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How to choose a flooring company in Cyprus

What separates a competent Cypriot flooring contractor from a cheap quote: substrate checks, screed drying, movement joints and what the price includes.

8 min read

How to Choose a Flooring Companies Company in Cyprus — illustrasjonsbilde

Photo: Burak The Weekender on Pexels

ByStavros Loizou· Editor, kitchens, bathrooms and finishes

Stavros covers the rooms that carry the most cost per square metre and the finishes that go into them. He tracks the order trades have to arrive in, which moves a Cypriot renovation bill further than any hourly rate does.

Published

Most flooring disputes in Cyprus are not about the floor. They are about what was underneath it and who was supposed to check. Tiles that lift on a south facing veranda, a timber floor that cups in a coastal apartment, a level that rises far enough to stop a door closing — each of those is a substrate or a sequencing failure, decided before the covering arrived on site. A flooring company is therefore worth choosing on what it does before laying anything: how it assesses the existing floor, what it writes down about moisture and movement, and how specific its quote is about preparation.

What can actually be verified

Flooring is not a separately licensed trade in the Republic, which puts more weight on the checks that do exist.

The legal entity. A flooring contractor is a limited company or a sole trader with a registered business name, and either way the Registrar of Companies holds the record. The quote should carry the registered name and number. A trading name on a leaflet with no entity behind it means there is nobody to pursue if a floor fails in its second summer.

VAT registration. A contractor above the registration threshold shows a VAT number on the invoice. The rate is a real budget item and depends on the property: a reduced rate applies to qualifying works to a primary residence subject to conditions set by the Tax Department, and the standard rate applies elsewhere, including holiday lets and most second homes. A single inclusive figure with no VAT line conceals which assumption has been made.

Liability insurance. Flooring work is done inside occupied buildings, over other people's ceilings, with wet trades and heavy pallets. The certificate should name the contractor, the policy period and the sum insured.

Manufacturer certification. Resin, microcement and some large-format tiling systems are warranted only when laid by an installer the manufacturer has trained. That certification is a document with a name and a date on it, and it is the only part of a flooring warranty that is genuinely enforceable.

Company profiles on this directory record registry-sourced fields and show where each field came from.

Those figures are read at page load from recorded quotes, each range carrying its sample size and the month it was collected.

Registrations that matter

Registrar of Companies. Confirms the entity, the directors and whether annual filings are current.

Tax Department. VAT registration, the rate applied and the invoice that proves the work was bought rather than arranged informally. A cash price without an invoice removes any route to a claim.

Social insurance for employees. Flooring crews are small and often subcontracted. Where labour arrives through a subcontractor, the question is who employs the people on site and who insures them.

ETEK-registered professionals where the floor is part of a permitted project. Replacing a covering like for like is maintenance. Altering levels, removing screed to a structural slab, changing a balcony fall or adding weight to a suspended floor moves the work into territory where a civil engineer registered with the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber should be involved, and in an apartment block the management committee needs to know as well.

Questions to ask

What is under the existing floor, and how was that established? In the 1970s to 1990s apartment stock that dominates areas such as Strovolos, the original floor is frequently terrazzo or mosaic on a cement bed, bonded hard to the slab. Removing it is noisy, dusty demolition; tiling over it is faster but raises the level. A contractor who has not looked under a corner is guessing.

What happens to the levels? Overlaying raises the finished floor. Doors need trimming or rehanging, thresholds to verandas shrink, and the step down to a balcony — which exists to keep rain out — gets shallower. Where that step disappears, water comes in. The quote should say what the build-up adds and what is being done about doors and thresholds.

How long does the screed have to dry? New cement screed dries at a rate governed by its thickness, and adhesive datasheets state a maximum residual moisture before an impermeable covering can go down. Timber, vinyl and resin all fail when laid early. In a Cypriot summer this is rarely a constraint; in January, in a shaded ground-floor flat, it can add weeks. The honest answer is a measurement, not a season.

Where do the movement joints go? Large tiled areas need perimeter and intermediate movement joints, and anything in direct sun needs them more: external terraces on this island run through a very wide surface temperature swing between a July afternoon and a February night, and the expansion has to go somewhere. Tiles that lift in a tented ridge along a veranda are almost always tiles laid without joints.

What is specified for humidity and salt? Near the coast, and around the salt lake at Oroklini where humidity is persistently higher, timber and laminate need either an acclimatisation period on site or a different product entirely. Engineered timber and quality vinyl tolerate the conditions; solid timber laid straight off a lorry does not.

When can the work actually happen? In the holiday-let stock of Ayia Napa and Protaras, refurbishment is concentrated between November and March because the rooms are occupied for the rest of the year, and flooring contractors book that window early. A quote issued in September for work in January is competing for scarce weeks.

Who moves the furniture, lifts the old floor and removes the waste? Uplift and licensed disposal are real costs. When they are missing from a quote, they have not been priced.

What a good quote looks like

  • Separate lines for preparation and for covering. Grinding, levelling compound, priming, membrane and screed are the work; the tiles are the shopping. A quote with one figure for "supply and fit" is hiding the half that determines whether it lasts.
  • Named products with sizes and finishes — manufacturer, range, format, slip rating for wet and external areas — rather than "or similar".
  • The adhesive and grout named, and matched to the substrate and the covering. Large-format porcelain on an external terrace does not go down in the same adhesive as small ceramic in a bedroom.
  • A stated wastage allowance, higher for diagonal layouts and patterned work, so the client knows whether a second delivery is a change or an error.
  • Movement and perimeter joints shown, with where they fall and what they are filled with.
  • Skirting, thresholds, trims and door adjustments listed, because these are the items that turn a finished job into an unfinished one.
  • VAT shown separately with the rate and the assumption behind it.
  • Payment tied to stages: preparation complete, covering laid, snags cleared, with a retention released after the snagging visit.
  • A lead time for the material. Imported porcelain and specified timber run to weeks, and a start date that ignores delivery is a start date that moves.

Quotes are only comparable once they cover the same preparation. Two prices for the same room can differ substantially and both be honest, because one includes removing the old floor and levelling the slab and the other assumes tiling over what is there. The flooring category page on this directory lists contractors by district and town, which is the practical way to get several quotes drawn on the same scope.

Warning signs

  • A quote priced per square metre with no preparation line and no site visit.
  • Willingness to lay a covering over a screed without checking moisture, on the grounds that it has been down long enough.
  • No movement joints mentioned for a terrace, a large open-plan floor or anything in direct sun.
  • Cash only, or a discount conditional on no invoice.
  • A large deposit before materials have been ordered, with no order confirmation produced.
  • Resin or microcement offered with a manufacturer warranty but no installer certification to support it.
  • Vagueness about who is responsible if the tiles chip during uplift of the old floor, or if the neighbour below reports a crack.

Common questions

Do flooring companies in Cyprus need a licence?

There is no separate flooring licence. What can be checked is the registered entity, VAT registration, liability insurance and any manufacturer certification for resin, microcement or specialist systems. Where the work changes levels, structure or drainage falls, the relevant registration belongs to the engineer signing off the alteration rather than to the fitter.

Is tiling over an existing floor acceptable?

Often, provided the existing floor is sound, bonded and level, and provided the added height is dealt with at doors and at veranda thresholds. It saves demolition, dust and disposal. It is the wrong answer where the old floor is drummy, where the extra weight matters, or where losing the step down to a balcony would let rainwater track inside.

Why do quotes for the same room vary so much?

Nearly always because of preparation and product. One quote strips out and levels; another overlays. One prices porcelain, another ceramic that looks the same in a photograph. Putting both onto the same specification usually removes most of the gap, and whatever remains after that is the real price difference.

Does this site publish customer reviews of flooring companies?

No. This directory records registry-sourced fields — registration, coverage, services, contact details — with the provenance of each shown. It carries no reviews, ratings or testimonials, and listing order is not for sale.

How long should a floor take?

The covering goes down quickly; the preparation and the drying set the programme. Uplift, levelling and screed drying can occupy more of the calendar than laying does, and grout curing before furniture returns adds to it. Any programme that shows only the days spent laying is describing a fraction of the job.

Flooring contractors by district

6 companies covering this area.

Sources

  1. Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK) — technical guidance and register — retrieved 2026-07-28
  2. Registrar of Companies — company and business name search — retrieved 2026-07-28
  3. Tax Department — VAT on construction and property works — retrieved 2026-07-28

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