Interior design
What interior designers charge in Cyprus
Four fee models, and each answers a different question. How designers in Cyprus charge, what each model includes, and which one suits your project.
8 min read
Elena covers interior design, furniture and lighting for Cypriot homes. Her focus is the gap between a scheme drawn for a northern European climate and one that survives this light, this heat and, near the coast, this salt.
Published · Updated
There is no standard rate, and there should not be. What there is instead are four fee models, each of which answers a different question about who carries which risk.
Which model you are being quoted on matters more than the figure attached to it. Two proposals for the same apartment, one hourly and one fixed, are not high and low versions of one offer — they allocate the cost of uncertainty to different people. Read the model first, then the number.
The four models
Hourly
Suits small, bounded work: a consultation, a colour scheme, a review of someone else's drawings. You pay for exactly what you use, and you carry the risk that it takes longer than expected. Ask for an estimated range and a point at which they will come back to you before continuing.
Per square metre
Suits whole-property work where the scope is predictable. Easy to compare between designers, which is why it is common on apartment and villa projects. The thing to check is what area is being counted — internal floor area only, or terraces and outdoor rooms too.
Percentage of construction budget
Common on larger and commercial projects. It scales with complexity, which is honest, but it also means the designer's fee rises with your spend. Good practice is to fix the percentage against an agreed budget rather than the final outturn.
Fixed fee against a defined scope
The clearest for both sides when the scope really is definable. Cost certainty for you, and the designer carries the overrun risk — which they price for. Worth it when you know what you want.
What the fee usually covers, and what it usually does not
Whichever model is on the page, the drawing work behind it is broadly the same list: brief and survey, concept, layouts, material and finish selection, lighting layout, joinery drawings, and a specification a contractor can price. That list is the thing to hold constant while you compare, because it is the only part of the offer every designer produces in a recognisably similar form.
What sits outside it varies far more, and that is where the difference between two proposals usually lives. Furniture procurement, attendance on site while the work is built, drawings from other consultants, statutory approvals and photography are all commonly extra. Procurement in particular tends to be a separate arrangement with its own margin — ask directly how it is handled, since on a residential scheme it can absorb more of the designer's time than the drawings did.
Works well when
The scope is genuinely definable, you want cost certainty, and you are willing to accept that any addition after signing is a priced variation rather than a favour.
Less suitable when
The property has not been surveyed, the brief is still moving, or you are hoping to decide the kitchen and the bathrooms once you see the first drawings. A fixed fee against an unfixed scope is a dispute with a date on it.
How each model behaves when something changes
Nothing tests a fee model like a change of mind, and every project has several.
An hourly appointment absorbs change without argument and without warning: the work continues and the invoice grows. It is the fairest model and the least predictable, which is why it needs a written ceiling and a check-in point rather than goodwill.
A rate per square metre is stable against changes of taste and unstable against changes of area. Bring the guest annexe or the roof terrace into the project and the basis of the fee itself has moved. Agree the measured areas from the survey, in writing, and state whether covered terraces and verandas count. Cypriot houses and apartments are built to be lived in outdoors, so those spaces are rarely a rounding error on the plan, and leaving their treatment unstated is an easy way to end up arguing about the fee later.
A percentage of construction budget quietly rewards escalation. If the contractor finds failed waterproofing behind a balcony threshold and the build cost rises, the design fee rises with it although no extra design was done. Fixing the percentage against an agreed budget, with a stated mechanism for genuine scope additions, removes that.
A fixed fee converts every change into a variation, which is the point of it. That is only workable if the scope it is fixed against is written down in enough detail to tell a variation from a clarification. Ask what the variation rate is before you need it.
The parts of a Cyprus fee that surprise people
The certification split. Where the scheme touches structure or the envelope, a second professional has to certify the drawings, and that person charges separately. Some designers quote it as an allowance inside their proposal, others leave it out entirely. Two quotes that treat it differently are not comparable until you ask.
Site attendance across the island. Practices here commonly take work outside their home district. A visit to a site well away from the studio takes most of whoever goes, and somebody pays for that whether it is itemised or absorbed. Ask how many site visits the fee assumes, and what an additional one costs — it is a more useful question than travel rates.
Owners who are not in the country. Where the owner is abroad for the build — a common enough arrangement in Cypriot residential work — the service changes rather than the drawings. Someone has to receive deliveries, inspect what arrives and decide things in the moment. That is a fuller appointment, and it should be priced as one rather than discovered as a series of favours.
Imported goods and where the margin sits. Much specified furniture, lighting and sanitaryware arrives by sea. Establish whether a procurement margin is calculated on the ex-works price or the delivered price, and who carries a damaged or delayed shipment. This is a clause, not a conversation.
VAT. Whether the reduced rate applies to work on a main residence is a matter for the Tax Department, and quotes are not always stated on the same basis. Ask each designer to confirm whether their figure is inclusive.
Designer, architect, or both
Where a scheme stays inside the finishes it is one thing. Where it reaches structure or the building envelope, the drawings that go in for approval have to be signed by a professional registered with ETEK. An interior designer without that registration can produce the design, but someone else has to certify it. Exactly where that line falls depends on what you are doing, which is why it is worth putting to both parties early.
That is not a problem — it is a normal arrangement — but it should be settled before you start, because "who is certifying this" discovered at permit stage stops the job rather than slowing it.
What a fee proposal should contain
A proposal you can actually sign says six things, and most weak ones are weak because they say four.
The model, named
Hourly, per square metre, percentage or fixed — stated as such, not implied by the shape of the number. If it is a hybrid, which parts fall under which.
The basis the model is calculated on
The measured areas and what is included in them, or the agreed construction budget, or the written scope. A model without its basis is not a price.
A deliverables list
The drawings and schedules you receive, by name. This is what makes two proposals comparable, and it is what you check against at each stage.
Stage payments tied to issued work
Money released when a named drawing package has been issued and accepted keeps the fee and the output in step. A schedule of dates does not.
Revisions and variations
How many rounds are included at each stage, what happens after that, and the rate a variation is charged at.
Exclusions, written down
Certification, other consultants, statutory fees, procurement, site attendance, surveys. A proposal with no exclusions list has exclusions you have not been told about.
Signals a quote is weaker than it looks
A single number with no scope behind it is the clearest one. So is a proposal that quotes a percentage without naming the budget it is a percentage of, or a per-square-metre rate without stating the areas. A designer unwilling to say how procurement is remunerated may well be paid on the goods, which is not a problem if it is disclosed and is a problem if it is not.
Watch too for a low fee against a short deliverables list — often it is honestly priced for what it contains, and what it contains is a concept rather than a package a contractor can build from. And treat any quote given before a measured survey as provisional: on older Cypriot stock the as-built drawings routinely disagree with the building.
Common questions
- Which fee model should I ask for?
Match it to how well-defined the work is. Bounded and clear favours a fixed fee. Whole-property and predictable favours a rate per square metre. Exploratory or advisory favours hourly. Large or commercial work, where the scope grows as the design develops, is where a percentage earns its place.
- Should I ask several designers for the same fee model?
Yes, or at least ask each to also express their fee as a fixed sum against the same deliverables list. Otherwise you are comparing structures, not prices, and the comparison will mislead you.
- Is the first consultation charged?
Practice varies. Some treat it as part of winning the work; others charge for it and set it against the fee if you appoint them. Settle it before the visit, and ask what you keep from it if you do not proceed.
- What if the designer is not ETEK-registered?
That is ordinary. It only matters where the work needs certified drawings, and then the appointment should name who provides that certification and who pays for it.
What we publish, and what we do not
We list designers by their documented specialism, the projects they show, and how they say they charge. Fee transparency is a ranking factor here precisely because it is checkable.
We do not rate design quality. It is a matter of taste, and we will not pretend we can score it. The portfolio is on the page for you to judge.
Interior designers and studios in Cyprus
8 companies covering this area.
Polart Construction
Strovolos Iii, Nicosia
Polart Construction is an architecture practice in Strovolos Iii, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Karyatides
Strovolos, Nicosia
Karyatides is an architecture practice in Strovolos, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Andreas Vlittis
Paralimni, Famagusta
Andreas Vlittis is an architecture practice in Paralimni, in the Famagusta district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Nicolaides Viana Partnership
Limassol Centre, Limassol
Nicolaides Viana Partnership is an architecture practice in Limassol Centre, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
P. A. Constructions Ltd.
Engomi, Nicosia
P. A. Constructions Ltd. is an architecture practice in Engomi, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Andreas S. Hadjizacharias Ltd
Agios Nikolaos, Limassol
Andreas S. Hadjizacharias Ltd is an architecture practice in Agios Nikolaos, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Uds Architects
Limassol Centre, Limassol
Uds Architects is an architecture practice in Limassol Centre, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Fabretti Construction
Agioi Omologites, Nicosia
Fabretti Construction is an architecture practice in Agioi Omologites, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Sources
- ETEK — Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber — retrieved 2026-07-19
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