Painting and decorating
Painter and decorator in Nicosia — what it costs and what moves the price
Real painter and decorator ranges for Nicosia, Cyprus, what moves them, and what to check before accepting a quote.
7 min read
Photo: Sergey Meshkov on Pexels
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
A painter in Nicosia will quote you in one of three shapes: per square metre of finished surface, per day plus materials, or a fixed price against a written room list. Which shape you are handed tells you more about the job than the total does. The ranges we hold for the district are in the table below, read at page load rather than typed into this article. What follows is how they get built and what pushes a Nicosia job to the top or the bottom of one.
Local market summary
Nicosia is the largest district by population and the only one of the five that is not on the coast. Both facts change the trade.
Volume is the first. Enough firms work painting and decorating full-time in the district that three comparable quotes inside a fortnight is realistic, which is not true everywhere on the island. It also means the market is crowded on ordinary interior work and thin at the specialised end — lime finishes, listed frontages, high-level access.
Building stock is the second. Strovolos, Lakatamia and the older inner suburbs are dominated by apartment blocks built between the 1970s and the 1990s, where rewiring and replumbing lead the renovation queue. Painting in that stock is rarely standalone: it arrives at the end of a chain — chases cut for cables or pipework, plaster made good, then decoration. The painter's price depends on the quality of the two steps before, and the usual dispute is who pays to correct bad making-good.
At the other end sit the southern half of the walled old city and the streets just outside it, where properties are often listed or fall inside a designated preservation area. There the exterior is not entirely yours to decide: approval from the Department of Town Planning and Housing can be needed before the colour or the coating system changes, and the right system on lime-bound masonry is a breathable one rather than a plastic film that traps moisture behind it. Few firms in the district do that work, and they will tell you so if you ask.
What it costs here
Read the two together: the national table tells you what the trade charges, the district table where Nicosia sits inside that. Every figure carries the number of quotes behind it and the month it was recorded.
Which quoting shape you get should follow the job:
Per square metre suits repeat work on plain surfaces — a flat in one colour, a stairwell, a rental turnaround. It compares cleanly between firms provided everyone measures the same thing. Ask whether the rate is on wall area or floor area, whether ceilings sit inside it, and how many coats it buys.
Per day plus materials suits work nobody can see the extent of yet: stripping old distemper, opening cracks, patch repairs on a facade. Insisting on a fixed price for that scope does not save money — it produces a price with the worst case already inside it.
Fixed price against a room list suits a defined job with a known starting condition, and is worth something only if the list is written down and identical for every firm you approach. A single total against "paint the house" compares with nothing.
What separates two quotes on the same flat is almost always preparation, not paint. Ask each firm to state in the quote: how many coats, whether new or repaired plaster gets a mist coat or a stabilising primer, what filling and caulking is included, whether masking and moving furniture is theirs or yours, and who removes the waste. A firm that answers those five in writing is quoting the same job as the next one. A firm that will not is quoting a different job at a lower number.
One tax point before you sign: a reduced VAT rate can apply to renovation of a private residence where the Tax Department's conditions are met, including how long the property has been in use. The contractor applies it, so ask which rate is in the quote and on what basis, and check the conditions with the Tax Department rather than taking a verbal answer.
Local conditions that change the job
Temperature swing. Nicosia's inland position gives it the widest temperature range on the island, and that is a scheduling constraint rather than a detail. In high summer a south or west wall in direct sun is too hot for a coating to form a proper film: the paint skins before it levels, and you get roller marks and poor adhesion that surface a year later as flaking. Exterior crews here follow the shade, start early and stop by late morning. Book exteriors for March to May or October to November, and keep July and August for interiors.
Movement. The same range works the building. Render cracks where materials meet, around window heads and along parapets, open and close through the year. Filler alone will not hold there; those places need a flexible sealant and, on the exterior, a coating with enough elasticity to bridge hairline movement. Elastomeric exterior systems are specified here for that as much as for the UV.
Balcony soffits in older blocks. In 1970s to 1990s stock, rust staining or blown concrete under a balcony edge is corroding reinforcement, not a paint problem, and painting over it hides it for one season. Concrete repair comes first — cut out, treat the steel, reinstate — then decoration. A block facade quote with no line for concrete repair means the firm either checked and found none, or did not look.
Communal areas. Stairwells, lobbies and the outside of a block are common property. The decision belongs to the management committee, the quote should be addressed to the block rather than to you, and the bottleneck is usually getting the committee to agree rather than getting a painter.
Access and parking. The city and its suburbs sit on the plain, so access is easier than on the hillside plots elsewhere on the island, but the older central streets are narrow and standing a scaffold tower or a van outside the property may need arranging with the municipality. Ask who handles that — it is a small cost that becomes a lost day when nobody has.
Companies covering the area
Our painting and decorating pages list companies working in the district with what can be documented about each one alongside: company registration checked against the Registrar of Companies and the date of that check, insurance status as supplied, coverage area and years active. That gives you a shortlist, not a verdict. Before accepting a quote, verify two things yourself: the registration number, which takes about a minute at the Registrar, and a public liability certificate in force on the dates of your work, with the dates visible rather than a statement that cover exists.
The Nicosia coverage page separates firms based in the district from those travelling in. A crew coming from elsewhere for a two-day interior job prices that travel somewhere.
Painting and decorating companies covering Nicosia
8 companies covering this area.
Autocolor
Latsia, Nicosia
Autocolor is a paint supplier in Latsia, in the Nicosia district.
Migalangelo
Latsia, Nicosia
Migalangelo is a paint supplier in Latsia, in the Nicosia district.
Mikis Hadiikkos Paints
Agioi Omologites, Nicosia
Mikis Hadiikkos Paints is a paint supplier in Agioi Omologites, in the Nicosia district.
T.N.C. Paints
Strovolos Iii, Nicosia
T.N.C. Paints is a paint supplier in Strovolos Iii, in the Nicosia district.
Car Paint LP
Achilleas Club, Nicosia
Car Paint LP is a paint supplier in Achilleas Club, in the Nicosia district.
Demaris Paint Shop
Strovolos, Nicosia
Demaris Paint Shop is a paint supplier in Strovolos, in the Nicosia district.
Let's Color
Nisou, Nicosia
Let's Color is a paint supplier in Nisou, in the Nicosia district.
Common questions
How far ahead do I need to book?
For interiors, a few weeks outside the busy periods. For exteriors, book against the weather window rather than the calendar: the March-to-May and October-to-November slots fill first, because every capable crew in the district is trying to use them.
Should I buy the paint myself?
You can, and on a large single-colour job it sometimes makes sense. The trade-off is that a firm supplying materials also carries responsibility for coverage and for whether the system suits the substrate. If you supply it and it fails to cover in two coats, the extra labour is yours. Get the coverage rate and the number of coats from the painter in writing first.
Do you publish reviews or star ratings for painters?
No. This site records what can be checked in a document — registration, insurance, coverage, time in business — and orders companies on that. There are no ratings, no testimonials and no paid positions, because a star rating is not something we can verify and a document is.
Is a painter in Cyprus required to hold a licence?
Ask each firm what registrations it holds rather than assuming one licence covers the trade. What you can independently verify is the company registration at the Registrar of Companies and a current public liability policy. Anything beyond decoration — structural repair, a listed building, changes to the building envelope — runs through separate approval routes, and the Department of Town Planning and Housing is the starting point for the listed cases.
Sources
- Department of Town Planning and Housing — listed buildings and preservation areas — retrieved 2026-07-24
- Tax Department — VAT on renovation of private residences — retrieved 2026-07-24
- Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property — retrieved 2026-07-24
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