Last updated 6 September 2026. Currency conversions use the Central Bank of Armenia official rate of AMD 363.85 to USD 1 on 4 September 2026.
Every advance you pay on an off-plan property in Armenia must go into the developer’s special account, and that money is protected from the developer’s other creditors only if you separately sign a pledge agreement over it. Most developers do not offer one, so the pledge has to be asked for before you sign anything.
The rest of the protection you get on an unbuilt apartment comes from the contract you negotiate and the title work you do first. Armenia has no completion bond, no developer insurance requirement and no guarantee that the building will be finished.
The essentials
| Where advances must be paid | The developer’s special account. Mandatory under the Civil Code. |
| What actually ring-fences the money | A pledge agreement over the balance, signed with the developer. Contingent, and negotiated. |
| Payment method | Bank transfer, in Armenian drams. Cash above AMD 300,000 (about USD 825) makes the transaction void. |
| Registering the purchase right | AMD 50,000 service fee plus AMD 3,000 state duty (about USD 146 together), four working days. |
| Registering title on completion | AMD 45,000 standard (about USD 124), AMD 170,000 for the two-hour service (about USD 467). |
| Filing deadline after notarisation | 30 working days. Miss it and the transaction is generally void. |
| Annual property tax | Marginal bands from 0.05%, on cadastral value, at the full 100% phase-in since the 2026 tax year. |
| Residence from ownership | No. Buying an apartment confers no residence right of any kind. |
Where your money sits before the building exists
Advances under a contract for the right to purchase property under construction must be paid into the developer’s special account. That routing is the only part of the arrangement that happens automatically. The account can sit at the Treasury, at a commercial bank operating in Armenia, or as a sub-account of a notary’s deposit account.
Your balance becomes pledged in your favour only where you and the developer conclude a pledge agreement over the funds. Protection against attachment and foreclosure by the developer’s other creditors reaches pledged funds alone. Absent that agreement, the special account is a designated account the developer may draw on at will, and in practice developers press for unrestricted access. The pledge agreement is the protection, and it has to be negotiated into the deal.
Interest accruing on the balance passes to the developer’s ordinary accounts and is freely disposable. If a corporate developer reorganises, or an individual developer dies, pledged funds pass only to the successor who assumed the developer’s obligations under your purchase-right contract.
How the money is released to the developer
For a multi-apartment or otherwise subdivided building, the release ladder runs:
- from 1 July 2024, up to 70% releasable regardless of the transfer act or the degree of construction;
- from 1 January 2025, up to 50% on that same unconditional basis;
- above 50%, release tracks the degree of construction and is capped at 95%;
- the final 5% is released only after your ownership has been registered and the certificate or transfer act delivered, within one year, and only where no defects appeared in operation or the developer remedied the ones that did.
For buildings outside that category, partial release may be agreed up to completion, the transfer act or the occupancy permit. Money released under any of these routes moves to the developer’s ordinary accounts and is freely disposable from that point.
What the law does not give you
No generally applicable enacted provision requires a developer to provide a bank completion guarantee, a completion bond or insurance against non-completion. A draft law on development encumbered with a purchase right, carried as project 9999 on the e-draft platform, would add specialised-developer qualification, disclosure duties and auditing. Searches of ARLIS and National Assembly sources on 2 September 2026 found no promulgated act matching it, so none of its protections are available to you today. Treat any developer or agent who describes it as current law with caution.
What a reservation agreement is actually worth
A verbal offer has no legal force in Armenia. A written reservation or preliminary agreement is unenforceable unless a notary certifies it, and the reservation forms circulated by developers and estate agencies are ordinarily not notarised. Signing one binds nobody to sell you anything.
Do not pay a deposit at the offer stage. A forfeiture clause in an agency reservation form does not bind you unless the deposit sits on the notary’s own deposit form. If you want a reservation that holds, have the preliminary agreement notarised, and consider filing it at the Cadastre, which blocks a re-sale of the same unit to somebody else.
Paying: bank transfer, in drams
Payments in Armenia above AMD 300,000 (about USD 825) between an organisation and a natural person must be non-cash under the Law on Cashless Operations. The same threshold has applied between two natural persons since 1 July 2023. An ordinary off-plan purchase from an Armenian developer sits squarely inside the rule.
Failure to observe those requirements renders the transaction invalid. The law describes such a transaction as null and void from the outset, which is a materially worse outcome than a fine. Splitting one payment into several to stay under the threshold does not help: the law deems the parts to be a single transaction.
Prices quoted and payments made in Armenia are generally required to be in Armenian drams under the currency-control legislation. You can fund the purchase from abroad in foreign currency and let the receiving Armenian bank convert on arrival. Before you send an international wire, get two confirmations in writing: that the receiving bank will convert to drams on receipt, and that your notary will accept the wire as proof of payment. Both are routine to obtain and expensive to discover afterwards.
Under the Civil Code the property stands pledged in the seller’s favour until the price has been paid. That pledge is discharged by a notarised receipt statement at the payment event, and it is a step buyers routinely forget until they try to sell.
Two registrations, at two different stages
An off-plan purchase produces two separate registrable events. The first is your right to purchase the apartment while the building is going up. The second is ownership of the finished unit. They carry different fees and different processing times, and figures quoted for one are routinely misapplied to the other.
Registering the purchase right
The contract creating the right must be notarised. The Cadastre’s service for registering an apartment purchasing right under construction currently lists a service fee of AMD 50,000 and a state duty of AMD 3,000, about USD 146 together, with ordinary processing in four working days. Expedited tiers are listed at AMD 100,000, AMD 150,000 and AMD 300,000 (about USD 275, USD 412 and USD 825), the last of these covering the two-hour service. Once registered, the right can be pledged to a bank, sold on, or inherited.
Registering ownership when the building is finished
Registration of title after an alienation of immovable property costs an AMD 25,000 service fee plus an AMD 20,000 state duty, AMD 45,000 in total, about USD 124. The expedited coefficients apply to the service fee alone and leave the state duty untouched: third working day doubles it, second working day triples it, and filing-day registration within two working hours multiplies it by six, giving AMD 170,000, about USD 467. The two-hour route is not available for every cadastral event, and the property must already be a registered separate immovable unit.
The 30 working day deadline
The application for state registration of rights arising from a notarised transaction must be submitted within 30 working days of notarisation. If it is not, the transaction is generally null and void. The 30 working days measure your filing; processing time at the Cadastre afterwards does not run against it. A limited statutory excuse covers force majeure, illness, military service, incapacity, death and succession circumstances, with the restorative application normally due within 15 working days of the impediment ending.
For due diligence before you commit, the unified information certificate on a property costs AMD 10,000 as standard (about USD 27), AMD 20,000 within two working days (about USD 55), and AMD 60,000 same day (about USD 165). It is the cheapest line in the whole transaction and the first thing to order.
What the transaction costs
| Item | Amount | Approx. USD |
|---|---|---|
| Notary state duty, ordinary alienation contract | AMD 5,000 | 14 |
| Notary service tariff | AMD 10,000 to 15,000 | 27 to 41 |
| Notary charge for electronic filing of the registration application | AMD 3,000 | 8 |
| Registration of the purchase right | AMD 53,000 | 146 |
| Registration of title on completion | AMD 45,000 | 124 |
| Unified information certificate | AMD 10,000 | 27 |
| Buyer’s agent commission, charged on top of the price | 2% of price | varies |
| VAT on a developer’s new-build sale, already inside the quoted price | 20% | varies |
The seller pays a separate 2% agency commission where an agency is involved. Armenia charges no stamp duty, no gift duty and no inheritance duty on property. Translation, powers of attorney, banking charges and technical documents sit outside this table and vary with the transaction.
The notarial classification of a specialised or mixed off-plan contract, particularly one combining the purchase right with a bank mortgage, can differ from an ordinary alienation contract, and the duty and tariff should be confirmed with the notary for the specific document you are signing.
Financing an unbuilt apartment
Armenian banks do lend against off-plan units. The security is a pledge of your registered purchase right, usually documented as a tripartite arrangement between you, the bank and the developer, with the loan paid into the developer’s special account. The State Registration Law expressly recognises a mixed agreement combining acquisition of the purchase right with a mortgage of that right in favour of a bank or credit organisation, and the security follows into the completed title once ownership is registered.
| Term | August 2026 position |
|---|---|
| Nominal rate, AMD loans | roughly 11.5% to 13.5% |
| Nominal rate, USD loans | roughly 9.5% to 12.5% |
| Nominal rate, EUR loans | roughly 8.0% to 10.5% |
| Down payment, non-resident | 30% minimum, against 10% to 20% for residents |
| Maximum term | 20 to 25 years |
| Residence permit required to borrow | No |
Developer instalment plans are the alternative. They typically ask 10% to 30% up front. An interest-free instalment plan is priced into the headline figure: cash buyers are ordinarily quoted 5% to 15% less for the same unit, which is the real cost of the credit. Default penalties in developer contracts commonly run 5% to 10% of the property value, so read the default clause before the payment schedule.
The mortgage-interest income tax refund is closing down and should not be assumed into your numbers. It stopped applying to Yerevan purchases on 1 January 2025. Kotayk, Ararat, Armavir and Aragatsotn lose it on 1 January 2027, and the remaining regions by 1 January 2029. For a foreign buyer it only ever reached salaried Armenian income, so remote and freelance earnings never qualified.
Tax while you own the property
Annual property tax on an apartment is charged on cadastral value, which has approximated market value since the 2021 reform. The transitional phase-in is finished: the full 100% of the calculated tax applies from the 2026 tax year, so a bill based on an earlier year understates what you now owe.
The rates are marginal. Each applies to the slice of value inside its band, with a cumulative fixed amount carried up from the band below, so no single percentage is ever charged on the whole value.
- up to AMD 10 million (about USD 27,500): 0.05%
- AMD 10 million to 25 million (about USD 68,700): 0.1% on the excess
- AMD 25 million to 47 million (about USD 129,200): 0.2% on the excess
- AMD 47 million to 75 million (about USD 206,100): 0.4% on the excess
- AMD 75 million to 100 million (about USD 274,800): 0.6% on the excess
Above AMD 100 million the marginal rate rises further; the top band could not be confirmed against a primary source for this update, and an owner in that range should have the figure checked before budgeting.
If you let the apartment, rental income received by an individual is taxed at 10%, with an additional 10% on the portion of annual rental income above AMD 60 million (about USD 164,900). The often-quoted split of 5% for residents and 10% for non-residents does not reflect the current rate structure. A company earning rent is taxed under the corporate regime instead. Our guide to taxes in Armenia covers the filing mechanics.
Tax when you sell
The rate turns on who is buying from you and what you are.
| Seller and buyer | Treatment |
|---|---|
| Individual selling to an individual who is not an entrepreneur or a notary | Exempt, so nothing is payable |
| Individual selling to an Armenian tax agent, meaning an organisation, an individual entrepreneur or a notary | 10% withheld on the disposal income, not on the gain net of acquisition cost |
| Individual within the Tax Code’s developer category | 20% |
| Armenian resident company | 18% corporate income tax on net taxable profit |
| Non-resident company with no Armenian permanent establishment | 10% on documented capital appreciation |
| Non-resident company acting through an Armenian permanent establishment | 18% on net taxable profit attributable to it |
The shorthand that the 10% applies whenever the buyer is a company is looser than the law. What matters is whether the payer qualifies as an Armenian tax agent. A foreign company with no Armenian tax registration or permanent establishment may fall outside that definition, in which case the self-payment provisions apply instead.
For a non-resident company, the taxable appreciation is measured against the documented acquisition value. Where the acquisition documents are missing, the entire disposal consideration can effectively be treated as appreciation, which is why keeping the purchase paperwork for as long as you hold the unit matters.
Real estate attracts no holding-period relief in Armenia; the two-year relief applies to corporate shares and securities. A double tax treaty does not reduce Armenia’s right to tax the gain at source. Relief comes as a credit in your home country, supported by a certificate from the State Revenue Committee.
What foreigners can and cannot own
Buildings and apartments are open to foreign buyers without restriction. Land is the restricted category: foreign citizens and stateless persons do not enjoy land ownership in Armenia except in cases prescribed by law. The Constitution sets that general position and the Land Code carves out the exceptions, so the rule rests on the two instruments together.
The land uses a foreign individual may own include:
- homestead use;
- gardening;
- construction and servicing of an individual residential house;
- public construction and servicing;
- industrial construction and servicing;
- construction and servicing of a multi-apartment building.
Buying an apartment off-plan raises no land question at all, since you acquire a unit in a multi-apartment building. The restriction bites on a house purchase, a plot, or a development site.
Ordinary agricultural land stays closed to a foreign individual, though the broad label is a poor guide: homestead and gardening plots are expressly permitted, and the registered land category and permitted use on the deed decide the question. An Armenian-incorporated company is not treated as a foreign individual merely because its participants are foreign, so the Armenian-company route to holding restricted land remains available, subject to the land-category rules that apply to everyone.
From 1 November 2026, HO-13-N narrows the land exception previously attached to special residence status. It will apply only to a foreigner holding permanent residence granted specifically for exceptional services to Armenia. Existing special-status holders keep their land position until that status expires. A separate and coordinated reform of the Law on Foreigners takes effect on the same date, abolishing prospective grants of special residence and special passports and restructuring permanent residence into a five-year status with Armenian origin among its grounds. Receiving permanent residence on the ground of Armenian origin does not carry the exceptional-services land right.
Buying property does not give you residence
Property ownership is not an independent ground for temporary, permanent or special residence in Armenia. Purchasing an apartment confers no residence permit, no special passport, no unrestricted right to remain and no route to citizenship. Any agent who sells the unit on that basis is selling something the law does not provide.
You have to satisfy a statutory residence ground independently. The grounds include work, study, qualifying family connections, Armenian origin and entrepreneurial activity. Converting the property into a registered income-generating business is one workable route for an investor with no other connection to Armenia, and it is one option among several. Our residence permits page sets out each ground and what it requires.
From 1 November 2026 the restructured permanent-residence system introduces investment as a ground alongside qualifying entrepreneurship, Armenian origin and exceptional services. Whether passive acquisition of a single residential apartment will qualify depends on implementing criteria, and no adopted implementing decision settling that point could be verified as of 2 September 2026.
If the developer fails
A holder of a registered purchase right is a recognised creditor in the developer’s bankruptcy. Pledged funds in the special account sit outside the reach of the developer’s other creditors; unpledged funds in the same account do not, which is the practical reason the pledge agreement matters. Whether you receive a refund or a transfer of the project to a replacement developer is decided by the bankruptcy court and the creditors’ committee.
No Cassation Court holding on buyer remedies against an insolvent Armenian developer was identified for this update, so the outcome in a given case cannot be predicted from decided authority.
What reduces the exposure before you are in that position:
- order the unified information certificate and confirm the developer’s title to the site and the construction permit before any money moves;
- negotiate the pledge agreement over your special-account balance at the same time as the purchase contract, while you still have leverage;
- tie each instalment to a construction milestone you or a surveyor can verify independently, since a calendar-date schedule pays for elapsed time regardless of progress;
- check the developer’s corporate filings, litigation history and completed projects;
- notarise the preliminary agreement and file it at the Cadastre so the unit cannot be sold to someone else;
- keep every payment document, since a missing acquisition record can cost you on resale.
If you are still deciding between an unbuilt unit and a finished one, our comparison of off-plan and completed investment units sets the two side by side, and the off-plan playbook covers location and unit selection.
The market in numbers
Armenia registered 247,926 property transactions in 2024, a 12.88% increase on the previous year. Foreign purchasing fell 15.6% in 2023, to 1,645 properties, and has since recovered: foreign transactions rose 13.4% across 2025 and 32.3% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, lifting the foreign share of the market from 6.7% to 7.4%.
Yerevan and the surrounding areas carry most of the new construction, and the concentration of supply is what makes developer selection the dominant variable in an off-plan purchase. Our real estate practice page sets out how we handle title work and contract review on these transactions.
