Keep what your trading technology earns.

A Cyprus tax regime under which 80% of qualifying profit from self-developed intellectual property is deducted, leaving the remaining 20% taxed at the 15% corporate rate, for an effective rate of about 3%. It is OECD-compliant and built on the nexus rule, so the qualifying share depends on the qualifying R&D expenditure behind the IP and who incurred it.

Copyrighted software can qualify: platform code, game engines, trading bridges and proprietary tools. Brands, trademarks and other marketing IP are excluded. The regime is built around technology you wrote, not a licence you resell.

Not wholesale, but the Cyprus company has to be the one that develops and controls the platform. In practice that means a resident technical lead and a core engineering team approving releases locally, with the Cyprus company funding the work. Development it does itself, or outsources to unrelated third parties, counts toward the qualifying share; development recharged from group companies outside Cyprus does not. You bring the technical leadership; we handle payroll, contracts and the office.

Usually, and the IP is transferred in at an independent valuation. What you pay to acquire IP that already exists counts toward total development spend without counting toward the qualifying share, so it reduces the share of profit that gets the reduced rate. How that lands on your facts is set out by a regulated Cyprus tax advisor in a formal opinion, alongside your existing advisors, before anything moves.

No. About 3% is the floor rather than a promise: it is what the regime produces when the qualifying share is at or near its maximum, and a smaller share moves the effective rate up, never down. That share follows the development spend behind the IP and who incurred it. A regulated Cyprus tax advisor quantifies your number in a formal opinion before you commit to anything.

While you run it, yes. OECD Pillar Two’s 15% minimum applies only to groups above €750m of consolidated revenue, and companies below that line keep the IP-Box rate. At exit it depends on the buyer: a smaller or PE buyer keeps the benefit, while a very large strategic may absorb you into its Pillar Two group and top the rate up to 15%.

It depends on what the company has to do, and we will not post a number we would then have to qualify. The swing factors are whether you need substance in Cyprus or only a registered entity, whether the ownership chain is straightforward, whether you need banking and of what kind, and the ongoing bookkeeping, payroll, VAT and statutory audit every Cyprus company files. Tell us which of those you need and the quote follows the scope.

A regulated Cyprus tax advisor from BLK’s partner network. BLK Advisory Services is not a licensed tax advisory or audit firm and does not write or sign the opinion; it designs and runs the structure the opinion describes.