Cyprus expects to join the Schengen Area in full during 2027, Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection Nicholas Ioannides told CyBC radio on October 10. Cyprus Mail and Sigmalive both reported the interview.
President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters in Nicosia in May 2025 that “we will join the Schengen Zone in 2026,” according to the Cyprus News Agency. In November 2025, Ioannides told the agency that political support from the other member states could be secured “within 2026.”
IMI reported at the start of 2025 that Christodoulides aimed to finish the technical work by the end of that year.
The government expects to finish six outstanding actions by early November, Ioannides told the broadcaster. It will then inform the European Commission that Cyprus is technically ready.
Reports of the interview by Cyprus Mail and by Sigmalive do not name the six actions.
On October 1, Ioannides told reporters in Luxembourg that all of the Commission’s recommendations were considered implemented, according to Cyprus Mail. “From a technical point of view, Cyprus is ready to become a full member of the Schengen area,” he argued then.
IMI found no report that explains how the six actions relate to those recommendations.
The Council Must Agree Unanimously
Cyprus needs close cooperation with other member states, Ioannides told CyBC, and bilateral contacts have begun, including with Luxembourg.
The Council of the European Union decides on the Cyprus Schengen request. Under Article 3(2) of the 2003 Act of Accession, that decision needs “the unanimity of its members representing the Governments of the Member States” that already apply the Schengen rules, together with Cyprus.
The same article requires that the Council consult the European Parliament before it decides. Ireland takes part in the decision as far as it concerns Schengen rules in which Ireland participates.
The Schengen Area has 29 countries: 25 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Cyprus and Ireland are the two EU member states outside it.
For Bulgaria and Romania, the Council lifted checks at air and sea borders from March 2024 and at land borders from January 2025.
Cyprus began to apply the rules of the Schengen Information System in July 2023, under an earlier Council decision. Until border checks end, that decision requires that Cyprus refrain from entering alerts whose purpose is to refuse entry.
Cyprus “will need to finalise the implementation of any outstanding recommendations,” a Commission spokesperson told Cyprus Mail in April. That step “will allow the commission to subsequently communicate to the council Cyprus’ full technical readiness.”
The Commission’s country report on Cyprus “provides a positive assessment of Cyprus’ state of technical preparedness,” Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert noted in July, according to the Cyprus News Agency. A European source told the agency that the report “is by no means the final report” on Cyprus’s path to accession.
Member states discussed the request formally on September 15, in a Council working party, Ant1 reported. The Netherlands and Austria took no position on the Commission’s presentation, the outlet added.
The request was not on the agenda when EU home affairs ministers met in Luxembourg at the start of October, Cyprus Mail reported before and after the meeting. Reports of the interview give no date for a Council vote.
The Green Line Dispute
The main point of contention is the Green Line, which separates the areas that the government controls from the north of the island, according to Cyprus Mail.
Cyprus told the Commission that it will not apply the EU’s Entry/Exit System at the crossing points on the line, the newspaper reported without naming a source.
The system registers non-EU nationals on short visits to 29 European countries. It came into full use at their external borders in April 2026.
A non-EU national could enter the government-controlled areas, leave through the north, and later reach another Schengen border with no recorded exit from Cyprus, the newspaper noted.
The preamble of the EU’s Green Line Regulation states that the line “does not constitute an external border of the EU.”
“We will never accept it becoming a hard border,” Ioannides told the House audit committee on September 24, according to Cyprus Mail.
The Commission wants Cyprus to write the Green Line crossing procedure into EU law and to upgrade checks at the two British Bases crossings, according to Ant1.
Compromise ideas include checks at Cypriot ports and airports before departure, or Frontex staff who would perform those checks, Cyprus Mail reported.
What Membership Changes for Non-EU Residents
Full membership would let non-EU nationals who need a Schengen visa today visit the rest of the Schengen Area on a valid Cyprus residence permit.
Today, “visas or residence permits issued by Cyprus are not valid for travel to countries in the Schengen area,” according to the EU’s Your Europe portal.
Under Article 21 of the Schengen Convention, a non-EU national with a valid residence permit from one Schengen country and a valid travel document can “move freely” in the others. The limit, under a later amendment, is 90 days in any 180-day period.
Non-EU residents of Bulgaria and Romania gained that right in March 2024, when the Council applied those rules there.
Article 21 covers short visits. For nationals of countries that have no agreement with the EU, the right to work in an EU country “depends on the national laws of that country,” according to the same portal.
The Commission’s travel portal tells visa-exempt travelers that if they visit Cyprus, “the duration of your stay there will be calculated separately” from the 90 days allowed in the other countries. The UK government gives British travelers the same rule today.
After Bulgaria and Romania joined, short visits there “from 31 March 2024 must be included in the total stay” allowed in the Schengen countries, according to Denmark’s Immigration Service.
Eurostat counted 200,652 valid residence permits for non-EU citizens in Cyprus at the end of 2025. That total covers permits granted for any reason and valid for at least three months, and it leaves out people under temporary protection.
Cyprus’s investor program grants permanent residence, and it requires that applicants invest at least €300,000. Officials are reviewing approximately 12,000 permits issued since 2013, Ioannides told MPs on September 24, according to Cyprus Mail.
A letter from Finance Minister Makis Keravnos in 2025 counted 28,660 permits granted since 2014, including family members. Ioannides did not say which measure his figure uses, as IMI reported in September.
Schengen membership makes the program more attractive, Ioannides told the committee, according to the Cyprus News Agency.
He expects decisions on tighter terms and has sent proposals to the other ministers involved, Cyprus Mail reported.
