What Is the ARC in Cyprus, and Where Is My ARC Number?

What Is the ARC in Cyprus?

gov.cy uses two English names for the same thing, and the split follows the permit type. Temporary residence permit pages, including the Pink Slip page, say "Alien Registration Card (ARC)". Immigration permit and investor pages say "Aliens Registration Certificate". The Greek text has only one form, «Δελτίο Εγγραφής Αλλοδαπού», abbreviated «ΔΕΑ», and Δελτίο means card. The Department's own glossary defines ARC as "the foreigner's/ alien's registration certificate" and adds that the term is used for the alien registration number as well. Card and certificate are the same document, and ARC names both the document and the number.

The EU route is where most pages go wrong. EU, EEA and Swiss citizens register on form MEU1 and receive a Registration Certificate, «Βεβαίωση Εγγραφής», for €20, with a photograph but no fingerprints, and it carries no expiry date. The Migration Department's MEU1 page mentions neither the ARC nor the Aliens Registry, in either language. Two Cyprus law firms that publish guides on the ARC, Philippou Law Firm and George K. Konstantinou Law Firm, report that a registration number is printed on that certificate anyway. So the number is real; "ARC" is simply not the Department's name for the EU citizen's document. Our guide to the MEU1 yellow slip sets out that route in full.

Where Do I Find My ARC Number?

The Migration Department's contact page asks foreign nationals for the "file number of the case or the alien registration number (ARC)", then says where those numbers are printed. The Greek version of the same page names one surface the English version leaves out, the application submission receipt, so the full list runs to four:

• The application submission receipt. The receipt handed to you when the application is filed. This surface is named on the Greek version of the contact page and missing from the English one.
• The fee payment receipt. The receipt issued when the entry or residence permit fees are paid. Both language versions of the contact page name this one.
• The residence or entry permit itself. The permit document carries the alien registration number alongside the file number of your case.
• The Alien Registration Card. The Health Insurance Organisation states that the alien registration number is written on the «Δελτίο Εγγραφής Αλλοδαπού», which is the ARC. gov.cy does not publish a description of that card or say whether it is a separate document from the residence permit itself.

What the Department does not publish matters just as much. There is no specimen ARC on gov.cy, no description of the card's fields, and no published number format. The twelve-digit form beginning 05 that circulates on expat forums and consultancy sites appears on no gov.cy page, and the Department's own guides give no digit count and no prefix at all. On whether the number itself ever changes, a Cyprus law firm advising on the ARC reports that once assigned it stays with you through renewals and changes of status. The Migration Department does not state that rule in those words, but its fee wording points the same way, since registration is charged "only in cases of first registration".

What Is the ARC Number Used For, and What If You Lose the Card?

Plenty of guides list banks, employers, landlords and the Tax Department as bodies that ask for an ARC number. That may well match practice, but no Cyprus government page says so. The paperwork that genuinely turns on the number is the permit file itself, which starts with the MVIS8 application form for visitor permits. Three uses of the number are stated by a government source:

• Contacting the Migration Department. The Department's contact page asks foreign nationals for the file number of the case or the alien registration number before it takes a query forward.
• Getting a bank guarantee back. The Department's bank guarantee pages warn that "particular attention should be paid to the correct indication of the file number or ARC of the third country national".
• Social Insurance, and GeSY behind it. The Health Insurance Organisation states that non-Cypriots who work and have not updated their Social Insurance file with their alien registration number should do so promptly, because GeSY enrolment runs off registration in the Population Department, Migration Department or Social Insurance archives.

For a lost, stolen or damaged document, the Migration Department answers in one sentence on its residence permits and documents page: "You should report the loss of your document to the Police and submit an application for your document to be reissued." That is the whole of it. A separate answer on the same page, about a residence permit application that is still pending, adds that you will not face a problem with the Police in the meantime and may present proof of submission on inspection, and it carries a carve-out worth reading twice: that protection "does not apply in cases of application regarding immigration permits and long term residence status". gov.cy does not say the pending-application protection covers a reissue application, and no replacement form number and no replacement fee are published for the ARC, so ask the Department what applies to your case rather than working from a figure found online.