At the same time, Cyprus is short of about 39,000 housing units. These are the conclusions reached by the European Commission in a report on Cyprus published at the beginning of June 2026. From 1 September, new reduced VAT rules will also come into force on the real estate market.

The report was released as part of the European Semester spring package, in which housing has for the first time been examined in a separate annex for each of the 27 EU countries; the Cypriot section was highlighted by the publication Dialogos. Brussels notes that for decades the island’s housing policy has supported the purchase of owner-occupied homes, while the social rental sector has never developed. The share of social rental housing in Cyprus is close to zero, compared with an EU average of 8%.

This is the source of the state of the rental market: short-term contracts, weak protection against eviction, and no one monitoring the quality of the apartments being let. Between 2020 and 2025, housing on the island rose in price by roughly 28% — almost the same as the EU average.

@Cyprus_Avitos