Guide
The Israeli documents a Cyprus purchase actually needs in English
A Cypriot lawyer, a Cypriot bank, the District Administration Office and the developer will each send you a list, and every document on those lists exists only in Hebrew. Here is what an Israeli buyer is usually asked for, what each document looks like once it is in English, and how to tell a real certification requirement from one you don't have to pay for.
There isn't one list — there are four
There is no single "documents required" list. Four different parties will ask you for paperwork, at four points in the transaction, and they are not asking for the same things or to the same standard. Knowing which list a request belongs to is what stops you translating the wrong documents twice.
The constant across all four is English. Cyprus reorganized its certified-translation system in 2019, and the sworn-translator regime it created covers translations involving Greek or Turkish, in either direction — it does not reach a Hebrew-to-English translation at all. That is good news, with one limit. For the lawyer, the bank, the developer and the accountant, English is the working language of Cypriot business and there is no local sworn certification your file has to route through. But if something must ultimately be filed in Greek before a Cypriot authority, English is not the end of the road, and Greek is not a language we work into. Ask your lawyer early whether anything in your file ends up in Greek.
Your own lawyer
Instruct your own lawyer, not the seller's and not the developer's. That file is the working file: identity, income, the source of the purchase money, and everything the other three parties will later ask about. Your lawyer is usually the person who tells you what has to be translated — get that list from them in writing.
The bank
Account opening and any local financing run through a compliance review rather than a conversation. Expect an identity and income pack plus source-of-funds evidence: statements over a period the bank sets, payslips or an accountant's certification, and a letter from your Israeli bank. Your bank may ask for more, and may ask for it in a particular form — this is the list most likely to differ between institutions.
The District Administration Office
Israelis buy as non-EU nationals, which means a permit to acquire immovable property that EU buyers never apply for. The application goes to the District Administration Office for the district the property sits in, and it is the one point where a government office reads your financial evidence — evidence of financial standing, passports, and where relevant a marriage certificate. It is easy to treat this step as a formality — it isn't one, and it has a document list of its own.
The developer or seller
The lightest list, and the first to arrive: identity, and enough evidence that the purchase can be funded to hold the property. Documents handed to a selling agent get forwarded on — send the same clean English translations you would send a bank, and treat the agent's list as the shortest of the four rather than the authoritative one.
The Israeli documents the file is built from
The documents below are what a Cyprus purchase file usually draws on. Not every buyer needs all of it — a salaried employee's file looks different from a company owner's — but almost any request you receive will be for one of these.
Form 106, for the last two years (טופס 106)
The annual employer certificate: a full year of pay, tax withheld and contributions in one document, with numbered boxes. It is the strongest single income document a salaried Israeli has, and two consecutive years is the usual ask because it shows income that is stable rather than one good month.
Recent payslips (תלושי שכר)
Typically the last three to six months, read against the salary credits in your statements. A payslip is the document a reviewer abroad finds hardest to interpret, which is why how it is translated matters far more than its length suggests.
An accountant's certification of income (אישור רו״ח על הכנסות)
For the self-employed and company owners, usually covering two years, and often accompanied by financial statements, a profit and loss statement or a ledger card. It is what stands in place of a Form 106 for someone who never receives one.
Bank statements, three to twelve months
Current-account transaction history with a running balance. This is the most closely read document in the file: salary arrivals, the accumulation of the purchase money and day-to-day conduct are all verified from it. Three to six months is the common request; twelve appears where income is irregular or the money arrived recently.
An account-management letter from your Israeli bank (אישור ניהול חשבון)
Cypriot banks ask for a "bank reference letter", and Israeli buyers frequently don't recognize what is being requested. It is the account-management letter your branch issues — that the account exists, since when, and in whose name — sometimes together with a confirmation of the available balance.
Israeli tax documents
An annual tax assessment or a filed return, asked for where income has to be evidenced independently of an employer, and in the residence-permit routes.
Proof of address and identity
An arnona or utility bill, plus your passport and Israeli ID with its appendix (ספח) where family details matter. Short documents, and requested in nearly every file.
"Translated with an apostille" — before you pay for one
Whether you need an apostille depends on the kind of document, and the two kinds behave differently. For civil-status documents — a birth or marriage certificate — an apostille is routine, and it is issued on the original Hebrew certificate by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not by a translator. (A Magistrates' Court is Israel's other apostille authority, but it apostilles a notary's certification rather than an original public document — the two routes are not interchangeable.) Financial paperwork is a different case. Payslips, bank statements and account confirmations are usually read by your lawyer or by the bank's compliance team rather than filed with an authority, and for that kind of review an apostille is much less commonly part of the request.
The practical answer is the same either way: get the actual request, in writing, from the party making it, before you buy anything. Ask your lawyer or your banker which documents need a certified translation, which of them (if any) need notarization, and which (if any) need an apostille. A request that exists in writing can be matched exactly. A requirement you assumed rather than were given can cost several hundred shekels per document, because notarial certification in Israel is priced on a statutory scale set by regulation, not by the notary, and that scale rises with the length of the document.
One point is worth stating plainly, because it is often blurred: an apostille is not something a translator issues. In Israel you obtain it yourself — through a Magistrates' Court for a notary's certification, or through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a public document — and neither a translation provider nor a selling agent can supply one. What we produce is the translation itself, with a signed certificate of accuracy on request. If a notarized or apostilled version really is required, send us the wording you were given and we'll set out the steps.
Proving where the money came from
Source of funds is where Israeli buyers most often lose time. The bank is not asking whether you have the money — the balance shows that. It is asking how the balance came to exist, and it wants documents that trace it: salary accumulating over months, the sale of another property, a distribution from a business, an inheritance, savings released, a gift with the giver identified.
So the evidence is rarely a single document. It is a statement covering the period the money accumulated, the income documents that explain the credits, and — where a lump sum arrived — whatever created it: a sale contract, a dividend resolution, a fund redemption confirmation, a loan agreement. Where money moved between your own accounts, both sides of the move need to be visible, or the reviewer sees an unexplained arrival.
Translate the set together rather than document by document. Every counterparty name, employer and account number then reads identically across the whole file, which is exactly what a reviewer cross-checking one document against another is looking for.
What these documents look like to a reader in Cyprus
An Israeli payslip is a dense document. The gross figure is assembled from a stack of separately coded lines; beside them sit employer contributions that are not income to the employee at all, a mandatory-deductions block, and a study fund (קרן השתלמות) with no clean European equivalent. A reviewer in Limassol reading a thin, retyped English version has no way to tell which of those numbers is the salary — and the file waits while somebody asks.
The same is true of the statement, laid out right to left with the running balance where a European reader doesn't expect it, and of the Form 106, whose authority comes from its numbered boxes rather than its prose. A translation that keeps the structure — same table, same columns, same order — can be set beside the Hebrew and followed by someone who reads no Hebrew at all. That is the difference between a document that gets checked and one that gets queried.
A few terms recur on Cypriot document lists and don't map onto the Israeli names obviously:
"Bank reference letter"
The account-management letter (אישור ניהול חשבון) issued by your Israeli branch. This is the item Israeli buyers most often report back to their lawyer as unavailable — it exists, and the major Israeli banks all issue it.
"Ledger" or "account card"
The כרטסת: the accounting ledger for a customer, supplier or account in a business's books. Requested where the buyer is self-employed or the funds came out of a business.
"Profit and loss statement"
The דוח רווח והפסד, normally submitted alongside the accountant's certification and the annual financial statements.
"Annual employer certificate"
Form 106. Cypriot lists sometimes describe it by function rather than by name, and buyers send a handful of payslips instead.
Also applying for permanent residence?
If you are also applying for permanent residence through the investment route, that route pairs a property threshold with a secured annual income from outside Cyprus — currently €300,000 plus VAT in new property and €50,000 a year, with additions for a spouse and for each child, evidenced by an official confirmation of annual income such as a tax return from your country of tax residency. Confirm the current figures and your own eligibility with your Cypriot lawyer; that part is not ours to advise on. What we can tell you is which Hebrew document carries the number: for a salaried applicant, the Form 106 together with the annual tax assessment; for a company owner, the financial statements and dividend documentation, with the accountant's certification tying them to a personal income figure; for a retiree, pension and annuity statements, often with a National Insurance confirmation beside them.
What to send us, and when
Send documents as the issuer produced them. A PDF downloaded from your bank's or employer's site is far better than a photograph of a printout, because the text in it is real text — legible, and safe to reproduce exactly. If a scan is all you have, send it and say so: anything we cannot read with certainty is flagged to you rather than guessed.
Send the whole set at once where you can. Consistency across documents — one spelling per name, one form per employer, one rendering per counterparty — is much easier to guarantee when everything is translated together, and it is the quality a reviewer notices only when it is missing.
Every document is quoted before any work begins, and a signed certificate of translation accuracy is included on request. Our per-document prices are published in full on the pricing page — a payslip from ₪99 including VAT (₪85 each for three or more), Form 106 from ₪149, a bank statement of up to three pages from ₪129 and a tax assessment from ₪189 — with longer or unusually complex documents quoted by length. Most quotes come back within a few hours and always within two business days. If your lawyer or your bank gave you a deadline, put it in your message — a stated date can usually be met.
Common questions
Do Israeli documents for a Cyprus purchase have to be translated into Greek?
For the parties you deal with day to day — your lawyer, the bank, the developer, the accountant — English is the working language of Cypriot business, and Cyprus's own sworn-translator regime covers translations involving Greek or Turkish, in either direction, so it does not reach a Hebrew-to-English translation at all. The exception is anything that must ultimately be filed in Greek before a Cypriot authority. Ask your lawyer at the outset whether your file ends there; we translate into English, not Greek.
Is a notarized or apostilled translation required for a Cypriot bank?
Not usually, in our experience — payslips and bank statements in a purchase file are typically reviewed by your lawyer or the bank's compliance team, and a certified translation is what that review runs on. But requirements differ between banks and between the parties in one transaction, so don't guess either way: ask the institution making the request to put it in writing, and match that wording exactly. If a notarized or apostilled version really is required, send us the wording you were given and we'll set out the steps.
Which Israeli documents prove source of funds for a Cyprus purchase?
Usually a combination: bank statements covering the period the money accumulated, payslips and a Form 106 or an accountant's certification to explain the credits, and separate evidence for any lump sum — a sale contract, a dividend resolution, a redemption confirmation, a documented gift. Translate them together so that names and figures agree across the set.
Can an Israeli citizen buy property in Cyprus, and what does the permit need?
Israelis buy as non-EU nationals, which adds a permit to acquire immovable property, applied for at the District Administration Office for the district where the property is. That file typically includes evidence of financial standing, passports and, where relevant, a marriage certificate. Your Cypriot lawyer normally files it; what we do is put the Israeli evidence into English.
How many months of bank statements will a Cypriot bank ask for?
Three to six months is the common request, and twelve appears where income is irregular or the purchase money arrived recently. Each bank sets its own period — ask for it in writing and translate all of it, because a partial period generally produces a second request and another wait.
Which document proves the €50,000 annual income for Cyprus permanent residence?
For a salaried applicant, Form 106 with the annual tax assessment. For a company owner, financial statements and dividend documentation with an accountant's certification. For a retiree, pension and annuity statements. The threshold itself and your eligibility are questions for your Cypriot lawyer; the documents are what we translate.
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