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How to choose a floor replacement contractor in Cyprus

What you can verify about a flooring contractor in Cyprus before you sign: registrations, what happens to the old floor, and what a complete quote itemises.

8 min read

How to Choose a Floor Replacement in Cyprus — illustrasjonsbilde

Photo: Ksenia Chernaya 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

Three things about a flooring contractor can be checked before you sign anything: whether the business is registered and current at the Registrar of Companies, whether they will give you a VAT number and an insurance certificate, and whether the quote says what happens to the floor you already have. That last one decides most of the price. A floor looks the same from the doorway whether it was laid on a levelled substrate or over whatever was underneath, and the difference only shows up two summers later.

What can actually be verified

Start with the company. The Registrar of Companies runs a public search, so you can confirm the entity exists, see the directors, and see whether annual returns have been filed. Plenty of good tilers in Cyprus trade as sole proprietors rather than limited companies, and that is not a mark against them — but you should know which you are dealing with before you pay a deposit, because it decides who you would be chasing if the work stopped with half the flat lifted.

Insurance is a document, not an assurance. Ask for the certificate: public liability, employer's liability if they have staff, current dates, and the insured name matching the name on the quote. Floor replacement means pallets of tile coming through a communal stairwell and several tonnes of rubble going back out the same way, and in an apartment block the damage argued about afterwards is usually in the common parts rather than in your flat.

What you cannot verify is reputation. Praise printed on a contractor's own website has nothing behind it, and this site publishes no ratings or testimonials for that reason. What it can show is registration, coverage and time in business, because each comes from a record. For evidence you can stand on, ask for the address of a floor the company laid three or four years ago and go and look at it. Grout lines, thresholds and the corners of large-format tile tell you what a handover photograph conceals.

Registrations that matter

Registrar of Companies. Existence, directors, filing history. A company well behind on returns is telling you about its paperwork rather than its tiling — but paperwork is what handles your stage payments and your final invoice.

Tax Department. Ask for the VAT number and ask which rate the quote assumes. Renovation on a primary residence can qualify for a reduced rate, but it is conditional and applied for, not automatic because the property is your home. A quote silent on VAT cannot be compared with one that states it.

Contractor registration. Building works above a value threshold must be carried out by a contractor registered in the appropriate class, and the class caps the value of works they may take on. A single room of tiling normally sits well below that line; a whole-house floor replacement inside a larger renovation may not. Ask where your project sits rather than assuming.

ETEK. Replacing a floor finish in an existing room needs no registered engineer. The moment the work involves removing a wall, changing levels between rooms or altering an opening, the drawings need someone on the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber register and the work needs permission through the district or municipal authority. Contractors sometimes call that kind of change minor. It is not minor to the title deed.

Social insurance. The people working in your home should be declared. Undeclared labour is cheaper until somebody is injured on your property.

Questions to ask

Most Cypriot homes built from the 1970s onward are a reinforced concrete frame with blockwork infill, and the floor is a sand-cement screed over the slab. In the 1970s to 1990s blocks that fill Strovolos and the older Nicosia suburbs, that screed is thick, the finish on top is often terrazzo or small ceramic tile, and it is bonded hard. Everything in your quote follows from that.

  1. Is the old floor coming up, or are we laying over it?

    Two different jobs at two different prices. Lifting means noise, dust and rubble; overlaying raises the finished level, which affects door leaves, thresholds, the bottom of the kitchen units and the step out to the veranda. Neither is wrong. A quote that does not say which it assumes is not a quote.

  2. Who checks the substrate before the tile is ordered?

    Once the old finish is off, the screed is whatever it is. Large-format tile needs a flatter base than small tile, and levelling compound is the item most often missing from the cheap quote. Ask what happens, and what it costs, if the screed needs it.

  3. Where do the movement joints go?

    Nicosia and the inland towns have the widest temperature range on the island. A large continuous tiled area with no perimeter gap and no movement joints is the classic reason tiles lift and drum a few years later. Agree where the joints go before the setting out is fixed.

  4. What happens at the veranda and the wet areas?

    External floors and bathrooms need a waterproofing layer under the tile and falls to an outlet. Near Oroklini and the salt lake, where humidity is consistently higher, damp detailing at thresholds deserves more attention than it usually gets. Ask who owns the waterproofing and what is specified.

  5. How do the materials and the rubble move?

    On the hillside plots around Peyia, steep access roads limit delivery vehicle size and pallets end up broken down and carried; in a block with no goods lift the same problem arrives one storey at a time. Ask the same question about the old screed going out, including whether a skip on the street needs permission from the municipality.

Ask, finally, who makes good: skirting, door undercuts, the junction with the kitchen plinth, and the plaster where the old skirting was chiselled off. That is the work most often disputed. And if the property is out towards Polis Chrysochous, expect travel time inside the day rate — distance from the main contractor base in Paphos is a real cost, and an honest quote shows it.

What a good quote looks like

Tiling in Cyprus is generally quoted between €22 and €70 per square metre supply and lay. Read the top of that band as a different job rather than better tile: usually an old floor coming up, a substrate needing levelling, large-format material, or an upper-floor flat with no lift. Two quotes carrying the same rate per square metre can describe entirely different amounts of work, which is why the itemisation matters more than the rate.

A quote you can use contains all of this:

  • The area in square metres, measured, with the rooms named.
  • Whether the existing floor is being lifted or overlaid, stated in words.
  • Removal and disposal of the old floor as its own line, including the skip.
  • Levelling and substrate preparation priced, or named as a provisional sum with the rate that would apply.
  • The tile or board identified by name, size and finish, including the slip rating for wet areas and external floors.
  • Adhesive, grout, trims and the skirting solution specified.
  • Waterproofing for bathrooms and verandas listed separately.
  • Movement and perimeter joints described.
  • Making good: doors trimmed, plaster repaired, painting included or explicitly excluded.
  • The VAT position and the rate assumed.
  • Payments tied to completed stages rather than dates, with a retention held until the defects period ends.

Give three contractors the same written scope and the same measured area. Different scopes produce three numbers and no comparison. Our flooring project guide sets out the sequence in more detail, and the district pages show which companies work in your area.

Warning signs

A price a long way below the others is rarely efficiency. It is normally a smaller scope, and the parts most often missing are the lifting, the disposal and the levelling — the three items that decide whether the floor is still flat in five years.

Other things worth stopping for:

  • No site visit before the number. Nobody can price a floor from a photograph, because the whole question is what is underneath.
  • A refusal to give a VAT number, or a cash-only price.
  • Tile quoted only as "porcelain" with no product name, so what arrives is whatever was cheapest that week.
  • No mention of what happens to the old floor.
  • A deposit large enough to cover the entire material order before anything is delivered to your address, or a price that expires this week.
  • An offer to knock out a wall or drop a threshold level "while we are in there", with no mention of permission.

Common questions

Do I need a permit to replace a floor in Cyprus?

Replacing a floor finish in an existing room, at the same level, normally does not. What changes the answer is altering levels, removing or opening up a wall, changing an external opening, or work on a listed building or in a protected traditional settlement. Those go through the district or municipal authority, and permission comes first.

Should I lift the old floor or tile over it?

It depends on what is underneath and how much height you can give away. Overlaying is cheaper and quicker and avoids the dust, but it pushes into doors, thresholds and the veranda step. Lifting costs more and gives you a known substrate. On old terrazzo in a 1970s block the bedding underneath is often sound, so the decision usually comes down to height rather than condition.

How long is a flat out of use?

Nobody can give you a fixed number before seeing the floor. What determines it is the area, whether the old floor is coming up, whether levelling is needed and how long it takes to cure, tile format and access. Curing time is the part people forget, and no contractor can compress it by working faster.

Does the tile matter more than the fitter?

No. A well-laid mid-range tile outlasts an expensive one on an uneven bed with no movement joints, and the failures that cost real money — drumming, lifting, cracked grout, water under an external floor — are almost all installation rather than material.

Flooring contractors in Cyprus

6 companies covering this area.

Sources

  1. Registrar of Companies — company search — retrieved 2026-07-28
  2. Tax Department — VAT rates and conditions — retrieved 2026-07-28
  3. Department of Town Planning and Housing — planning and building permits — retrieved 2026-07-28
  4. Cyprus Statistical Service — construction cost indices — retrieved 2026-07-28

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