Cyprus Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

WHAT A PAYROLL ENGINE GETS WRONG IN CYPRUS. 1. THERE ARE SIX FUNDS, NOT ONE, AND THEY HAVE THREE DIFFERENT CEILINGS. Social Insurance, Redundancy and Human Resource Development share the maximum insurable earnings of €5 742 per month / €68 904 per annum for 2026. The Social Cohesion Fund has NO ceiling and is charged on actual earnings. GESY has its own, much higher, €180 000 per-person annual ceiling. Applying one cap across the board is the single most expensive Cyprus error, and it errs in both directions: it under-collects Social Cohesion on high earners and over-collects GESY on nobody but stops it far too early. 2. GESY IS NOT PART OF THE SOCIAL INSURANCE RATE. The General Healthcare System contribution (2,65 % employee / 2,90 % employer) is imposed by a different statute — the General Healthcare System Law 89(I)/2001 as amended in 2017 — on a different base, with a different ceiling and a different collecting principal (the Health Insurance Organisation, ΟΑΥ). It is merely COLLECTED by the Social Insurance Services on the same monthly return, which is why so many summaries fold it into an "11,45 % employee" or "15,4 % employer" blended figure. Blended figures are unusable for anything except a single employee below every cap. 3. THE TOTAL EMPLOYEE DEDUCTION IS 11,45 % ONLY BELOW €5 742 A MONTH. Below the SIF cap: 8,8 % + 2,65 % = 11,45 %. Between €5 742 and €15 000 a month: 2,65 % GESY only, because social insurance has stopped. Above €180 000 of aggregate annual income: nothing further at all. Three regimes, one employee. 4. THE EMPLOYER TOTAL IS 15,4 % ONLY IN THE SAME NARROW BAND, AND ONLY IF THE HOLIDAY FUND EXEMPTION IS HELD. 8,8 % SIF + 1,2 % Redundancy + 0,5 % HRDF + 2,0 % Social Cohesion + 2,9 % GESY = 15,4 %. Add 8 % Central Holiday Fund where the employer is not exempt and the true figure is 23,4 %. Holiday Fund exemption is common but is granted on application and is not automatic — treat it as a per-employer flag. 5. THE STATE PAYS TOO, AND IT IS NOT PAYROLL COST. The Consolidated Fund of the Republic contributes 5,2 % to the Social Insurance Fund and 4,70 % to GESY on the same earnings. The statutory headline for social insurance is therefore 22,8 %, not 17,6 %. Neither state share is an employer cost or an employee deduction. Records that quote 22,8 % as "the social insurance rate" are quoting the fund's total income, not the payroll charge. 6. THE WEEKLY AND MONTHLY CEILINGS ARE DIFFERENT NUMBERS WITH DIFFERENT START DATES. €1 325 per week applies from 5 January 2026 (the start of the 2026 contribution week cycle); €5 742 per month applies from 1 January 2026. 52 × €1 325 = €68 900 against 12 × €5 742 = €68 904. Do not derive one from the other, and do not assume both changed on 1 January. 7. THE SOCIAL INSURANCE RATE STEPS EVERY FIVE YEARS BY OPERATION OF LAW. 8,3 % each side ran to 31 December 2023; 8,8 % each side applies from 1 January 2024; the next step falls due on 1 January 2029 and the one after in 2034, running towards roughly 10,3–10,7 % each side by 2039 depending on the actuarial reviews the Law requires. This is a legislated staircase, not an annual indexation — the RATE does not move between steps, while the CEILING moves every year. An engine that indexes the rate, or that fails to index the ceiling, will be wrong. 8. THE CENTRAL HOLIDAY FUND IS PROPORTIONAL, NOT FIXED. The Annual Holidays with Pay Law sets the contribution in proportion to the leave entitlement. 8 % is the figure for the statutory minimum of 20 working days on a five-day week; a more generous contractual entitlement carries a higher percentage. Exempted employers pay nothing to the Fund and pay holiday pay directly, and the customary price of exemption is granting 21 days instead of 20. 9. NO EARNINGS FLOOR ANYWHERE. Unlike most European systems Cyprus has no de minimis: every fund runs from the first euro of earnings. There is no minimum-hours test and no low-earner exemption. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none. All six funds are national and uniform across the areas under the effective control of the Republic. They do not apply in the areas not under the effective control of the Republic. WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENT/EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY — no separate branch. Cyprus funds employment injury benefit out of the Social Insurance Fund itself; there is no risk-rated occupational-accident tariff of the kind found in most EU states. Employers' liability insurance is compulsory under the Compulsory Employers' Liability Insurance Law but it is a commercial insurance premium, not a statutory contribution rate, and it is not priced here. SELF-EMPLOYED AND VOLUNTARY-CONTRIBUTOR RATES — not modelled as branches. The self-employed rate is 16,6 % of deemed insurable income by occupational category (plus 5,2 % state) and the voluntary rate 15 % (plus 4,7 % state); both are outside the scope of an employed-person record and the self-employed figure depends on a category table of deemed incomes, not on actual pay. THE 2029 RATE STEP — not stated. The Law provides for the step but the exact percentages depend on the actuarial studies it requires. Do not pre-load a 2029 figure. CENTRAL HOLIDAY FUND PERCENTAGES ABOVE THE STATUTORY MINIMUM — not tabulated. The Social Insurance Services publish the proportional table by leave days; only the statutory-minimum 8 % figure is served here. SOURCING CAVEATS: The 2026 maximum insurable earnings are read from the Social Insurance Services' own contributions-system announcement (sisweb.mlsi.gov.cy). The fund percentages are read from the Republic of Cyprus business portal businessincyprus.gov.cy, a Government of Cyprus site. The GESY rates and the €180 000 cap are read from the consolidated text of Law 89(I)/2001 άρθρο 19 and confirmed against the Health Insurance Organisation's own financing page. The consolidated Greek statute texts on the public legal database render in a legacy encoding that mangles Greek characters; percentages and article numbers are legible but connective wording is not, so operative Greek wording quoted here is taken from the administering authorities' own pages rather than from the mangled statute rendering. The Central Holiday Fund rate of 8 % for the statutory minimum entitlement is stated by the Social Insurance Services in narrative rather than in a published table I was able to open; the proportionality rule and the exemption mechanism are stated by the Service in terms.

Get it programmatically

curl https://euroref.dev/v1/cy/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://euroref.dev/v1/cy/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/cy/social-contributions

Other Cyprus series: Policy interest rate · Value added tax (ΦΠΑ) · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage · Public holidays · Consumer price index (annual inflation) · Corporate income tax · Withholding tax rates · Personal income tax · ECB main refinancing operations rate (fixed rate) · Late-payment interest (EU Late Payment Directive) · Statutory legal interest (δικαστικό επιτόκιο)

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