Nicosia Immigration Office: CRMD, the Police Aliens Unit, and Which One You Need

• Your passport, plus a photocopy.
• Your case file number, the MP, or your Alien Registration Number, the ARC. It is printed on your fee receipt and on the permit itself. Almost every enquiry stalls without it.
• The district you actually reside in, because that decides which body is competent for your file.
• Whether your application is one of the eleven categories examined only at the Nicosia head office. The list is further down this page.

This page covers the Republic of Cyprus only.

Three addresses, three different jobs. The CRMD at Makarios III 90 takes applications from residents of Nicosia District. The district police Aliens and Immigration Unit is at 6 Agamemnonos in Engomi, also written Egkomi. The Unit's national headquarters in Strovolos is a police command, not a public counter.

One piece of housekeeping explains a lot of the bad directions online. The Migration Department no longer sits under the Ministry of Interior. Since the Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection and Related Matters Law of 2024, Law 23(I)/2024, it sits under the Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection, alongside the Asylum Service. Guides written before that change send people to the wrong department, and some of them are still on the first page of results.

The CRMD central offices are at Archbishop Makarios III Avenue 90, 1077 Nicosia, in Lefkosia (Λευκωσία). The main line is 22 308808 and the email is migration@md.mip.gov.cy. The department is open Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 14:30, and the last entry is at 14:00.

Both are closed at weekends and on public holidays. The hours and the last-entry rule are published by the department itself, and the address, telephone, fax and email are on its contact page. The fax, if you need it, is 22 308742.

Now, what you will find when you arrive. The department's public rating sits at 2.3 out of 5 from 365 reviews as at 31 August 2026. I raise it as a planning fact, not a complaint. Treat it as a queue expectation: arrive early, and bring a complete file, so that a long morning ends in a submitted application rather than a second trip.

That address is published by gov.cy, in both language editions of its police branch directory. The English edition gives 6 Agamemnonos, Egkomi, 2411, Nicosia and the Greek edition gives Αγαμέμνονος 6, Έγκωμη 2411. Both list this unit's service hours as 07:30 to 14:30 under the Nicosia heading by name, half an hour earlier than the Migration Department. I checked both on 1 September 2026.

Why does Cyprus run two bodies for what looks like one job? Because they are genuinely different institutions. The Aliens and Immigration Unit has operated as a fully independent police unit since 1997, under the direct command of the Chief of Police, with its national headquarters in Nicosia and divisional units in each district. The Migration Department is a civil service department that decides applications. The police unit handles the policing side, enforcement included. That is why searches for the immigration police in Nicosia return news about arrests next to office listings. The two share a name and very little else.

There is one overlap that catches people out. Even when you file at the CRMD as a Nicosia District resident, biometric capture for several permit categories may be taken at the district police unit. A single application can legitimately involve both addresses, so being sent from one to the other is not always a mistake.

A word on the Engomi address, because nearly every source that gives it hedges it. It does not need hedging. Gov.cy publishes it in both editions of its police branch directory, and Google's business listing, mapping services and the unit's social pages all agree with what gov.cy publishes. It is one of the better sourced addresses in this guide. The phone numbers are the part gov.cy is inconsistent about, and the contact section below sets out how.

If your question is asylum rather than residence, that is a different service entirely, and UNHCR Cyprus is the right starting point.

This is the part almost nobody publishes, and it decides whether your trip is worth making.

1. Immigration Permits
2. Long-Term Resident Status
3. Educational Institutions, for entry permits
4. Research Centres, for entry permits
5. Foreign Interest Companies
6. EU Blue Card
7. Shipping Companies
8. Intra-Corporate Transfers
9. Digital Nomad Visa
10. Start-up Visa
11. Visitor, for programme attendance

Two rules sit alongside that list. Both turn people away at the door. Applications outside those categories are not accepted at the head office and are referred back to the district unit. And if you live outside Nicosia District, you can be served at the head office only through a duly authorised representative whose professional office is in Nicosia. Both rules are set out on the department's appointments page.

One carve-out is worth knowing. Initial registration of employees of newly registered foreign-interest companies, handled through the Business Facilitation Unit, is served first-come, first-served with no appointment.

I have deliberately not told you which category your application falls into. That assessment is legal advice and it depends on facts this page cannot see.

The exceptions matter if your case is one of the complicated ones. Designated service providers get fixed weekly slots under a published appointment schedule. Appointments and amendments for the head-office categories are requested by email, and the department publishes a different mailbox for each group:

• Immigration Permits in Categories A to F, Long-Term Resident Status, and permanent residence card renewals: mageorgiou@md.mip.gov.cy
• Immigration Permits under Regulation 6(2): aevangelou@md.mip.gov.cy
• Students and educational institutions: adiola@md.mip.gov.cy

Those mailboxes are named individual officers, published on gov.cy as at 31 August 2026. Officers move posts, so treat the address as current rather than permanent.

The police units run a firm timing rule that catches people every year. The appointment request must be sent at least one month before the current residence permit or entry visa expires. One request per family. The reply arrives within five working days. That rule, and the district contact table it belongs to, are in a document published by the police.

Read that table closely and Nicosia is missing from it. The appointment-by-email route covers Limassol, Larnaca, Pafos and Famagusta, where the Paralimni unit serves the whole district. Nicosia is absent, which is exactly why the answer here is to arrive early rather than to book.

Nothing here is bookable online. The department publishes no booking portal for routine visits, and if you find a site offering to book your slot for a fee, it is not the department.

Beyond that, the department publishes direct dials by service, which will save you a transfer:

Two things from the department save a second call. Have your case file number or ARC in front of you before you dial, because the officer cannot look anything up without it. And if you write rather than call, address the letter to the Director of the Migration Department, with the date, your full name, your signature and a return address. Both are set out on the contact page, and the per-service numbers come from the police document linked above. The lines are answered during service hours only.

For the police unit at Engomi, gov.cy publishes numbers in two places that do not agree, and the difference is total. Its English-language police branch directory, last modified 31 December 2025, lists 22 802332, 22 802353 and 22 802341. Its Greek-language edition of the same directory, last modified 30 March 2026, lists one number instead: 22 802360. Not a single number appears on both pages. Both give the fax as 22 775551. Both checked 1 September 2026. The Greek page is the more recently maintained of the two, so I would try 22 802360 first and work back through the English trio.

Visitor parking at the Migration Department is free. If you hold a disability card, there are designated spaces inside the department's own parking area, entered from Saronikou Street. Bicycle racks sit in front of the building on Makarios III Avenue. All three details come from the department's location and parking page, and the accessibility entrance in particular is published in exactly one place.

By bus, Caritas Cyprus's Nicosia orientation map routes Bus 3 from Solomos Square to the Migration Department, and Bus 14 to the Aliens and Immigration Unit. Two different buses for the two different offices, which is the sort of detail that costs a newcomer a morning. That map dates from 2022, so confirm the route number before you travel. The addresses on it still match what gov.cy publishes.

Whichever way you arrive, plan around 14:00 rather than 14:30.

You may not need the trip at all.

Newer, and more useful if it applies to you: five types of renewal can now be filed online with a verified CY Login account instead of in person. They are remunerated employment, domestic employment, employment in companies of foreign interests, long-term resident status, and family reunification for family members of long-term residents and of foreign-interest-company employees. The service page sets out the process. This is a renewal route only. A first application still goes in person.

One correction, because the search suggestions imply otherwise: there is no public status lookup by passport number. The SMS route needs your application number.

• The Asylum Service is at Archiepiskopou Makariou 70, twenty door numbers from the Migration Department at 90, per Caritas Cyprus's Nicosia map rather than a gov.cy page, and it is a sibling department under the same Deputy Ministry. Asylum and international protection go there, not to the CRMD. It is a genuinely easy wrong turn.
• The Aliens and Immigration Unit headquarters in the Dasoupolis area of Strovolos is a police command, not a public counter. The counter for Nicosia District is the district unit at Engomi.
• Passport control at Larnaca and Paphos airports belongs to the same police unit but handles entry, not residence paperwork.

• Arriving after 14:00. The last entry is 14:00 even though the door closes at 14:30.
• Going to Makarios III 90 while living outside Nicosia District. You can be served there only through an authorised representative whose office is in Nicosia.
• Going to Engomi at 08:00, or to the CRMD at 07:30. Engomi opens at 07:30 and the CRMD opens at 08:00, not the other way round.
• Filing at the head office outside the eleven listed categories. It is refused and referred back to your district.
• Phoning without your ARC or case file number. The officer cannot look anything up without it.
• Turning up at the Strovolos headquarters. It is a police command, not a public counter.
• Trusting a third-party booking link. The department publishes no paid booking portal.

The public rating reflects the queue, not the outcome. Go early, with a complete file, and most of these disappear.

If you are not certain which permit route applies to you before you pick an office, the residence permits guide sets out the routes for EU and non-EU applicants.

If you would rather not assemble the file yourself, the permit application service starts with a free automated check of your documents and tells you what is missing before you pay anything.