The Cyprus Pink Slip: temporary residence for non-EU visitors

The permit everyone calls the pink slip is officially a temporary residence permit for a visitor. It is issued under Regulation 14 of the Aliens and Immigration Regulations to a third-country national who wants to enter Cyprus for short or long-term holidays, for touring, or to investigate the possibility of residing here¹. It is a residence permit and nothing more. The Migration Department states it plainly: holders of a visitor's permit cannot carry out an economic activity in the Republic¹. If your plan involves earning money in Cyprus, this is the wrong permit, and no amount of paperwork changes that. The first permit is granted for one year and is renewable for as long as you keep meeting the criteria¹. If you are an EU citizen, none of this applies to you, and your route is the [Yellow Slip](/guides/yellow-slip-meu1) instead, a different and far lighter process⁴.

1. Enter legally and apply before your visa runs out. Entry is through the legal entry points, with a visa issued by the Republic's consular authorities and a valid travel document, and the application for the residence permit must be submitted before the visa expires¹. 2. Fill in form MVIS8. One application form, MVIS8, covers both the first permit and every renewal, and it is downloadable from the department's forms page¹². 3. Build the file from the official checklist, translated and certified. Every supporting document must be officially translated and duly certified¹. For an autonomous visitor the checklist asks for a passport, valid for at least three months on the day you submit, an original clean criminal record certificate from your country of origin or residence, and original medical test results covering hepatitis B and C, HIV, syphilis, plus a chest X-ray for tuberculosis, stamped by a specialist doctor in Cyprus. The criminal record certificate and the medical results are first-permit items only³. 4. Arrange the two financial pillars. First, an original letter of guarantee from a banking institution in Cyprus, with a duration of ten years, to cover possible repatriation expenses; the amount depends on your country of origin³. Second, evidence of stable resources from outside Cyprus: the bank statement must show foreign remittances of no less than 2,000 euro per month, or 24,000 euro per year, for one person, and that figure rises by 20 percent for a spouse and 15 percent for each child³. 5. Buy the right health insurance. The checklist requires a certificate of health insurance covering inpatient and outpatient care and transportation of remains, the level the department calls Plan A³. 6. Prove where you will live. A title deed or a duly certified rental document, or a host declaration for the provision of suitable accommodation where someone is hosting you³. 7. Submit, pay, give biometrics. Applications are submitted at the department's application submission offices, and a separate page on the department's site tells you whether your district requires an appointment¹. If this is your first application you are also entered in the Aliens Registry and an Alien Registration Card is issued¹. The permit itself needs your biometric data, a photo and fingerprints, plus your signature, given with the submission receipt and a valid travel document¹.

Fees. Issuance or renewal of the residence permit costs 70 euro, and a first registration in the Aliens' Register costs a further 70 euro¹. Examination time. The department says examination is usually completed before four months have passed, and only where the information and documents supporting the application are sufficient¹. We do not promise faster than that, because nobody outside the department controls the queue. Duration. The first permit runs for one year; for priests, monks and nuns of the Orthodox Church or of the churches of religious minorities it can extend to three years on a request from the church¹. If your travel document expires sooner, the permit is issued so that its validity ends three months before the travel document does¹. Renewal maths. At renewal, the balance in your Cyprus account must not be less than 6,000 euro, which the checklist describes as three months' income, regardless of the size of the family³. For the first permit, a cash transfer or a deposit of at least 10,000 euro is also accepted, and a cash deposit must be matched by the cash declaration made at customs³.

Treating the pink slip as a route to work. Regulation 14 rules out economic activity for visitor permit holders¹. People discover this after signing a job offer, and by then the wrong application has already been filed. Counting the wrong money. The income calculation looks at remittances from outside Cyprus into your account; transfers abroad or to third parties are not taken into account³. Rent you collect locally does not rescue a thin statement. Letting the account dip before renewal. The 6,000 euro floor at renewal is checked against the statement, not against your intentions³. Skipping the translation step. Every supporting document must be officially translated and duly certified, and an untranslated document is treated as a missing one¹. Confusing the marriage permit with the ordinary one. The permit issued to a partner of a Cypriot citizen for the purpose of marriage is valid for only three months, precisely so the marriage can take place¹.

Can I work on a pink slip? No. The holder of a visitor's permit cannot carry out an economic activity in the Republic¹. How many times can I renew? The permits are renewable provided the relevant criteria are met¹. The department's page sets no maximum number of renewals, and we will not invent one here. Can my family be on it too? Yes, there are categories for a dependent spouse and a dependent minor child, and their permits are issued up to the validity of the sponsor's permit¹. Does it cover healthcare? The permit requires private cover at the Plan A level as part of the file³. Our [healthcare registration guide](/guides/gesy-registration) explains how the public system works and who it covers. Is the pink slip the same as the yellow slip? No. The yellow slip is the registration certificate for EU citizens, a different document with a different form and a far smaller file⁴. If you hold an EU passport, start with our [Yellow Slip guide](/guides/yellow-slip-meu1) instead.

1. Migration Department, Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection, \"Visitors and family members\", https://www.gov.cy/mip-md/en/documents/visitors-and-family-members/ (retrieved 2026-09-02)
2. Migration Department, \"Visitors (Forms)\", application form MVIS8 and the per-category supporting document lists, https://www.gov.cy/mip-md/en/documents/visitors-2/ (retrieved 2026-09-02)
3. Migration Department, \"Supporting documents, Visitor permit\", official checklist published on the Visitors (Forms) page, https://www.gov.cy/app/uploads/sites/174/2025/12/SUPPORTING-DOCUMENTS-VISITOR-PERMIT-1a.docx (retrieved 2026-09-02)
4. Civil Registry and Migration Department, \"Registration of E.U. citizens and members of their families who are also E.U./E.E.A. citizens (MEU1)\", https://www.gov.cy/mip-md/en/documents/e-u-e-e-a-citizens-and-family-members-2/e-u-e-e-a-citizens-family-member/registration-of-e-u-citizens-and-members-of-their-families-who-are-also-e-u-e-e-a-citizens-meu1/ (retrieved 2026-09-02)