, so a buyer who already owns an apartment may have no acquisition right left for a second one. The decree’s higher limits widen the pool of buyers for sellers of several units in one building, and they are the part that depends on the end-of-validity date. The decree also caps the share of a zoned housing project that can be sold to foreigners at 80%, and it bars first-degree relatives, or buyers of the same nationality, from together acquiring more than half the units on a parcel. Those caps are discussed in the section on what a seller can sell. Licensed intermediary investors, a category the decree creates, may take up to 10 homes a year into disposal without taking title, so a contract with such a buyer needs to state who holds the title.

Selling Property in North Cyprus Step by Step: From Contract to Funds

The sequence below follows the buyer-side process described in our guide on how to buy property in North Cyprus, read from the seller’s chair. Each step shows the time limit in the decree and in the stricter consolidated text.

Three details of the table matter to a seller. First, the one-month rule in step 2 is conditional on payment of the taxes and fees legally due from both buyer and seller on the sale, and the decree’s own statement of purpose is to collect them early. Second, the year in step 5 is counted differently depending on how the price is paid. If the seller takes a mortgage over the property to cover unpaid instalments, the one-year clock does not wait for full payment; if there is no mortgage in the seller’s favour, it starts on the date the whole price shown in the document filed with the Ministry has been paid. Registering a mortgage costs 1% of the mortgage debt under the fee schedule, and the mortgagor pays it. Third, non-payment has consequences beyond the lapse of the permit: until all taxes and fees are paid, local authorities may not give a permanent or temporary water connection and the electricity authority may not give a temporary or permanent electricity connection to the property, except for building sites. A re-application after a lapse costs double fees and a third application for the same property is not allowed.

The 75 working days are about 15 weeks. As an illustration only, if a permit were published on Monday 1 March 2027, the 75th working day after it, counting Monday to Friday and ignoring public holidays, would be Monday 14 June 2027. Because the fee schedule of 7 October 2026 ends on 5 January 2027, a contract signed in November 2026 can reach the fee-payment stage under a different schedule from the one in force when it was signed. A seller with a price fixed in the contract is not affected in the price, but the buyer’s total cost is, which is a reason some contracts say who bears a change in fees.

The Seller’s Tax When Selling Property in North Cyprus: Formula and Worked Example

The tax a seller pays is not computed on the profit actually made. The Income Tax Law treats the disposal of a property by someone who is not in the business of trading property as producing a deemed net gain, and the tax follows from that deemed figure. The law applies to every disposal, whatever the way the property was acquired, and it counts a sale, an exchange, a gift or an expropriation by the Land Registry as a disposal. The calculation has four steps, taken from articles 4(5), 6(12) and 31(1) of the consolidated text of 25 May 2026.

1. Take the higher of the sale price and the market value (rayiç kıymet) the Land Registry sets on the day of transfer.
2. Deem the net gain to be 20% of that figure, whatever the seller paid for the property.
3. Deduct the exemption, which the law sets at 30% of the gain. The Council of Ministers may raise the exemption each January by decision, up to 60%.
4. The Land Registry withholds 20% of what is left at the moment of transfer. That payment is the final tax on the gain.

The table applies the steps to a sale at GBP 150,000 where the Land Registry value equals the price, and then to a sale where the Land Registry’s value is GBP 180,000 against the same price.

Three points follow from the formula. The tax does not depend on what the seller paid for the property: a seller who bought at GBP 200,000 and sells at GBP 150,000 pays the same GBP 4,200 as one who bought at GBP 60,000, because the gain is deemed. The law also says that losses on property disposals are not deducted from the deemed net gain and that such losses cannot be set against other income. And the base is the higher of two figures, so a Land Registry value above the contract price raises the tax even when the price itself is lower. The buyer declares the market value on the day of transfer and the Land Registry Director assesses it within up to three months, with a right to object under the Immovable Property (Tenure, Registration and Valuation) Law, according to the fee schedule’s closing notes; how that later assessment interacts with a withholding already collected is a question for the district office.

Because the state works in lira, the sterling amounts above are arithmetic. A seller whose contract is in sterling will see the tax calculated on a lira value and collected in lira. The Foreign Exchange Law (art. 5) allows contract amounts to be expressed in foreign currency, and the Stamp Duty Law converts a foreign-currency sum at the official effective selling rate on the day the instrument is stamped.

Why Selling Property in North Cyprus Gets Quoted at Different Tax Rates

Agency and developer pages that give the seller’s tax in the TRNC quote figures from 2.8% to 6.25%, including 3.5% and 4%. The differences have five identifiable causes.

The first is the exemption share. The effective rate is 4% x (1 – exemption), because 20% x 20% is 4% before any exemption. The statute gives 30%, so 4% x 70% is 2.8%. If the Council of Ministers raised the exemption for a year, the same sale would be taxed less. The table shows the full range the law allows on a GBP 150,000 base.

The second cause is the seller’s status. A person who counts as a property dealer gets no exemption, so the 4% figure that some pages quote is the formula without the 30% reduction. A developer FAQ read for this guide lists 3.5% and 6.25% as the headline rates for sales without and with profit, and says that 2.8% and 4% are what is applied in practice; the 2.8% matches the formula above, and the 4% matches the no-exemption case. The Income Tax Law text read does not contain a 3.5% or a 6.25% rate. The third cause is the base. A page that works from the price alone ignores the rule that the higher of price and Land Registry value is used.

The fourth cause is mixing up the two sides of the sale. The Land Registry fee of 4%, 5.5% or 6% is paid by the person who registers the title, which is the buyer, so a page that lists 4% as a seller’s cost is describing a different charge. Some developers state that the 4% fee is split 2% each between buyer and seller; that split does not appear in the fee schedule text. The fifth cause is the jurisdiction. Many pages on Cyprus tax describe the Republic of Cyprus, where the capital gains tax is 20% of the real gain, a different system from the TRNC. The comparison with the Republic is set out in a later section.

The state of the exemption deserves a precise statement. The law gives 30% and allows a Council of Ministers decision to raise it each January up to 60%. The consolidated text of 25 May 2026 shows 30%, and the developer FAQ’s applied rate of 2.8% is consistent with that share. The 2.8% is therefore the formula’s result under the statutory share, not a rate announced by the Tax Department, and a seller can check the current share with the Land Registry or the Tax Department before signing.

Who Pays Which Cost in a Sale

A sale produces charges on both sides. The Law 52/2008 article on payment says that all taxes, duties, fees, withholding and VAT on a transfer are paid by buyer and seller according to the legislation in force; the schedules then say who in each case. The table separates the items the texts allocate from the items that depend on the contract.

The fee schedule’s rule that the fee is paid by the person registering the title is the clearest statement, but a contract can shift cost between the parties, and the Stamp Duty Law says in terms that its allocation applies unless the parties agree otherwise. VAT needs separate treatment. The VAT regulation fixes rates; it does not list which sales fall inside the VAT system. Agency pages and a developer FAQ state that 5% VAT applies to new homes sold by a developer and not to private resales, but none of them cites a provision of the VAT Law, so a contract for a resale should state whether the price includes VAT. For a seller of a resale the difference matters on a GBP 150,000 price: 5% added on top would be GBP 7,500, and 5% inside the price would be GBP 150,000 x 5 / 105 = GBP 7,142.86. Our guide to North Cyprus property taxes and fees works through the buyer’s side of the same arithmetic.

Agent commission has no figure in any statute or schedule read for this guide: it is a term of the agency contract. The arithmetic is simple enough to do from the contract. Each 1% of a GBP 150,000 price is GBP 1,500, so a commission of 2% would be GBP 3,000 and one of 3% would be GBP 4,500. The Real Estate Association of Northern Cyprus (Kıbrıs Türk Emlakçılar Birliği) announced in October 2025 an online form for complaints about unlicensed agents, which refers to unlicensed agents, although the announcement does not name the licensing authority.

Trader Test, One-Off Exemption, Gifts and Family Transfers

The 2.8% result applies to a seller who is not treated as a property dealer. The Income Tax Law defines the term broadly: it covers individuals who have made property dealing or parcelling or building and selling their profession, companies that do so, and individuals who have disposed of more than three properties in one calendar year or more than five properties in three calendar years. Each share sold counts as one property, and where one title (koçan) can be split into separate titles through parcelling or construction, each separately titled unit sold counts as one. Sales whose value is below 40 times the monthly minimum wage on the date of sale do not count, and neither do inherited or gifted properties. At the July 2026 gross minimum wage of TL 70,893 the threshold is 40 x 70,893 = TL 2,835,720 per sale. A person put in the dealer category leaves it after three calendar years without a disposal or activity of that kind. A dealer receives no 30% exemption, and the Land Registry withholds 20% of the deemed gain, which is 4% of the value on the arithmetic above.

The one-off exemption is the second status question. The law does not look for a gain where a person disposes, once only and after 1 January 1982, of one house with up to one donum of land and one plot (or one donum of field in place of the plot), or one workplace of up to 300 m2 in place of the house and plot. The exemption text excludes property dealers and foreigners, whether or not they are resident in the TRNC. A foreign seller therefore starts from 2.8%, not from zero.

Family transfers and company contributions follow other rules. The Income Tax Law does not look for a gain where a person gifts property to a spouse or children, or contributes registered property to a company registered in the TRNC in exchange for shares. The Land Registry fee schedule still charges on those registrations: 0.2% of the declared market value for a gift from parent to child, 0.4% for a gift between spouses or from a grandparent to a grandchild, 3% for other gifts, 2% on each side of an exchange (with a further 3% on any difference in value), and 1% where a person transfers property to a company in which they hold 25% or more of the shares. The schedule lists no separate inheritance rate; our guide on North Cyprus inheritance law and tax deals with that side. Rental income before a sale has its own tax, 10% of gross rent withheld, which our guide to renting out property in North Cyprus covers, and the wider income tax position of an owner is the subject of the guide to income tax in North Cyprus.

No holding period that removes the gain was found in the Income Tax Law. There is no rule in the text under which a property held for five or ten years is taxed at zero, so any page that says the tax disappears after a stated number of years is not describing a provision of the consolidated law.

What a Seller Can Sell to a Foreign Buyer: Title, Condominium Rights and Limits

Selling property in North Cyprus to a foreigner is lawful only for property that the law lets a foreigner acquire, and the law attaches criminal penalties to the seller. A sale that exceeds the buyer’s acquisition right, a sale of a unit without condominium title, a sale of agricultural or forest land to a foreigner, a sale of a share title in land to a foreigner, or a sale that breaks the half-of-parcel rule is an offence under Law 52/2008 article 16, punishable by a fine of up to 500 times the gross monthly minimum wage at the date of conviction. At the July 2026 wage that is 500 x TL 70,893 = TL 35,446,500. The limits that a seller needs to check before a contract is signed are these.

• Condominium rights. Before a permit application, condominium title (kat mülkiyeti) or a condominium easement (kat irtifakı) must exist for the unit under Law 35/2010. The decree allows, for two years from its entry into force, an application on the basis of a building permit or a Planning Approval from the Town Planning Department where condominium title could not be established.
• Share titles. A foreigner may not buy a share-title (hisse koçanlı) interest in land. For an apartment or a detached house, a share title may be bought by at most three foreign natural persons jointly.
• Land type and zones. No agricultural or forest land may be sold to foreigners, and foreigners may not acquire property in first-degree military prohibited zones or military security zones.
• Area caps. Foreigners may not hold more than 7% of any district’s area or more than 3% of the country’s area, and an entry made in breach is void.
• Project cap. The decree limits sales of housing projects in zoned areas to foreigners at 80%. On a 20-unit project that is 16 units; on a project of 80 units, 64.
• Same-nationality and family rule. First-degree relatives, or foreigners of the same nationality, may not together buy more than half of the units on one parcel.
• Encumbrances. The Council of Ministers decisions in the Gazette grant each permit on condition that the property is free (serbest), and the decree’s use-certificate rules require that all taxes on the property have been paid by the seller.

The title category also shapes the buyer’s questions. The district Land Registry issues the title deed, the koçan, and agencies and developers describe categories by the land’s history before 1974: Turkish title, exchange or equivalent title (eşdeğer), allocation title (tahsis) and the developer-and-agency abbreviation TMD. A buyer’s lawyer will ask for a Land Registry search, which the Land Registry calls a research document (araştırma belgesi) and describes as an information-only ownership query, to match the registered owner with the seller. Our guide to a North Cyprus title deed check lists what that search shows, which is the owner, mortgages, restrictions and other entries, and what it does not show. Claims by former Greek Cypriot owners are the other source of buyer questions; the guide on the risks and checks of buying in North Cyprus covers the Immovable Property Commission and the court decisions in Demopoulos and Orams. A seller who can produce the title history and written discharges of any mortgage answers those questions before they are asked.

Documents and checks before signing

The documents and checks that the texts above point to can be set out as a single list, so that a seller can see which come from the law and which from practice.

For a seller with units in a project, the order of the checks is the same as for one apartment, with the 80% project cap and the half-of-parcel rule added. For a seller in the lower price tiers, where the tax in pounds is small, the fixed costs from the schedule and the lawyer’s engagement letter make up a larger part of the total, a point also relevant to anyone comparing cheap property in North Cyprus. The overview of the market on the Northern Cyprus country page shows the projects and towns in which these transactions take place.

Resale Asks on Our Listing Pages and the Tax at Those Prices

Many projects on our site are completed and sold by the developer, so the units now on the market are resales by owners. Several listing pages show a resale ask in place of a developer price. Per our listing pages, which took the asks from public advertising portals on 18 and 19 October 2026, the lowest asks by unit type are as follows. They are advertiser asking prices, not valuations, they may exclude transfer fees, VAT or furniture, and the sizes come from the adverts. The table applies the statutory formula to each ask on the assumption that the Land Registry value equals the ask, and adds the buyer’s first-property Land Registry fee of 4% and stamp duty of 0.5% so that both sides of the transfer can be read together.

The table shows how far asks for the same unit type differ even inside one project. At Sky Sakarya the 1+1 ask of GBP 120,000 is higher than the 2+1 ask of GBP 114,000, so the price per square metre runs from about GBP 1,267 to GBP 2,000 within a single building. At Four Seasons Life II the three unit types sit in a narrower band, GBP 1,893 to GBP 2,313 per square metre. The seller’s withholding in these examples is between GBP 1,778 and GBP 5,180, and on any ask it is 2.8 / 4.5, or about 62%, of what the buyer pays in Land Registry fee and stamp duty together (2.8% against 4% plus 0.5%). That ratio is the same for every row because both are straight percentages of the same base.

A developer price can sit well above the resale asks. On the Four Seasons Life II page, the developer’s published starting-from figure for a 1+1 Loft is GBP 160,000 as of 18 October 2026, against a lowest 1+1 resale ask of GBP 106,000, but the two are not like for like: the developer lists a single loft type with no size and no availability, while the portal 1+1 is 56 m2. Other listings show no price at all. The page for Mykonos Homes in Esentepe shows “On request” and a “Resale Only” status for 80 homes (8 villas and 72 apartments), the pages for Moonlight Villas in Esentepe and Maldives Homes in Esentepe show “On request” for completed projects, and the page for Caesar Beach in Bogaz shows “On request” with all 220 units sold. No tax can be computed for those until a price is written into a contract. Our guide to North Cyprus property prices by town explains how to read these labels, and the town pages for Famagusta, Iskele and Esentepe list the projects in each area. The guide on buying off-plan in North Cyprus covers the contract stage that precedes the title for a unit still under construction, where an owner may also resell the contract.

Selling Property in North Cyprus From Abroad and Moving the Proceeds

Power of attorney, lawyer and agent

A seller who lives outside the TRNC can complete a sale without attending, because the decree names three ways of dealing with the district Land Registry: in person, through a lawyer, or through an authorised proxy (yetkili vekil). The text applies those words to registering the stamped agreement and to applying for the permit. The title-deed guide on this site adds a practical point from the Land Registry search: the registered owner on the search must match the party who signs, and where an agent signs, the power of attorney is what the other side’s lawyer checks. A power of attorney is the document that carries the owner’s authority, and the buyer’s lawyer will read its scope: whether it covers signing the sale agreement, receiving the price, paying taxes and fees, and signing the transfer declaration at the Land Registry.

The district-office rule from the July 2025 notice means the proxy or lawyer must act at the office where the property is registered. Lawyers in the north are organised by district bar associations under the Cyprus Turkish Bar Association, according to UK government guidance on buying property in Cyprus, which also advises independent legal advice. A lawyer’s fee is set by the engagement letter; the Land Registry schedule and the Tax Department texts contain no lawyer’s tariff. For a seller the cost to budget is whatever the engagement letter states, plus the fixed Land Registry charges in the table above. Our guide to a property lawyer in North Cyprus sets out what a lawyer does in a sale.

A seller abroad also has a tax filing position at home, which the last paragraph of this section covers. Within the TRNC, the Income Tax Law taxes foreigners and non-residents only on income arising inside the TRNC (art. 3), and a gain on TRNC property arises there. Article 3 also says that a foreigner or non-resident who does not meet the duties the tax laws impose, or give the security the Tax Department considers necessary, may be refused permission to reside, work or carry on gainful activity in the TRNC. For an owner who is not resident, the withholding at the Land Registry is the means by which the sale is taxed; whether anything further is due depends on the owner’s other TRNC income and status.

Moving the proceeds out of North Cyprus

The Foreign Exchange Law 38/1997, as amended through Law 18/2025, covers money entering and leaving the TRNC. Holding foreign currency, using it as a means of exchange and writing contract amounts in foreign currency are free (art. 5). Transfers of money, including foreign currency, between the TRNC and other countries are free if banks are used and the names and addresses of sender and recipient are recorded, and the total amounts of incoming and outgoing transfers are reported to the Central Bank (art. 6). Carrying cash across the border is free within limits set by Central Bank notice (art. 7). No special rule for property sales appears in the law. A seller receiving the price in sterling into a TRNC bank account and sending it to a bank abroad is using the article 6 route; the practical documents the bank asks for are a matter for the bank. Our guide on a North Cyprus bank account for foreigners covers opening one.

Currency matters for the seller in two ways. The Financial Transactions Tax Law 62/2026, in force since 1 October 2026, charges financial institutions 0.1% of the foreign-currency sale amount in exchange transactions, and the institutions collect it from customers; a seller who converts sterling into lira through a TRNC institution would pay GBP 1 for each GBP 1,000 converted. The rate is written for exchange transactions, so a transfer of sterling that stays in sterling is outside that line. The second effect is inflation. The TRNC Statistical Institute reports consumer prices up 35.02% in the 12 months to September 2026 and 28.15% since December 2025. A price fixed in lira loses purchasing power between signing and completion, which is why most listings quote sterling and why the stamp duty on a sterling contract is converted at the official rate on the stamping day.

A seller who is tax resident in the United Kingdom has a UK position too. According to GOV.UK, UK residents pay Capital Gains Tax when they dispose of overseas property, the country where the gain arose may also tax it, and relief may be available if the gain is taxed twice. Whether and how relief works for tax paid to the TRNC authorities is a question for a tax adviser in the seller’s country of residence.

Selling Property in North Cyprus Compared With the Republic of Cyprus

Search results for “selling property in Cyprus” mix two jurisdictions. The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state, taxes gains differently from the TRNC, and the buyer rules also differ. The comparison below uses the rates in our guide to villas in Cyprus and the Capital Gains Tax Law 52/1980 of the Republic; our guide on North and South Cyprus property compares the two systems more widely.

Under the TRNC formula, the tax on a sale that makes a large real profit is the same as on one that makes none. Under the Republic’s rule, a sale at a loss pays no gains tax. Neither system is better for every seller; the difference lies in what is taxed, which for a seller of a property in the north is a fixed share of value, and in the Republic a share of the actual profit.

What Changes After 5 November 2026

The end of Decree-Law 89/2026’s 90 days is the one event in this guide that can change several answers at once. Three outcomes are possible, and the sources read for this guide show none of them yet. Parliament could enact the decree, or an amended law, so that its limits and deadlines become part of Law 52/2008. The Council of Ministers could issue a new decree-law, as happened with Decree-Law 63/2026, which was re-issued as 89/2026 before it lapsed. Or the decree could lapse, leaving the consolidated Law 52/2008 text on the legislation portal: one property per foreign buyer (three for nationals of recognising states), 60 working days for transfer fees and six months for the transfer declaration. The interior minister said, in a Bugün Kıbrıs report of 5 May 2026, that a new bill was being prepared, but the Gazette issues read show no enactment.

The seller’s tax does not depend on the decree: the Income Tax Law formula applies to any transfer. What the decree changes is who may buy and how long the process takes, and so the length of time before the withholding is collected and the proceeds arrive. The Land Registry fee schedule of 7 October 2026 is a separate instrument with its own end date of 5 January 2027. A contract signed in the weeks around those dates meets both changes at once, and the text that governs each step is the one in force on the day that step is taken.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tax does a seller pay when selling property in North Cyprus?

A seller who is not a property dealer is taxed on a deemed gain: 20% of the higher of the sale price and the Land Registry value, less a 30% exemption, with 20% of the remainder withheld by the Land Registry at transfer as final tax. That is 2.8% of the value, or GBP 4,200 on GBP 150,000. The Income Tax Law as consolidated on 25 May 2026 is the source.

Is the rate 2.8%, 3.5% or 4% for selling property in North Cyprus?

The statutory formula gives 2.8% with the 30% exemption and 4% without it, which is the dealer case. A developer FAQ lists 3.5% and 6.25% as headline rates and says 2.8% and 4% are applied. The Income Tax Law text read for this guide contains no 3.5% or 6.25% rate.

Can a foreigner use the one-off exemption when selling property in North Cyprus?

No. The exemption for one house with up to one donum of land and one plot, or a workplace up to 300 m2, excludes property dealers and foreigners, whether or not they live in the TRNC. A foreign seller is taxed under the 20%, 30% and 20% formula.

Who pays the Land Registry fee?

The fee schedule of 7 October 2026 says the registration charge is paid by the person who has the title registered in their own name, which is the buyer. A foreign buyer pays 4% on a first property, 5.5% on a second and 6% on a third, until the schedule ends on 5 January 2027. A contract can allocate costs differently.

How long does selling property in North Cyprus take if the buyer is a foreigner?

No statutory time limit applies to the Council of Ministers decision. Around it, the stamped agreement must be registered within one month, transfer fees paid within 75 working days of the permit’s publication and the transfer declaration signed within one year under Decree-Law 89/2026. The stricter consolidated text allows 60 working days and six months.

Can I sell from abroad with a power of attorney?

The decree names three routes for registering the agreement and applying for the permit: in person, through a lawyer or through an authorised proxy. The district Land Registry office where the property is registered handles the transfer, and the other side’s lawyer will read the scope of the power of attorney.

Is there a holding period after which no tax is due?

No holding period that exempts a gain was found in the Income Tax Law. The tax is the same whether the seller held the property for one year or twenty, unless the seller is a dealer, in which case the 30% exemption does not apply.

Is VAT charged on a resale?

The VAT regulation sets 5% for housing up to 300 m2 of closed area and 10% from 300 m2, and does not list which sales are inside the system. Agency pages and a developer FAQ state that VAT applies to new homes sold by developers and not to private resales, so the contract should state whether the price includes VAT.

Can I take the proceeds out of North Cyprus?

Under Foreign Exchange Law 38/1997 article 6, transfers in and out of the country, including foreign currency, are free if banks are used and the names and addresses of sender and recipient are recorded. Total amounts are reported to the Central Bank. Converting sterling into lira in a TRNC institution carries a 0.1% Financial Transactions Tax.

What happens to selling property in North Cyprus if Decree-Law 89/2026 lapses?

The seller’s tax stays the same, because it comes from the Income Tax Law. The buyer limits and deadlines would revert to the consolidated Law 52/2008 text, which allows one property per foreign buyer and shorter deadlines. As of 4 November 2026 the Gazette issues read show no enactment and no new decree.

Last checked: 4 November 2026. Sources: Resmi Gazete No. 147, 7 August 2026 (Decree-Law 89/2026); Resmi Gazete No. 197, 7 October 2026 (Land Registry fees); Resmi Gazete No. 214, 3 November 2026 (Council of Ministers permit decisions); Resmi Gazete No. 215, 4 November 2026; TRNC Income Tax Law, consolidated 25 May 2026; Law 52/2008, consolidated; Stamp Duty Law 19/1963; VAT rates regulation, 7 October 2026; Tax Department minimum wage notice, 1 July 2026; Financial Transactions Tax Law 62/2026; Foreign Exchange Law 38/1997; Land Registry notice, 15 July 2025; Interior Ministry Immovable Property Unit, permit documents; TRNC Statistical Institute, consumer prices September 2026; GOV.UK, selling overseas property; UK Government, buying property in Cyprus; Bugün Kıbrıs on the re-issued decree; Haber Kıbrıs on the 7 October 2026 fee schedule; Isatis developer FAQ; Cyprus-FAQ on the estate agents’ complaint form; Capital Gains Tax Law 52/1980 of the Republic of Cyprus (CyLaw).