Cyprus will suspend the citizenship for investment program. How will this affect game development?

Anyone could get a so-called “golden passport” for the purchase or construction of real estate in Cyprus in the amount of € 2 million and a donation in favor of the government for € 200 thousand.

However, now this program is going to be suspended.

The official reason is a large number of violations and vulnerabilities. “The proposal was dictated by the unavoidable shortcomings of the program, as well as the abuse of its terms,“ the official twitter of the administration of the President of Cyprus says;

The formal reason for the emergency meeting and the freezing of the program was the Al Jazeera investigation of October 12. The journalists of the TV company tried to obtain citizenship on behalf of a non-existent Chinese businessman convicted in his country. As it turned out, even in this case, Cypriot lawyers and politicians (including the Speaker of parliament) met halfway — it was enough just to pay the necessary amount.

And indeed, officially convicted or under investigation persons could not obtain citizenship. However, the Cypriot authorities have repeatedly violated this rule and issued passports even to people wanted by Interpol. So, in 2015, Malaysian Joe Lu, who was wanted in the United States, received citizenship of the country.

How will the cancellation of the program affect the industry?The speakers reacted positively to the initiative.

In their opinion, it will not only not hit the Russian-speaking game dev and IT community, which are attracted by zero tax on dividends, a sparing income tax (progressive) and a low income tax – 12.5% with the possibility of reducing it in terms of IP to 2.5%, but can also indirectly become a driver of their further growth.   

founder of the CypRus_iT Community

Sergey Orlovsky, founder of Nival and Helio Games Studio, agrees with this position. He notes that due to the closure of the program, the situation with the IT industry in Cyprus will only get better.

The Cyprus passport program affects a very small percentage of people from the point of view of buyers — only top management and company owners can potentially be interested in this. And its cancellation just greatly reduces the pressure on the real estate market and reduces the cost of renting housing and offices, which will have a very beneficial effect on the development of the IT industry in Cyprus.

Sergey Orlovsky

founder and CEO of Nival

It is possible that significant changes will be made to the citizenship program, leaving only the possibility of obtaining a passport for “settlement”. In any case, it is not necessary to say that the Russian-speaking game dev business will no longer consider Cyprus as a country for registration of companies.

Also on the topic:

• Putin proposed to reduce the income tax for IT companies to 3%The case of Epic Games and Apple threatens “serious consequences” for Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox
• The German government is ready to finance up to 50% of the development of local games
• Is there any news?