Cyprus border crossing points: the full list

By Talk Cyprus. Published 22 August 2026.

Last verified 19 October 2026

There are nine places where you can cross between the north and the south of Cyprus. All of them sit on the Green Line, the UN buffer zone that has divided the island since 1974, and all of them work in both directions. Crossing is routine: thousands of people do it daily for work, shopping and family visits. But the crossings differ in what they allow, and picking the wrong one can add an hour to your journey.

This page lists every crossing from west to east, what each is for, and what you need to cross. Rules here change quietly, so check the date at the top of this page, and if you spot something out of date, tell us.

The nine crossings, west to east

The two foot crossings in Nicosia (Lefkosia, Lefkoşa) deserve a word. Ledra Street is the one most visitors use: you walk up the pedestrianised shopping street, show your document twice within fifty metres, and carry on walking. It is the simplest possible introduction to the island’s division. Ledra Palace, five minutes west, is quieter and mostly used by residents, cyclists and official traffic.

The big vehicle crossings, Ayios Dometios and Astromeritis in the west and Pergamos, Strovilia and Deryneia in the east, generally operate around the clock. The two small western crossings at Kato Pyrgos and Lefka (Lefke) keep shorter daytime hours, and insurance counters everywhere keep shorter hours than the crossings themselves, which matters if you are taking a car across at night. Treat hours as a thing to confirm on the day rather than a promise; they have shifted several times over the years.

What you need to cross

The checks are real border-style checks, even though the Republic of Cyprus does not regard the line as an international border. In both directions you will show your document twice, once to each side, usually from the car window.

If you hold a UK or other non-EU passport, bring the passport. EU and EEA citizens can cross with a national identity card. Neither side stamps passports at the line: the north records entries electronically, and the checks on the southern side are police checks rather than immigration ones.

Where it gets more complicated is for visa nationals, meaning people who need a visa for the Republic of Cyprus. How you entered the island matters, and someone who arrived through the north can be refused entry to the south. That whole question, including what flying into Ercan means for crossing, gets its own guide.

Children need their own documents, the same as at any border. If you are crossing with a hire car, the car needs paperwork of its own, chiefly insurance for the side it was not hired on, which is sold at the vehicle crossings. Our guide to taking a hire car across the border covers both directions in detail.

Queues and timing

Foot crossings rarely take more than a few minutes. Vehicle queues at Ayios Dometios can build at commuter times, on Friday evenings, and around public holidays on either side, when half of Nicosia seems to cross for lunch. If you are heading to Famagusta (Ammochostos, Gazimağusa) from the Ayia Napa (Agia Napa, Aya Napa) side, Deryneia and Strovilia are usually quicker than driving round through Pergamos. Going west, Astromeritis saves you crossing Nicosia entirely. Whichever crossing you use, a phone near the line often latches onto the other side’s network, so it is worth knowing how roaming and SIMs work on each side before you set off.

Might there be more crossings soon?

Possibly, and this remains the thing to watch through the rest of 2026. A package of four proposed new crossings, a road linking Athienou with the Nicosia suburb of Aglandjia, a crossing at Mia Milia in eastern Nicosia, one at Louroujina north of Larnaca (Larnaka), and a further pedestrian crossing in Nicosia’s old town, has been under discussion since talks revived under the UN earlier in the year. The package deadlocked in late July over whether it could be split, and the crossing points did not feature when President Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman met on 26 August and agreed instead to meet weekly going forward. None of the four has opened. Separately, crossing numbers keep climbing regardless of the politics: Republic figures for the first half of 2026 show Greek Cypriot crossings to the north up by roughly 280,000 on the same period the year before.

By mid-September the crossing points had become the one specific sticking point in the wider talks, rather than a side issue. UN Secretary-General Guterres set both sides seven areas to show progress on ahead of a possible enlarged meeting involving Greece, Turkey, the UK and the UN alongside both communities. Turkish Cypriot leader Erhurman said on 16 September that his side was complete on six of the seven, with new crossing points the one chapter still open, and both leaders described new proposals as under discussion the following week without saying whether the crossing points featured in them. As of 21 September, Erhurman says conditions for that enlarged meeting have not yet been met, no new crossing has opened, and none is confirmed as imminent. If any of the four crossings opens, this page will say so, and the change will be recorded below.

September swung from cautious optimism to outright breakdown. Erhurman said on 16 September that the Turkish Cypriot side was ready on all seven of Guterres’s points, and Christodoulides followed a day later with what he called entirely new proposals on confidence-building measures, methodology and substance, hinting at movement within the week. It did not come. A tripartite meeting pencilled in for the UN’s high-level week in New York fell apart on 26 and 27 September, with Erhurman accusing Christodoulides of tabling nineteen new discussion points on top of the seven and calling the whole exercise a meeting for the sake of a meeting. By 30 September the government had ruled out citizenship for children of mixed marriages as a confidence-building measure, UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin was warning that the window of opportunity is closing, and each side still says the other rejected its compromise on new crossing points. None of the four proposed crossings opened this month.

Contact resumed in October, though nothing concrete had followed by the time this page was last checked. Phileleftheros reported on 6 October that Christodoulides’s 19 points from the 17 September meeting include a proposal, echoing a 2006 plan, to reopen Varosha under UN administration in exchange for EU-supervised international use of Famagusta port; the government’s press office would neither confirm nor deny the details, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing effort. Famagusta’s Turkish Cypriot mayor Simos Ioannou said he knew nothing of the proposal and, while welcoming any such move, kept his expectations low, pointing out that the two sides have not even agreed on new crossing points yet. Christodoulides and Erhurman met as planned on 13 October, at the UN-controlled former Nicosia airport, their first sit-down since the New York meeting collapsed. Christodoulides re-tabled his 19 points: some drew a negative response, others a positive one, and Erhurman asked for more time on the rest. Both leaders said crossing points remain “pending”, with Erhurman wanting more detail on the new proposals within that list. They agreed a settlement must not deviate from the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, agreed to join forthcoming technical committee meetings on cultural heritage and youth, and agreed to appear together at the bicommunal Pyla Peace Festival on 17 October, which they did. There, Christodoulides disputed UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin’s view that no new crossing point has been agreed in two years, saying a specific compromise was tabled at a dinner with Secretary-General Guterres and that blame for the deadlock does not fall equally on both sides; he also wants Holguin present at the leaders’ meetings. The two are due to meet again on 20 October, and Holguin is expected in Cyprus before the end of the month. Nothing has changed for anyone crossing the line, no new crossing point has opened, and none of this has produced an agreement, but talks are visibly continuing rather than stalled, and this page will update once anything concrete follows.

Schengen and these crossings

A second thing worth watching, and one that moved rather than resolved in September. Cyprus’s Schengen accession was expected to reach the EU Council that month, and the European Commission has told member states Cyprus is ready, but the Council’s justice and home affairs meeting on 29 September left it off the agenda, with capitals occupied instead by visa policy for Russian citizens after a drone incident at Leipzig airport. The underlying question is unchanged: Schengen’s digital entry-exit system is built for conventional borders, the Republic says it will not apply the system at these nine crossings, and the Turkish Cypriot side says that exemption needs its own involvement to actually work. On 2 October, migration deputy minister Nicholas Ioannides told an EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg that Cyprus is now technically ready to join Schengen, with every European Commission recommendation implemented. On 10 October he put a figure on it: Cyprus now expects full Schengen membership during 2027, a year later than once hoped, with six outstanding actions to be finished by early November 2026 before the government formally tells the Commission it is ready; the actual decision still needs unanimous backing from the Council and the 25 current Schengen states. Nothing about what you need to cross has changed today, but 2027 is now the government’s own working date rather than an open question, and this page will be updated if that date moves again or firms up further.