The Colony Hotel in central Kyrenia (Girne) has 236 beds, while the Elexus Resort Hotel & Spa in Çatalköy has 1,734 — yet both sit in the same official class: both are 5-star hotels, with a size gap between them of more than sevenfold. The Tourism Planning Office's register dated 16 June 2026 lists 25 properties in this class, with 17,434 beds in total. Anyone searching for Cyprus 5-star hotels will meet exactly these 25 names. More than half are in Kyrenia, with the rest spread across Iskele, Famagusta (Gazimağusa) and Nicosia (Lefkoşa). In Morphou (Güzelyurt) and Lefke there isn't a single property in this class. Let's take a look together at the best 5-star hotels in North Cyprus and their prices.
Who Decides the Class?
The institution that awards the stars is the Tourism Planning Office, and the legal basis is the Hotels Law (Chapter 138) and the Hotels Regulation issued under it… Classification follows the TRNC's (North Cyprus) own legislation — Turkey's points system does not apply here. Worth noting, by the way, that the list has been stable for a long time: the November 2024 data also showed 25 properties, with 17,457 beds at that date. The 23-bed difference most likely comes from a renovation or a room reconfiguration; no new opening appears in the register. One in seven of the country's 170 tourist establishments is in this class, yet 63 percent of the 27,661 beds are concentrated in these 25 hotels. The remaining 145 establishments span a range from four-star hotels down to guesthouses. The rung just below is surprisingly thin: the 4-star class holds only 5 properties nationwide, with 1,718 beds.
The official class label and the agency label don't always run in parallel... Les Ambassadeurs and the Palm Beach Hotel (Arkın Palm Beach on agency sites) are billed as 5-star on most sales pages, yet in the official register they sit in the boutique hotel category — in other words, outside the list of 25 we're discussing. The one shared feature the official register doesn't record is the casino: all 25 of the 25 properties have one, a detail gathered one by one from hotel and agency pages.
Regional breakdown of the official list (16 June 2026):
| Region | Properties | Beds | Hotels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyrenia | 15 | 9.176 | Elexus Resort Hotel & Spa, Acapulco Hotel, Cratos Hotel, Merit Crystal Cove Hotel, Merit Park Hotel, Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Spa, Merit Royal Hotel, Kaya Palazzo Resort Hotel, Lord's Palace Hotel, Vuni Palace Hotel, Chamada Prestige Hotel, Rocks Hotel, Grand Pasha Hotel, Savoy Hotel, The Colony Hotel |
| Iskele (including Bafra) | 6 | 6.636 | Kaya Artemis Resort, Concorde Cyprus Resort, Noah's Ark Deluxe Hotel & Spa, Limak Cyprus Hotel, The Arkın İskele Hotel, Grand Sapphire Resort |
| Famagusta | 1 | 850 | Salamis Bay Conti Resort Hotel |
| Nicosia | 3 | 772 | Grand Pasha Hotel Lefkoşa, Concorde Tower Hotel, Merit Lefkoşa Hotel |
Three Distinct Hotel Types in Kyrenia
Kyrenia's properties split into three clusters, because the difference in scale within the region itself is bigger than you'd think. How do a 1,734-bed resort and a 236-bed city hotel share the same star? Along the Çatalköy strip line up the big resorts: Elexus, Acapulco, Cratos, Chamada Prestige. Elexus has a 650-meter private beach. Acapulco is second on the list with 1,578 beds, and the 24-slide aquapark is at this property; Cratos, with 820 beds, is the strip's mid-size. Move west to Alsancak and Karaoğlanoğlu and you meet the Merit group's four hotels (Crystal Cove, Park, Royal, Royal Diamond) plus Kaya Palazzo; all five sit in the 500-650 bed band. Merit Royal Diamond ranked first among TRNC hotels in Booking.com's Travellers' Choice 2025 with a score of 9.6. That's not a ranking claim — it's a single platform's user score. The third cluster is in the city center: Lord's Palace, Vuni Palace, Rocks, Grand Pasha, Savoy and The Colony, all at 500 beds or under. Among Cyprus 5-star hotels, only this cluster offers the option of staying in the heart of the harbour town.
Four Bafra Properties in the Top Six
Sort by bed count and four of the top six come from Bafra: Kaya Artemis is third with 1,484 beds, Concorde Cyprus fourth with 1,384, Noah's Ark Deluxe Hotel & Spa (Nuh'un Gemisi) fifth with 1,232, and Limak Cyprus sixth with 1,196. Only two Kyrenia properties sit above them. Official statistics don't count Bafra as a separate region — it's shown within Iskele's boundaries; since readers search by the name Bafra, that name is used in this article. In the rest of Iskele, The Arkın İskele Hotel is on the list with 792 beds and the Long Beach-fronting Grand Sapphire Resort with 548. At the far end of the same region, the Karpaz Peninsula has no 5-star property — accommodation there stays at guesthouse scale. Among Cyprus 5-star hotels, the average bed count per property is highest in this region: six properties average more than 1,100 beds each, while in Kyrenia the same average stays just above 600.
In Famagusta, Only Salamis Bay Conti
The Famagusta region has 28 registered tourist establishments, and only one is 5-star: the Salamis Bay Conti Resort Hotel in Yeni Boğaziçi. With 850 beds and a 200-meter beach, it's bigger than any one of the six hotels in central Kyrenia. The aquapark is open from 1 May to 31 October; whether the hotel operates through the winter months is unclear.
Nicosia Makes the List with City Hotels
In coastless Nicosia, who do three 5-star hotels host? Grand Pasha Hotel Lefkoşa is on the list with 278 beds, Concorde Tower Hotel with 250, and Merit Lefkoşa Hotel with 244; the three combined fall short of what Salamis Bay Conti reaches on its own. The customers aren't chasing a beach — business travel and weekend traffic fill the rooms. The Grand Pasha name belongs to two separate properties, one in Kyrenia and the other in the capital. Concorde Tower, likewise, is the same group's city hotel in Gönyeli, sister to Concorde Cyprus in Bafra. On the awards front, Merit Lefkoşa made the Tripadvisor Travellers' Choice 2025 together with Merit Park in Kyrenia, both in the top 10 percent worldwide.
The Winter Calendar Varies from Hotel to Hotel
Limak Cyprus's calendar opens on 19 March and closes on 31 October, so anyone planning a January trip to Bafra should strike this hotel off the list from the start — one of the region's four big properties is effectively off from November to March. Concorde Cyprus stayed open through the 2025-26 winter, its only interruption a month of indoor pool maintenance in August.
Kaya Artemis operates year-round, dropping the beach and the Mini Club from the program in winter. In Kyrenia, the Merit group, Elexus and Cratos don't break their calendars. In the December-February period the emphasis shifts to the stage program, and the outdoor areas go unused in those months. There is no winter confirmation for Noah's Ark, Salamis Bay Conti or Nicosia's three hotels — be sure to ask the hotel before booking.
The price band moves with the calendar, just as in Turkey. In the Kiprarent compilation dated June 2026, for example, a summer night at Bafra's 5-star hotels runs between 18,200 and 26,325 TL; in Kyrenia the same class starts from 25,144 TL, and the compilation carries no winter figure for either region. In Nicosia's city-hotel segment, 9,775 TL holds summer and winter alike — no seasonal gap forms there at all. The figures belong to the compilation date and today's offer may differ; since hotel tariffs are mostly kept in foreign currency, the TL equivalent moves with the exchange rate. The number of Cyprus 5-star hotels has held steady at 25 since November 2024. The first candidate for change is the Limak project in Bafra: the group has announced a second, golf-themed hotel there, with the opening date not yet confirmed.
