Audit
How to choose an audit firm in Cyprus
How to check an audit firm in Cyprus before appointing it: which licences are real, what the engagement letter must set out, and what actually moves the fee.
8 min read
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Chryso covers accounting, audit, tax and company administration in Cyprus. She tracks filing deadlines and threshold changes as they are issued, since the ones that catch people out are almost always the ones that moved quietly.
Reviewed by Loucas Theodorou, Reviewer
Published
An audit opinion in Cyprus is worth what the signature behind it is worth, and that signature is checkable. A statutory audit may be signed only by an auditor or audit firm licensed under the Auditors Law and entered on the public register, and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus keeps a searchable record of members and licensed firms. Everything else — the office, the brochure, the fee — is secondary to two questions: is the firm licensed to sign, and does the engagement letter describe the work the company actually needs.
What can actually be verified
Cyprus is unusual within the EU in applying the audit requirement to companies of every size, with only a narrow review-based exemption at the bottom. The appointment is therefore a recurring obligation rather than a one-off purchase, which makes these checks worth doing properly once.
That the firm is licensed to carry out statutory audit. Accounting, bookkeeping and tax work are not audit. A firm may be entirely legitimate as an accountancy practice without holding an audit licence, in which case somebody else signs the opinion and the company should know who before the engagement starts. The licensed-firm register is public.
Who signs the opinion. A firm holds the licence, but a named person signs. Ask for that name at the outset. On smaller engagements it is often not the person doing the selling.
That the company's own filing history is clean. The Registrar of Companies holds the filing record, including whether annual returns and financial statements have been submitted. A prospective auditor will look at this, and a company should look first: unfiled prior years change the scope, the fee and the timetable more than anything else on the list.
That the reporting framework is understood. Cypriot companies prepare financial statements under IFRS as adopted by the EU, irrespective of size — a heavier framework than the small-company regimes used elsewhere in Europe, and the reason an audit here is rarely light even for a dormant holding structure.
What cannot be verified is reputation. This directory publishes no ratings, star scores or testimonials, because there are none it could stand behind. What the audit and accounting pages carry is registration status, district coverage and the date each record was checked against source.
Registrations that matter
Audit licence under the Auditors Law
The licence, held by the firm and by the individual signing. Ask for both and check them against the register rather than accepting a logo. This is the one registration that is not substitutable by anything else.
ICPAC membership
Membership of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus is searchable, and it is the practical starting point for confirming that an accountant is who the letterhead says. Membership alone is not an audit licence; the two questions are separate and both are worth asking.
Company registration of the practice itself
Firms are businesses. The practice should appear on the Registrar of Companies under the name it invoices in, and the name on the engagement letter, the opinion and the bank details should match.
Professional indemnity insurance
Ask for the certificate and the expiry date. This is the cover that responds if the opinion turns out to be wrong, and it is a normal question.
Anti-money-laundering obligations
Regulated professionals must carry out identification and source-of-funds checks on their clients. A firm that asks for passports, structure charts and beneficial ownership detail is doing its job; one that skips it is saying something about how the rest of the file will be kept.
Questions to ask
Ask these before the engagement letter is signed, not after the year end.
"Who prepares the accounts, and who audits them?" A firm cannot audit financial statements it prepared itself without documented independence safeguards. Many Cypriot practices offer bookkeeping and audit under one roof, which is convenient and needs to be handled explicitly. The right answer names two separate teams and describes the safeguard. A shrug is a finding in itself.
"What is the timetable, working backwards from the filing deadlines?" The statutory calendar has fixed points: the annual return to the Registrar of Companies with the audited financial statements attached, and the corporate tax return to the Tax Department. Deadlines are published at source and change occasionally. Ask what the firm needs from the company, and by when.
"What does the fee assume about our bookkeeping?" This is where audit fees are decided. A quote assumes a trial balance that balances, reconciliations that reconcile and supporting documents that exist. Where they do not, the work becomes bookkeeping charged at audit rates.
"How many prior years are outstanding?" Each unaudited prior year is a separate engagement with its own opening balances. A firm that quotes for one year without asking this has not looked.
"Is there a group, and does anything consolidate?" Holding structures with foreign subsidiaries are a substantial share of the corporate population in Limassol in particular, and consolidation, foreign-currency translation and component auditors in other jurisdictions are the three things that move a fee from routine to significant. Ask which language the statutory file will be in while the subject is open — Cyprus works in Greek and English, and translation is sometimes charged separately.
"When in the year will this work actually be done?" Audit workload in Cyprus concentrates ahead of the statutory deadlines, and an engagement accepted in the busiest weeks gets the attention that is left. Appointing early is the cheapest quality improvement available to a small company.
What a good quote looks like
A firm giving a fixed price before seeing a trial balance is either guessing or intends to revise it later. A serious proposal contains a scope, a set of assumptions, and a stated basis for what happens when the assumptions fail.
Comparing proposals means normalising the scope first. Two fees for the same company differ widely if one includes the tax return and the other does not, or if one assumes clean records and the other has priced the reality. Where a fee looks unusually low, the exclusions list is where the explanation lives.
One structural point is worth establishing before any of that. A limited-assurance review may replace a full audit for companies below turnover and total-asset thresholds published by the Tax Department. Those thresholds are set at source and should be checked for the year in question rather than taken from any article, including this one. A small or dormant company may be paying for an audit it does not require, so asking which regime applies is a reasonable first question to any prospective firm.
Warning signs
A fixed fee quoted before anyone has seen the accounting records. It is not a price; it is an opening position, and the variation arrives later.
No engagement letter. Regulated work has a written basis, and a verbal appointment means there is no agreed scope to hold either side to.
Any statement about the outcome of the opinion before the work has been done. An audit that has already promised its conclusion is not an audit.
An offer to sign off a prior year without examining it. The current year's opening balances rest on it.
Bookkeeping and audit described as the same service by the same people, with no mention of independence. The convenience is real; the missing safeguard is the problem.
Reluctance to name the individual who will sign, or an absence of identification and beneficial-ownership checks at onboarding. A regulated firm that skips its own obligations is unlikely to be rigorous about anyone else's.
The audit category pages on this directory list firms by district with the registrations recorded per firm, the services index shows the neighbouring work a company usually needs alongside the audit, and the areas section covers where each practice operates. Most of the larger practices sit in Nicosia and Limassol, so a company registered in Paphos or Larnaca may reasonably be audited by a firm it rarely meets in person; what matters then is the correspondence trail.
Common questions
Does every Cypriot company need an audit?
Cypriot company law requires financial statements to be audited, and unlike most EU jurisdictions the requirement applies regardless of size, with only a narrow exemption at the bottom of the scale. Below turnover and total-asset thresholds published by the Tax Department, a limited-assurance review may be submitted instead. Whether a specific company qualifies is a question for a licensed firm against the current thresholds.
Does a dormant company still have to file?
A company with no trading activity still exists on the register and still has filing obligations, including the annual return. Dormancy reduces the work but does not remove the obligation, and companies that assume otherwise are the ones that later need several years caught up at once.
Can the company's accountant also be its auditor?
Not without documented independence safeguards, because auditing one's own work is the conflict the requirement exists to address. In practice many Cypriot practices deliver both through separated teams with the safeguards recorded on the file. The point is that the separation should be described in writing before the engagement begins.
How is an audit fee actually calculated?
By time, in almost every case, even where the output is a fixed figure. The drivers are transaction volume, the state of the bookkeeping, the number of bank and intercompany balances, foreign currency, whether a group consolidates, and whether the prior year was audited by somebody else. Improving the bookkeeping is the only one of those a company can change quickly.
What happens when a company changes auditor?
The outgoing firm hands over, and the incoming firm reviews the prior-year file and opening balances — chargeable work that should appear in the proposal rather than afterwards. Outstanding fees to the previous firm should be settled, and the change reflected in the company's filings.
Is a larger firm necessary?
It depends on the structure rather than on preference. A single trading company with clean records is served perfectly well by a small licensed practice; a group with foreign subsidiaries and component auditors abroad is not.
Audit and accounting firms listed by district
8 companies covering this area.
Morison Patsalides Limited
Acropolis, Nicosia
Morison Patsalides Limited is an accountancy practice in Acropolis, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
Euro Audit
Dromolaxia, Larnaca
Euro Audit is a company in Dromolaxia, in the Larnaca district.
KPST Auditors LTD
Sotiros, Larnaca
KPST Auditors LTD is a financial business in Sotiros, in the Larnaca district.
Adminica Trust Ltd.
Engomi, Nicosia
Adminica Trust Ltd. is an accountancy practice in Engomi, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
Fillipos Ch. Fillipous
Engomi, Nicosia
Fillipos Ch. Fillipous is an accountancy practice in Engomi, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
HLB Cyprus Ltd
Agioi Omologites, Nicosia
HLB Cyprus Ltd is an accountancy practice in Agioi Omologites, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
N. Vorkas & Co. Ltd.
Kokkines, Nicosia
N. Vorkas & Co. Ltd. is an accountancy practice in Kokkines, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
P. Photiou & Co. Ltd
Agioi Omologites, Nicosia
P. Photiou & Co. Ltd is an accountancy practice in Agioi Omologites, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include annual accounts, vat returns, payroll.
- Annual accounts
- VAT returns
- Payroll
- Management reporting
Sources
- Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC) — member and firm register — retrieved 2026-07-28
- Registrar of Companies — company search and annual return filings — retrieved 2026-07-28
- Tax Department — corporate filing obligations — retrieved 2026-07-28
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