Famagusta’s District Local Government Organisation (DLGO) had the highest clearance rate in Cyprus for planning and building permit applications in September, according to Interior Ministry figures. The authority said it completed 199 applications that month, 77 more than it received.
Its clearance rate was 186.2 per cent for building permits and 136.8 per cent for planning permits. Across the country, the DLGOs completed more applications than were submitted, eating into a backlog that still stands at 29,543.
Giannis Karousos, president of the Famagusta DLGO, said September was the organisation’s most productive month of 2026 for planning and building permit applications. Output was up 33.6 per cent on its previous best month. He said the effort would continue at the same intensive pace.
The Famagusta DLGO completed 1,070 such applications in the first nine months of 2026, compared with 926 in the whole of 2025, and aims to keep its clearance rate at 120 per cent. Karousos noted that Famagusta is a smaller district than the others, and that it leads second-placed Nicosia on building permits by almost 29 percentage points. The authority has 2,038 applications pending, 764 of them submitted before 1 July 2024.
Backlog
When the DLGOs took over licensing on 1 July 2024, under the local government reform, they inherited tens of thousands of pending applications, stored in boxes. They have since processed thousands of them.
Of the 29,543 applications still pending, 22,865 were submitted after the takeover: 11,812 for planning permits and 11,053 for building permits. The remaining 6,678 (3,129 planning and 3,549 building) were submitted before the reform.
Limassol accounts for 5,025 of the 11,818 pending planning applications. A further 1,112 planning and 824 building requests are pending at the Limassol DLGO. Development in Limassol has been fast-paced.
Some DLGOs did not even have buildings to house them when they were set up. Not all the staff assigned to them through the Interior Ministry were fully trained for the work. Applications are accepted only electronically, through the Ippodamos system, whose malfunctions caused difficulties, although the situation has improved. Interior Ministry decisions to fast-track permits, particularly for small and medium-sized developments, have also helped speed up the process.
September figures
Countrywide, 1,049 applications for planning permits and 1,362 for building permits were submitted in September. Nicosia completed 441 planning and 667 building applications, Limassol 304 and 435, Larnaca 219 and 301, Paphos 163 and 148, and the free area of Famagusta district 78 and 121.
Nicosia had the second-highest clearance rate in both categories, at 131.6 per cent for planning and 157.3 per cent for building permits.
For planning permits, Larnaca followed with 115.3 per cent, then Paphos with 103.2 and Limassol with 98.4.
For building permits, Larnaca was on 115.8 per cent and Limassol on 110.7. Paphos trailed at 67.3. Recruitment was not completed at the same time in every DLGO, which may have played a part in the differences.
Related documents
Clearance rates were lower for requests mainly for copies of documents related to permits, averaging 84 per cent for planning-related requests and 97 per cent for building-related ones.
In September, 525 planning-related and 696 building-related requests were submitted, and 441 and 675 were completed. The district rates were:
- Nicosia: 87 per cent for planning and 108 per cent for building
- Limassol: 68 and 81 per cent
- Larnaca: 93 and 102 per cent
- Paphos: 92 and 94 per cent
- Famagusta: 91 and 95 per cent
