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How to choose a bathroom renovation company in Cyprus

What you can actually verify about a Cyprus bathroom fitter before you sign: registrations, the waterproofing detail, and what a complete quote itemises.

8 min read

How to Choose a Bathroom Renovation in Cyprus — illustrasjonsbilde

Photo: Julien Bachelet on Pexels

ByStavros Loizou· Editor, kitchens, bathrooms and finishes

Stavros covers the rooms that carry the most cost per square metre and the finishes that go into them. He tracks the order trades have to arrive in, which moves a Cypriot renovation bill further than any hourly rate does.

Published

Four things about a bathroom company can be checked before money moves: whether the business is registered and current with the Registrar of Companies, whether the electrician touching your circuits is licensed and will issue a certificate, whether the quote names a waterproofing system rather than assuming tiles will keep water out, and whether VAT is stated. Everything else said at your kitchen table is unverifiable. A bathroom is the smallest room in the house and the one most capable of costing you a ceiling downstairs, so fitters who are good at it expect these questions.

What can actually be verified

Start with the business. The Registrar of Companies runs a public search: you can confirm the entity exists, see the directors, and see whether annual returns have been filed. Plenty of good fitters here trade as sole proprietors rather than limited companies, which is not a mark against them — but know which you are dealing with before a deposit leaves your account, because it decides who you would be pursuing if work stopped with the walls open.

Insurance is a document, not a reassurance. Ask for public liability and employer's liability certificates, current dates, and an insured name matching the quote. In a block this matters more than people expect: a strip-out sits directly above somebody else's ceiling.

The electrical work is verifiable too. Installation work should be carried out and certified by a licensed electrician, and the certificate is yours to keep. In a bathroom the scope is rarely just a light — usually a shaver socket, an extract fan, a heated towel rail, sometimes an immersion heater — and each has to land on the right circuit with the right protection.

In a flat, the management committee is a record as well. Anything touching a common riser or drainage stack normally needs its agreement before work starts.

What you cannot verify is reputation. Praise published on a company's own website has no provenance, and a screenshot has less. For human evidence, ask for a bathroom the company finished three or four years ago and ask the owner what the grout and silicone look like now.

Registrations that matter

Registrar of Companies. Existence, directors, filing history. A company years behind on returns is telling you about its administration rather than its tiling — and administration handles your stage payments and your snagging list.

Licensed electrician. Ask for the name and the licence, not a promise that "we have a guy". The certificate should be handed over at the end, and where the supply or the board is altered, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus expects the installation to have been done by someone entitled to do it.

Contractor registration. Building works above a value threshold must be carried out by a contractor registered in the appropriate class. A single domestic bathroom often sits below that threshold, so your protection is the contract you wrote — write one. If the bathroom is part of a wider renovation, ask again, because the combined value is what counts.

ETEK. Relevant only if something structural changes: a new opening, a relocated stack, a partition that turns out to be doing work. Any engineer signing for that must be on the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber register.

Tax Department. Ask for the VAT number and what rate the quote assumes. The reduced rate on a primary residence is conditional and applied for, not automatic. A quote silent on VAT cannot be compared with another one.

Questions to ask

Most Cypriot homes built from the 1970s onward are a reinforced concrete frame with blockwork infill, and in districts like Strovolos that stock of 1970s to 1990s blocks is where most bathroom work happens. Your pipework is chased into block or buried in the slab, the soil stack is where the building put it, and hot water usually arrives by gravity from a solar cylinder on the roof. Ask about those three before you ask about tiles.

  1. Where is the hot water coming from, at what pressure?

    Most homes here run a roof-mounted thermosiphon cylinder, and pressure at the shower is whatever the height difference gives you. Fine behind a conventional head, often disappointing behind a large rain head. Ask whether the specified fittings work on the pressure you have, whether a pump is proposed, and what happens in January.

  2. Is the WC moving, and what does that cost?

    Waste needs fall, and in a concrete slab you cannot chase a new run wherever you like. Moving a WC any distance usually means a raised plinth, a stepped floor, or negotiating with the building's stack. Ask which is proposed and see it drawn, not described.

  3. What is the waterproofing, by name?

    "We tile it properly" is not a specification. Ask which tanking membrane or liquid system goes onto the floor and up the wet walls, how far up, how the junctions and drain outlet are detailed, and who stands behind it if water appears below. In older Cypriot bathrooms the tiles were often the only barrier, which is why they failed.

  4. What is behind the existing tiles?

    Galvanised steel supply pipe is common in the older blocks and corrodes from the inside. Once walls are open, replacing the runs costs a fraction of opening them again later. Ask for replumbing the bathroom's runs as a separate line so you can decide with the number in front of you.

  5. Where does the extract fan discharge?

    Into a duct that ends in a void is not extraction. Humidity is a real load — around Oroklini the salt lake keeps it high enough that damp-proofing specifications change because of it — and a bathroom that cannot dry shows mould at the ceiling line within a year.

  6. Which fixings, if you are near the sea?

    On direct coastal exposure such as Kato Paphos, salt-laden air is constant and galvanised or marine-grade fixings are standard. Cheap chrome, plated grilles and unbranded screen frames pit quickly in that air. A specification question, not a taste one.

Three more decide how the weeks feel. Can the materials get in — large tiles, a 1.7 metre bath and a rubble skip all pass a lift designed in another decade, and on hillside plots around Peyia the access road limits the vehicle first. Is there a second WC, because if not the programme is about how many days you can live without one. And if the property is a holiday let, does the work fit the closure window: in Ayia Napa and the eastern resorts that runs November to March, when every trade in the district is already booked.

What a good quote looks like

A single figure for "the bathroom" is a guess with a decimal point. The same room costs very differently depending on tile format, whether sanitaryware moves, and whether walls open for new pipework. Two quotes with the same headline number can describe two different rooms. A quote you can use contains all of this:

  • Scope broken into stages — strip-out and disposal, first fix plumbing and electrics, waterproofing, screed, tiling, second fix, sealing and making good — with a price against each.
  • Tile quantity, format and wastage allowance. Large formats and brick-bond layouts cut differently, and the cutting is the labour.
  • A named waterproofing system and the areas it covers.
  • Sanitaryware and brassware specified by model, or entered as a named provisional sum so you know which figures are still open.
  • Who removes the rubble, and whether skip hire and disposal are in or out.
  • The VAT position, and exclusions listed: making good the ceiling below, the door, extending the electrical board, anything found behind a duct.
  • Payments tied to completed stages rather than dates, with a retention held until the defects period ends.
  • A programme in working days, and the name of the person on site.

Give three companies the same written scope, or you have three numbers and no comparison. Our bathroom renovation project guide sets out the order trades arrive in, and the district pages show which companies work in your area.

Warning signs

A price well below the others is rarely efficiency. It is usually a smaller scope, and the parts most often missing are the waterproofing, the disposal and the making good. Others worth stopping for:

  • No waterproofing line at all, or a promise that the adhesive is "waterproof anyway".
  • Cash only, or a refusal to give a VAT number.
  • A deposit large enough to fund the whole job before the first tile arrives.
  • No named electrician, or a shrug about the installation certificate.
  • Pressure to sign at the first visit, or a price that expires this week.
  • Tiling straight over existing tiles to save a day. It occasionally works, and it permanently hides whatever was wrong underneath.

Common questions

Do I need a permit to renovate a bathroom in Cyprus?

A like-for-like internal refit that changes nothing structural, moves no drainage outside the property and alters no external appearance is generally treated as maintenance. Once you open a wall doing structural work, relocate the soil stack, or change anything visible from outside, it belongs with the district or municipal authority. If you are unsure which side of that line you are on, ask before work starts.

How long should a bathroom take?

A fitter who answers without seeing the room has guessed. What determines it is whether sanitaryware moves, whether walls open for new pipework, the drying time the screed and waterproofing need before tiling, and how many trades overlap in a room barely large enough for two people. Ask for the programme in working days with drying periods on their own line.

Is it worth replumbing at the same time?

In the older apartment stock, usually yes for the runs inside the bathroom itself: the walls are open, the labour is on site, and the alternative is paying twice for the same demolition. Whether to go further and do the whole flat depends on what the pipe looks like when the first wall comes down — so have that decision point written into the quote in advance.

Can I supply my own sanitaryware?

Most fitters accept it, and some price labour slightly higher because they carry no margin on the goods and no control over lead times. Agree in writing who checks the delivery, who stores it, and what happens to the programme if an item arrives damaged.

What causes bathrooms here to fail early?

Three things, in order: waterproofing that was never really there, extraction that discharges nowhere, and hard water on unprotected brassware and screens. None show up at handover. All are decided at quotation stage.

Bathroom fitters in Cyprus

8 companies covering this area.

Sources

  1. Registrar of Companies — company search — retrieved 2026-07-24
  2. Electricity Authority of Cyprus — supply and installation requirements — retrieved 2026-07-24
  3. Tax Department — VAT on residential property — retrieved 2026-07-24
  4. Department of Town Planning and Housing — planning and building permits — retrieved 2026-07-24

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