Immigration Paphos: the Paphos District Aliens and Immigration Unit

That routing rule is the government's own. The Migration Department states plainly that residents outside the Nicosia district contact the police Aliens and Immigration Unit of their own district to arrange an appointment. The Cyprus Police put it from the other side. Headquarters operates in Nicosia, and the branches of the Unit are the divisional aliens and immigration departments.

You will see this office called several things, and people search for all of them: the Cyprus immigration office in Paphos, the Paphos immigration office, Paphos or Pafos or Πάφος. Immigration office, immigration unit, migration department, DAIU, or the full Paphos District Aliens and Immigration Unit. On its own appointment sheet the police write Pafos ARO. Google files it under the shorter title Aliens and Immigration Unit. So the government writes Pafos while almost every guide writes Paphos. Same office, same corner.

Three things are easy to conflate here. This page covers this one office. The directory compares all five districts. And having the application handled for you is a different thing again.

Its authority rests on statute. The unit works under the Aliens and Immigration Law, chap. 105, and Reg. 242/72 as amended by Law 22(1). It has been operationally and administratively independent under the Chief of Police since 1997.

Now the part nobody official has written down, and I am taking it from other people rather than describing it myself. A Paphos community directory describes the office as harder to find than most: you walk down an alley and enter a block of flats, and the office is on the second floor. A mapping database records the interior separately as office 22 on the second floor.

No government page publishes anything past the floor number. So read the rest as reported, and in practice it means this. Look for a residential-style block on the avenue rather than a civic building, then go up to the second floor. Allow a few extra minutes the first time.

Eleftheriou Venizelou is a main avenue in Ktima, upper Paphos. Use Ktima to orient yourself, not to name the office, because nobody searching for this place calls it that.

A last point, because the leading guide hedges and there is no need to. Every record I could find from 2023 to 2026 gives one address: both gov.cy editions, the mapping databases and the Paphos directories. The English branch record was last modified on 31 December 2025. The Greek edition followed three months later, on 30 March 2026. Both publish the street, the number, the floor and the postcode identically.

The office has not moved. Verified against both gov.cy editions on 2 September 2026.

Four numbers appear on the English branch directory. The Greek edition, updated three months later, lists 26 806222 alone. That is a shorter list, not a contradiction.

Which makes the dialling order more or less write itself:

1. Start with 26 806222. Three government records publish it: the English branch record, the Greek edition and the appointment sheet.
2. Then 26 806215. The English record and the appointment sheet both name it as the second telephone centre line.
3. After those, 26 806214 and 26 806211, in either order. Each appears in the English directory alone.
4. Call inside 07:30 to 14:30. The lines are not staffed outside office hours.

That mailbox is the useful part, and it is oddly hard to find. The Cyprus Police appointment sheet, linked from the Migration Department's own appointments page, gives pafosetiseis@police.gov.cy for the Pafos ARO, which is the label the police use for this district's appointment desk on that sheet. It also designates 26 806222 and 26 806215 as that office's telephone centre. Those are the lines the government routes appointment calls through.

Two other numbers circulate. 26 806221 appears on Google's business panel as an alternative number, one digit away from the published 26 806211. 26 806200 appears on two Paphos directories. Neither is on any government page for this unit. That said, 26 806200 does sit inside the same 26 806 block as every Paphos Police number gov.cy publishes, so it may well be a real police line. I am not calling either one wrong. I am saying the government does not publish them here.

And the numbers not to call. The Migration Department's Nicosia switchboard on 22308808 or 22308811 does not hold a Paphos district file. One heavily cited page labels those as a Cyprus Police call centre, then sends Paphos residents to Limassol's appointment mailbox. Both parts of that are wrong. Verified against gov.cy on 2 September 2026.

Behind the confusion sit two bodies keeping two different sets of hours.

One gov.cy page, posted on 23 December 2025, states both ranges on adjacent lines. It appears in no search result, which is roughly why six different sets of hours are in circulation for one office.

Where each wrong answer comes from is worth knowing, because it tells you which source to trust next time. Google's own business panel for this office says it closes at 13:30. Google's AI answer on the same results page repeats that 13:30 close, hedged as "or up to 14:30 depending on department specifics". No government page draws that distinction. The most-read guide gives 08:00, which is the Migration Department's opening time applied to a police unit. A live mapping service gives 07:30 to 13:30, another gives an 08:00 opening, and a Paphos directory gives 08:30 to 14:00.

Six published ranges, one government answer, and the government states it three times: in the English branch record, in the Greek one, and on the department's own service-hours page. Verified in all three on 2 September 2026.

Weekdays only, then. No weekend opening. Arrive with time in hand rather than near the close.

This is one of the most common questions about this office, and I could not find a page that answers it directly, so here it is.

And it is not bad news. The Paphos unit registers your details and transmits your application to the competent Ministry departments for the decision. The local visit is the substantive one. The file travels; you do not.

An application filed there outside the headquarters-only categories "will not be accepted" and "will be referred to the competent District Unit ... in the applicant's district of residence". The headquarters sits at Makariou III 90, 1077 Nicosia, with the switchboard given above.

Both quotes verified against gov.cy on 2 September 2026.

So if you were working out how to get from Paphos to Nicosia for this, you probably do not need to. Nicosia is the exception in this system, not the destination.

I am hedging on one address there, deliberately. Two Paphos community directories place the Citizens Service Centre further along the same avenue, with the same 8021 postcode. No government source publishes that address, so treat it as a directory claim and confirm before you set off.

The ΚΕΠ is searched far more often than this office is. If that is what brought you here, it is a different service and this page will not help you with it. That is also why I have not tried to cover it: one page cannot be both an immigration guide and a Paphos office directory.

Start with the mailbox. The Cyprus Police publish it for the Pafos ARO specifically, on the appointment sheet linked from the Migration Department's appointments page. I lead with it because a heavily cited guide gives Limassol's mailbox for Paphos, and Google's AI answer follows that guide. Follow the top results and you may email the wrong district.

What the police ask for:

1. 1
   Send the email at least one month before your permit or entry visa expires. The deadline runs from the expiry date, not from when you would like to be seen.
2. 2
   Send one request per family, not one per person. The sheet says so explicitly.
3. 3
   Put every personal detail in capital letters. Odd, but free to comply with.
4. 4
   Include all ten fields. Name and surname, date of birth, nationality, passport number, date of last arrival, Alien Registration Card number, permit expiry date, File Number (MP), how many people are applying, and a local telephone number.
5. 5
   Wait for the reply, which should come within five working days. Do not resend.

One month is the published minimum, not a target. I would send the request the day the window opens.

On the timeline, and I want to be precise here because most guides are not. What the government announced is that from 23 May 2023, people could arrange an appointment over the internet in addition to the call centre. If someone has pointed you at an older booking site, crmd.simplybook.pro, that is not the route the police publish today. I have found no government page saying when, or whether, it was switched off, so treat any shut-off date you read for it as unconfirmed. You can also call the telephone centre numbers, or go in person.

On walking in without an appointment, I will stick to what the government publishes. Google's AI answer says appointments only, and that walk-ins are generally not accepted, on no government source I can find. What gov.cy says is different. Small professional offices and private individuals are served daily on a first-come, first-served basis, without the need for a prior appointment. So the flat prohibition is not the rule. I still would not promise you a walk-in gets seen on the day.

About that five-day figure: it is the commitment the police publish, not a prediction. Verified against gov.cy on 2 September 2026.

The government splits the work by permit category, using codes. Find yours:

Watch the student distinction. The entry permit is a Nicosia matter, the residence permit a Paphos one. And UKW matters here, because the Paphos district has a substantial British resident population. The government's submission-offices page is the only source I have found naming that post-Brexit category at district level.

A detail about the visit I have not seen published anywhere else: your biometrics are taken here. Photo, fingerprints and signature are captured at the district unit, at the same time as submission, for the categories above. For several Nicosia-only categories they are taken in Nicosia, or soon after at your own district unit. So a Paphos resident renewing a permit gives biometrics on the second floor of the Venizelou building. Both category lists and the biometrics rule verified against gov.cy on 2 September 2026.

To check where your application has reached, text STATUS, a space, then your application number to 1199. It costs about 3.4 cents a message, the rate the Cyprus Police publish. The application number is on the Γ.Λ. 301B receipt you were given when you paid. A third-country national's renewal can now also be started through the gov.cy digital service. There is no unofficial online lookup worth trusting.

Google shows this office at 2.1 out of 5 from 145 reviews, checked on 2 September 2026. That is the joint-lowest of the five district offices. I raise it as a planning fact, not a complaint.

Which in planning terms says one thing. Expect a queue.

• Go early in the 07:30 to 14:30 window rather than near the close.
• Bring the health insurance certificate, because the counter asks for it. That link goes to DigiCare, the insurance company that owns this site. What GeSY covers is a separate question.
• Bring everything else on your list too. A second visit is the real cost of one missing document.
• EU citizens: the MEU1 route sets out what to take. Non-EU visitors want the visitor permit.
• If you would rather have the file checked first, there is help preparing the application.

Every district works the same way: a police Aliens and Immigration Unit, weekday mornings, its own appointment mailbox. Nicosia is the exception, where residents go to the Migration Department itself, and where the email scheme does not apply at all. The government's ARO appointment table covers Limassol, Larnaca, Pafos and Famagusta only, and Nicosia is absent from it.

Where to go if you have landed on the wrong district:

• the Limassol unit in Zakaki
• the Larnaca district unit
• the Famagusta district unit in Paralimni
• Nicosia, which works differently

Passport control at Paphos and Larnaca airports is also part of the same Unit, with its own Paphos numbers. But that is border control rather than residence permits, and it is not this office.

For the wider questions that bring people to this page by accident: the permit routes in full, the 90/180 question and the wider move, and the district-by-district directory.