Paphos, Limassol or Larnaca: the official figures compared

What this page compares, and what it does not#

This page sets the official figures for Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca districts side by side: contracts of sale deposited at the Department of Lands and Surveys, transfers of sale completed, the Central Bank of Cyprus Residential Property Price Index, and the Department's count of properties under contract to buyers from other EU states and from outside the EU. Each measure is in its own units and comes from its own publication; none of them is an average price, and none of them can be divided into another.

It does not rank the districts, and it says nothing about schools, services, climate, commuting or which district suits a particular household. The district pages cover what each place is like: living in Limassol and living in Paphos. Larnaca has no area guide yet.

Contracts of sale deposited#

A contract of sale is counted when the document is deposited at the district lands office, which happens within months of signing and before the transfer. The figure counts contract documents, not properties or buyers, and a single document can cover more than one property.

Source: Department of Lands and Surveys, contracts of sale by district land office, September 2026.¹ The nine-month totals are the sum of the published monthly figures, and the percentage change is the 2026 total divided by the 2025 total, minus one, rounded to one decimal place.¹ Limassol deposited the most contracts in both years; Paphos showed the largest percentage rise.¹ The monthly series for each district is on Limassol contracts of sale and Paphos contracts of sale.

Transfers of sale completed#

A transfer of sale is counted when the title deed is registered in the buyer's name at the Land Registry. The Department publishes the number of cases, so one case may cover more than one property, and a transfer in a given month usually relates to a contract deposited earlier.

Source: Department of Lands and Surveys, transfers of sale by district, row "Total number of transfers of sale", by district, September 2026 and September 2025; the nine-month totals are the sum of the published monthly figures and the change is calculated as for contracts.²³ The 2026 file is published in Greek and carries the same rows as the English files for earlier years.² Transfers rose in every district over the nine months, by smaller percentages than contracts did; the two series measure different stages of a sale, so they need not move together.¹²³

Residential Property Price Index#

The Central Bank of Cyprus index measures the change in the price of a comparable dwelling over time, from valuations supplied by credit institutions. The base is the first quarter of 2010, set to 100, so a level of 128.54 means prices 28.54% above that base.⁵ It is an index, not a price in euros, and the level in one district cannot be compared with the level in another to say which is dearer; only the changes over time are comparable.

Source: Central Bank of Cyprus, Residential Property Price Index, Q2 2026.⁴⁵ The year on year change is computed from the published index levels as the Q2 2026 level divided by the Q2 2025 level, minus one, rounded to one decimal place. In Q2 2026 Larnaca had the fastest rise for houses and for all residential property, Paphos the fastest rise for apartments, and Limassol the highest index level in every category.⁴ The all-Cyprus series and the Bank's method are on Cyprus house price index: CBC RPPI data.

Properties under contract to EU and non-EU buyers#

The Department publishes a separate monthly table for buyers who are not Cypriot, in two columns: buyers from other EU member states, excluding Cypriots, and buyers from outside the EU. The figure used here is the number of properties with registered contracts of sale in each column.⁶ It counts properties, whereas the contracts table above counts contract documents, so the two are not comparable: the foreign figure must not be subtracted from the contracts figure to give a domestic figure, and it must not be divided by it to give a share. The same table also counts the buyers as persons, which this page does not show.⁶

Source: Department of Lands and Surveys, foreign buyers table, EU and non-EU buyers by district, September 2026 and September 2025; the nine-month figures are the sum of the published monthly cells.⁶⁷ Paphos had the most properties under contract to EU buyers in every period shown; for non-EU buyers the three nine-month counts for 2026 lie within 191 of each other.⁶ The all-Cyprus table and its history are on foreign buyers of Cyprus property: the figures.

How to read these tables together#

Each table answers one question. Contracts show how many sale documents were deposited; transfers show how many title registrations completed; the index shows how the price of a comparable dwelling moved; the foreign-buyer table shows how many properties went under contract to buyers from outside Cyprus. A district can lead on one measure and not another, as Larnaca does on the house index and Limassol does on volume.¹⁴

None of these figures is a price per square metre, and the Department publishes none. The Department re-uploads its current-year files each month, so the most recent months can change when the next file appears.¹ The next figures due are the Department's next monthly files and the Bank's next quarterly index; neither publisher announces a release date.