Cyprus 2025 employer PAYE return: the deadline is now 30 November 2026

Cyprus employers now have until 30 November 2026 to file the annual employer’s return for 2025. The Tax Department extended the deadline on 16 September, the second extension of the same return. Filing late costs a fixed €150, €250 or €500, depending on who the employer is.

What exactly has been extended, and to when?

On 16 September 2026 the Tax Department announced that, by decision of the Tax Commissioner, the deadline for the annual employer’s income tax withholding and contributions return for tax year 2025 is extended to 30 November 2026. The stated reason is to make compliance easier for employers.

This is the second extension of the same return:

Two extensions on one return suggest that many employers were not ready.

One practical warning. Other dates for this return are still circulating in published tax calendars, including 31 July 2026 and a date in January 2027. For the 2025 return, the Tax Department’s own deadlines table shows 31 May, then 30 September, then 30 November 2026. Work to 30 November.

Why is there still an annual return when PAYE is filed monthly?

Because the monthly filings did not replace it. They were added on top of it.

From 2025, employers file a monthly withholding return through the Tax For All platform and pay the PAYE by the end of the month following the payroll month. The annual employer’s return, the form long known as the TD7 or IR7, is a separate year-end summary of each employee’s emoluments, benefits and tax withheld.

The monthly cycle, with its return and payment dates, is set out in our July 2026 tax deadlines guide.

2025 is the first year in which both exist side by side. That is a large part of why the annual return has now slipped twice: employers are producing a year-end summary of a year they have already reported month by month, on a platform that is itself new.

What does filing late actually cost?

A return filed after 30 November 2026 is late. The announcement is explicit about the consequence, under article 50A(a) of the Assessment and Collection of Taxes Law N.4/1978:

These are fixed sums, not a percentage of the payroll, and they are charged for the form rather than for tax owed. An employer that paid every euro of PAYE on time and on every monthly return still pays the charge if the annual return is a day late.

€250 sounds small. It is worth noticing that it falls per legal person, so a group with several employing companies meets it once per company.

Why does 30 November matter twice for many companies?

Because the 2025 employer’s return now lands on a day that was already busy.

For companies required to prepare audited or reviewed financial statements, the 2024 corporate income tax return was extended to the same date, 30 November 2026, by decree. Nearly every Cyprus company falls into that group. So for a Cyprus company with staff, 30 November now carries:

• the 2024 company tax return, prepared from the 2024 audited accounts, and
• the 2025 annual employer’s return, prepared from the 2025 payroll.

Two unrelated pieces of work, from two different years, often done by two different people, competing for the same fortnight, with a separate late-filing charge if either slips.

A month earlier, on 31 October 2026, the 2025 personal income tax return falls due for individuals. Employees preparing their own returns will be asking the payroll team for the same 2025 figures that the employer’s return reports. Answering those questions in October is easier than answering them in the last week of November.

How does this sit with what the Tax Department is checking?

It sits directly alongside it. The Tax Department has been running unannounced inspections of business premises, and the 2026 reform strengthened what it can do where non-compliance persists. A filing charge is not an inspection finding, but both come from the same direction: the administrative basics are being enforced more tightly than they were.

What stops employers filing on time?

Three things are most likely to hold a return up in the first year of the new system.

A missing tax identification code. Every employee on the return needs a tax identification code. A return with an employee who has none will not go through, and an employee without one has to register before it can be fixed. That is the step whose timing the employer does not control, which is why it goes first on the list below.

Monthly figures that do not add up to the year. The annual return summarises twelve monthly returns filed under deadline pressure in a new system. A correction made after a monthly return was filed, a late bonus, a leaver’s final pay, a benefit recognised at year end, has to be reflected consistently in the year-end summary.

Benefits in kind. Company cars, housing and similar benefits belong in the employee’s emoluments. They are the item most often left out of monthly payroll and picked up only at the year end.

Does the extension change when PAYE has to be paid?

No. The extension moves the filing date of the 2025 annual return only.

The monthly cycle continues unchanged: the return and the payment for each month are due by the end of the following month. On the Tax Department’s table, the September 2026 monthly return is due 31 October and the October 2026 monthly return is due 30 November.

So for a company with staff, 30 November 2026 is in fact three things at once: the 2025 annual employer’s return, the October monthly return, and the 2024 company tax return.

What should an employer do now?

Five checks, in this order.

• Confirm every 2025 employee has a tax identification code, including leavers and part-timers. Longest lead time, so it goes first.
• Reconcile the twelve 2025 monthly returns against the payroll records, and list every correction made after filing.
• Pull the 2025 benefits in kind and confirm each one was reported.
• Check the company against the €1,000,000 test, so you know whether a late charge would be €250 or €500.
• Give the company tax return and the employer’s return separate internal deadlines, both well before 30 November. They are not the same job and they do not draw on the same records.

If the payroll records for 2025 are not in a state where those five checks are quick, that is the finding, and it is better found now than in the last week of November. Our accounting and payroll team can work through the reconciliation with you, and our corporate tax and compliance team can take the company return alongside it.

The short version

The 2025 Cyprus employer’s return is due on 30 November 2026, its third deadline. The late charge is a fixed €150, €250 or €500 depending on the employer, charged for the form even where all the tax was paid on time. The same day carries the 2024 company tax return and the October monthly PAYE return. Start with the employee tax identification codes, because that is the part you cannot rush.