New tax incentives and Government expenditure on culture

https://www.neme.org/blog/new-tax-incentives-2026

To:
Deputy Minister of Culture, Dr Vasiliki Kassianidou
cc:
Director-General of the Ministry of Culture, Mr Giorgos Papageorgiou,
Co-signing organisations

21/7/2026

Ms Deputy Minister,

Item 1: New tax legislation on tax incentives for cultural sponsorship.
Item 2: Government expenditure on culture.

Please find attached a letter co-signed by 64 organisations requesting your attention and assistance regarding two issues and requests.

We look forward to receiving your replies within a reasonable period of three months from the date of this letter.

  1. New tax incentives
    • The law on tax incentives for culture, as published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cyprus 5070/1247 on 31 December 2025, unfortunately does not include non-profit organisations (legal entities under private law) which, according to our own study, account for over 50% of all non-profit cultural organisations (Fig 1). We therefore note that the requests raised during numerous meetings between various organisations and the Deputy Ministry of Culture, as well as in numerous letters and submissions on this matter—some of which were also addressed to the Parliament—have been ignored.
      We call on the Deputy Ministry to take the initiative to amend the legislation or, alternatively, to introduce other corrective measures.
    • We request that the criteria set by the Council of Ministers for the organisations covered by the law be published as soon as possible, and that the Deputy Minister for Culture draw up lists of approved organisations, so that the process of exploring grants in this sector from alternative funding sources for cultural organisations can begin.
  2. Government expenditure on culture
    • According to Eurostat, Cyprus ranks second-to-last in terms of government expenditure on culture, which in 2025 stood at 0.439465% of GDP (Fig 2). Fluctuations in this percentage have been evident to us for six years.
      Whilst we believe that Cyprus must allocate the 1% proposed by the EU to ensure the sector’s sustainability, we also consider that there must first be transparency regarding the 0.439465% which, according to our study, amounts to approximately €154,603,000! We understand that the Deputy Ministry manages approximately ±€50,000,000 (32.34%) of this amount, of which ±€8,900,000 was allocated in 2025 for grants (Fig 3).

We believe that the above issues are directly linked to the sustainability of the independent cultural sector, the attraction of private funding and the effective use of public investment in culture. We hope that there will be an immediate dialogue with cultural organisations to find appropriate solutions.

NGOs in Cyprus
Fig 1: NGOs in Cyprus.
EU Government expenditure on culture by country
Fig 2: Eurostat: Government expenditure on culture, 2025. ec.europa.eu/eurostat… ,_culture_and_religion . Accessed 20 June 2026.
pie charts 2025
Fig 3. Cyprus government expenditure on culture, 2025. Left: Cultural funding calculated against the GDP; Centre: partial funding to the whole of the non-profit cultural sector, libraries, cinema productions, monument commissions, and independent artists in relation to the total cultural funding; Right: total cultural funding, compared with the DMC funding and the partial funding to whole of the non-profit cultural sector, libraries, cinema productions, monument commissions, and independent artists.

 

Co-signing organisations

  1. ABR – ALTERNATIVE BRAINS RULE
  2. Actus Anima
  3. Art Seen Projects
  4. aRttitude
  5. Atlantis Culture
  6. bytheway productions Ltd
  7. Campos Culture and Arts
  8. CATHRINE
  9. Celadon Center for the Arts LTD
  10. Connective Threads
  11. D6 CULTURE EU
  12. Dance Gate Lefkosia-Cyprus
  13. Echo-arts Living Arts Centre
  14. Graphic Stories Cyprus
  15. GSA Cultural Productions Ltd
  16. Humart
  17. Ideogramma
  18. International Association of Photography & Theory [IAPT]
  19. Korai project space
  20. LDH DanceHouse Lefkosia
  21. Louvana Records
  22. M.A.M.A. Contemporary
  23. NeMe
  24. Nothing to Declare
  25. Organization for Positive Urbanism (OPU)
  26. P.S. Artist Led Projects
  27. PELMA LTD
  28. Phaneromenis70
  29. pitcherzzz
  30. PK A moment to Perform
  31. Queer Wave LTD
  32. Rooftop Theatre Ltd
  33. Sic. Contemporary Culture
  34. Side Effect Productions Ltd
  35. Simio5 nonprofit art and cultural collective
  36. Sistema Cyprus
  37. Sotto Voce Contemporary Arts Ltd
  38. Space of Tapes
  39. Stylish Junkies Collective Ltd
  40. The Island Club
  41. Urban Gorillas
  42. Visual Voices
  43. Ασώματες Δυνάμεις
  44. ΕΚΑΤΕ
  45. Ίδρυμα Κώστα και Ρίτας Σεβέρη
  46. Ίδρυμα Νίκος Κουρούσιης
  47. Ίδρυμα Πιερίδη
  48. Κεντρο Παραστατικων Τεχνων ΜΙΤΟΣ
  49. Κέντρο Τεχνών Κίμωνος
  50. Κινηματογραφική Λέσχη Λεμεσού
  51. Κινηματογραφική Λέσχη Λάρνακας Αμμοχώστου
  52. Κίνηση Αρχιτεκτόνων Λεμεσού
  53. Κυπριακό Κέντρο Σκηνογράφων Αρχιτεκτόνων και Τεχνικών Θεάτρου CYCSTAT
  54. Κύπριοι Χαράκτες
  55. Νέα Κίνηση Ομάδων Χορού, Χορευτών και Χορογράφων Κύπρου
  56. Ομάδα εν δράσει
  57. Πολιτιστική Κίνηση exARTIS
  58. Πολιτιστικός όμιλος ΆΡΤΙΟΝ Λάρνακας
  59. Στέγη Χορού Λεμεσού
  60. Συλλογικότητα Θεατρικών Δημιουργών
  61. Σωματείο Εικαστικοί Καλλιτέχνες και Θεωρητικοί Τέχνης – φυτωριο
  62. Σωματείο Υπόγεια Σκηνή / Θέατρο Συνεργείο
  63. Φωτοδός
  64. Χώρος Οπτικού Πειραματισμού Όαση λτδ
 
 
 
 
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