Ask three agents what office space for rent in Cyprus should cost and you will get three answers, none of them with a number attached. Listing portals show you filters. Market reports show you national averages. Neither tells a business owner what a 150 m² shop on a Nicosia high street or a 200 m² office in Limassol actually rents for this month.
So we counted. On 7 September 2026 we analysed every one of the 1,681 commercial listings live on index.cy — 756 offices for rent, 126 other commercial and retail units for rent, 364 offices for sale and 435 commercial properties for sale. What follows is the asking-price reality of the Cyprus commercial rental market, district by district, square metre by square metre.
The single most important number: a 100–300 m² office costs €4,500 a month in Limassol and €2,275 in Nicosia. Same footprint, 98% more money. If your business can work from either city, that gap is the biggest line item you will ever negotiate.
Across the whole country, here is the midpoint of the market:
| Segment | Listings | Median rent | Median size | Median €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offices for rent | 732 | €4,500 | 220 m² | €22.04 |
| Shops & other commercial for rent | 126 | €3,750 | 200 m² | €18.66 |
Of the 756 office rentals live on the platform, 732 state both an asking price and a floor area; the medians below are drawn from those 732. Those medians hide an enormous spread. A quarter of all offices for rent are listed at €2,100 a month or less; a quarter are €9,000 or more. The cheapest office on the platform asks €400 a month, the cheapest retail unit €450. The most expensive office asks €144,000. “Commercial rent in Cyprus” is not one market — it is at least four, and they behave differently.
One structural fact frames everything else. Limassol holds 73% of every office rental listing that states a district, and 56% of retail listings. The Cyprus commercial rental market is not spread evenly across five districts. It is a Limassol market with four satellites, which is why the district comparison below matters more here than it would almost anywhere else in Europe.
A note on method: these are asking prices from live listings, not signed leases. Commercial rents are negotiated harder than residential ones, and headline rents on larger units routinely soften. Read every figure as the top of a negotiating range rather than the price you will pay.
| District | Listings | Median rent | Median size | €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limassol | 469 | €5,500 | 210 m² | €26.32 |
| Paphos | 44 | €3,250 | 160 m² | €17.78 |
| Larnaca | 31 | €2,000 | 141 m² | €12.99 |
| Nicosia | 98 | €2,500 | 234 m² | €12.87 |
| Cyprus | 732 | €4,500 | 220 m² | €22.04 |
Limassol offices cost €26.32 per square metre per month against Nicosia’s €12.87 — almost exactly double. That is the price of the shipping, forex and corporate services cluster that has settled along the Limassol coast, and tenants there are paying it.
Median rents alone understate the gap, because unit sizes differ between districts. Comparing only offices between 100 and 300 m² — the size band most small and mid-sized businesses actually lease — strips that distortion out:
| District | 100–300 m² offices | Median monthly rent | €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Limassol | 282 | €4,500 | €25.00 |
| Paphos | 30 | €3,250 | €18.06 |
| Larnaca | 19 | €2,500 | €12.20 |
| Nicosia | 48 | €2,275 | €12.25 |
| Cyprus | 423 | €3,700 | €20.83 |
Like for like, a Limassol office costs €2,225 a month more than the identical footprint in Nicosia — €26,700 a year. For a ten-person professional services firm that is a full salary. The capital and Larnaca are effectively tied at just over €12 per square metre, Paphos sits in the middle, and Limassol is in a category of its own.
If you are weighing the two main options, our guides to living in Limassol and living in Nicosia cover the staff side of that decision — commute, schools and cost of living — which usually settles it faster than the rent does. For the hiring and permit side, see our working in Cyprus guide.
Serviced and managed office space sits above these figures but bundles fit-out, reception, utilities and internet into one monthly bill. For a team under ten people signing its first Cyprus lease, that trade is often worth making:
Retail behaves nothing like offices. Here is the same district table for shops and other commercial units:
| District | Listings | Median rent | Median size | €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limassol | 70 | €5,850 | 250 m² | €20.00 |
| Larnaca | 19 | €2,100 | 124 m² | €17.14 |
| Paphos | 7 | €3,500 | 150 m² | €16.39 |
| Nicosia | 30 | €2,290 | 155 m² | €14.92 |
| Cyprus | 126 | €3,750 | 200 m² | €18.66 |
Limassol’s retail premium over Nicosia is only 34%, against 105% for offices. Retail rent tracks footfall, and footfall in Nicosia — the largest resident population in Cyprus and a full working-day city — holds up well against a coastal district trading on seasonal visitors and corporate salaries. Larnaca is the surprise: at €17.14 per square metre its shops cost 32% more than its offices at €12.99, the only district where retail outprices office space.
There is a supply story behind the search volume too. Roughly 380 people a month search for a shop to rent in Limassol or Nicosia, and index.cy carries just 126 non-office commercial rentals nationally — fewer than one for every three monthly searchers. Cyprus has no dedicated “shops to rent” category on any major platform, ours included; retail units sit inside a broader commercial property for rent pool alongside warehouses, workshops and mixed-use space. Filter by size and district rather than by keyword, or you will miss most of the market.
Limassol is not one price. Across the 469 office rentals in the district, the spread between areas is wider than the spread between most countries:
| Limassol area | Listings | €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|
| Agios Nikolaos | 10 | €36.50 |
| Linopetra | 7 | €36.41 |
| Agios Athanasios | 32 | €35.10 |
| Agia Triada | 8 | €34.46 |
| Neapolis | 27 | €29.40 |
| Potamos Germasogeias | 8 | €28.64 |
| Mesa Geitonia | 50 | €27.49 |
| Kapsalos | 24 | €26.00 |
| Tsiflikoudia | 7 | €23.89 |
| Agia Zoni | 59 | €22.61 |
| Katholiki | 22 | €21.62 |
| Agios Nektarios | 6 | €19.42 |
| Petrou kai Pavlou | 8 | €17.40 |
| Ypsonas | 6 | €10.89 |
Agios Nikolaos costs 3.35 times what Ypsonas costs, inside the same district and within a 20-minute drive. Ypsonas at €10.89 per square metre is cheaper than the Nicosia average — a genuine arbitrage for any business whose clients never visit the office.
The pattern is legible. The €35-plus cluster sits along the coastal business corridor between the marina and the new towers. The €22–€27 middle covers the inland residential districts where most local firms actually sit — our area guides to Agios Athanasios and Germasogeia cover both ends of that band. Below €20 you are in the industrial and outer-suburban belt.
Choosing Agia Zoni over Agios Athanasios saves €12.49 per square metre per month — €29,976 a year on a 200 m² floor — for a change of postcode most clients will never notice.
Conventional wisdom says bigger space costs less per square metre. In Cyprus that is true for shops and false for offices.
| Floor area | Offices €/m²/month | Shops & commercial €/m²/month |
|---|---|---|
| Under 50 m² | €41.67 | €26.39 |
| 50–99 m² | €18.18 | €21.30 |
| 100–199 m² | €20.08 | €16.19 |
| 200–499 m² | €23.26 | €19.35 |
| 500 m² and above | €27.00 | €15.31 |
Set aside the tiny sub-50 m² band — those are kiosks, storage rooms and single-desk units, a different product priced by scarcity — and the trend is clear. Office space gets 49% more expensive per square metre as it grows, from €18.18 to €27.00. Retail gets 28% cheaper, from €21.30 to €15.31.
The reason is what large space means in each sector. A 500 m² office in Cyprus is a floor in a modern A-class tower with parking and building services. A 500 m² shop is usually an older warehouse-format unit on an arterial road. Size is a proxy for quality in offices and a proxy for the opposite in retail.
The practical consequence is sharp. Small teams face the worst pricing on the market: only 3% of office listings are under 50 m² and 11% are between 50 and 99 m², so a four-person firm competes for 14% of the stock. Taking 120 m² instead of 90 m² often costs barely more per month and gives you room to grow. Check the rent per square metre with an instant property report before assuming the smaller unit is the cheaper decision.
Comparing rental asking prices against sale asking prices for the same segment gives an indicative gross yield. Because our office rental and office sale samples have near-identical median floor areas — 210 m² against 240 m² in Limassol, 234 m² against 235 m² in Nicosia — that comparison is a fair one for offices:
| District | Office rent €/m²/month | Office sale €/m² | Indicative gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nicosia | €12.87 | €2,224 | 6.94% |
| Limassol | €26.32 | €5,693 | 5.55% |
| Larnaca | €12.99 | €3,048 | 5.11% |
| Paphos | €17.78 | €4,871 | 4.38% |
| Cyprus | €22.04 | €4,621 | 5.72% |
Two things stand out. First, Nicosia is the highest-yielding office market in Cyprus at 6.94%, with Limassol second at 5.55% — the capital’s cheap rents are attached to even cheaper capital values, the classic profile of an under-loved market. Paphos is the inverse at 4.38%: high entry prices, modest rents.
Second, our national figure of 5.72% sits within 0.12 percentage points of the RICS Cyprus Property Index with KPMG, which put the Q1 2026 office yield at 5.60%, retail at 5.77% and warehouses at 4.20%. Two entirely independent methods landing on the same number is the strongest validation either can get.
For Limassol retail, where rental and sale stock also match on size at 250 m² against 248 m², the indicative yield is 6.00% against the RICS retail figure of 5.77%. We have deliberately not published retail yields for the other districts: in Nicosia the retail units for sale have a median floor area of 477 m² against 155 m² for those to rent, so any yield drawn from them would compare two different products and flatter the result badly. If you see a Cyprus retail yield above 10% quoted anywhere, that is almost certainly the arithmetic behind it.
These are gross figures. Deduct management, insurance, repairs, vacancy and rental income tax before treating any of them as a return. Our guides to commercial property in Cyprus and property investment in Cyprus cover the acquisition side in full.
Three points decide more commercial lease disputes in Cyprus than any others, and two of them changed recently.
Under amending Law 157(I)/2017, a landlord may elect to charge 19% VAT on the lease of commercial property to a tenant using it for taxable business activity. Once made, the election is irrevocable for that property. If your business is VAT-registered the charge is usually neutral, because you reclaim it as input VAT. If it is not — a small exempt-supply operator, for instance — then 19% is a real 19%, and on a €2,500 office that is €5,700 a year. Ask whether the option has been exercised before you sign, not after. Our VAT on property in Cyprus guide covers the wider rules.
The Stamp Duty (Repealing) Law of 2025, Law 239(I)/2025, abolished stamp duty entirely from 1 January 2026. Documents executed on or after that date carry none. Most commercial lease checklists online still quote the old scale — if an agent hands you one, that is a useful signal about how current their advice is. See our stamp duty in Cyprus guide for the transitional rules covering agreements signed before the cut-off.
Most tenants assume it is residential-only. It is not: statutory tenancy under the Rent Control Law of 1983 applies to commercial properties as well, provided the building was completed on or before 31 December 1999 and sits inside a designated controlled area. Where it applies, a tenant who stays on after the contractual term becomes a statutory tenant, cannot be evicted except on defined grounds, and is protected by a rent increase cap of 6% running to 2027, as set out by Cyprus practitioners. Anything built this century falls outside the regime entirely, so in a modern office tower the review clause in your contract is the only protection you have. Negotiate it accordingly.
A workable process, in the order that saves the most money:
If you are buying rather than leasing, the same discipline applies to offices for sale and commercial property for sale — and confirm the title deeds position before anything else.
The median office listing on index.cy asks €4,500 a month for 220 m², or €22.04 per square metre. A quarter of listings are under €2,100 and a quarter are over €9,000. Limassol runs at €26.32 per square metre, Nicosia and Larnaca at just under €13.
Median asking rent for retail and other commercial units in Limassol is €5,850 a month for 250 m², or €20.00 per square metre — 34% above Nicosia’s €14.92. Smaller shops under 100 m² typically ask €1,650 or less.
Only if the landlord has elected to charge it. Since Law 157(I)/2017 a landlord may opt to apply 19% VAT to commercial leases where the tenant uses the property for taxable business activity, and that election is irrevocable for the property. VAT-registered tenants normally reclaim it as input VAT.
No. Stamp duty was abolished for all documents executed on or after 1 January 2026 under Law 239(I)/2025. Agreements signed before that date remain subject to the old rules.
On listing data, Nicosia offices show the highest indicative gross yield at 6.94%, ahead of Limassol at 5.55% and Larnaca at 5.11%. The national office figure of 5.72% is consistent with the RICS/KPMG Q1 2026 yield of 5.60%.
Supply. Only 14% of office rentals in Cyprus are under 100 m², so small units are priced by scarcity — those under 50 m² average €41.67 per square metre. Stepping up to 100–199 m² often costs little more in total rent.
Office space for rent in Cyprus is a Limassol market with a Nicosia discount attached. Across 1,681 live commercial listings, four findings do most of the work:
Decide your square metres first, price that exact footprint in at least two districts, and settle the VAT election in writing before you sign. Then start with commercial property for rent on index.cy and benchmark every asking price against the tables above.
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