Turkish Citizenship by Investment in 2026

Atty. Av. Serkan KARA · Serka Law Firm · Last updated: 5 October 2026

Turkey citizenship by investment requires at least USD 400,000 in real estate held for three years; or USD 500,000 held for three years in a Turkish lira bank deposit, in government debt instruments, in real estate or venture capital fund units, or in the private pension system; or USD 500,000 of fixed capital; or 50 jobs created (Article 20(2) of the Implementing Regulation, amounts in force since 2022). On a well-prepared file the passport follows in three to four months, with no residence requirement, no language test, no interview and one short biometric visit, and the spouse and the children who are minors or dependants are included at no extra investment. Since 28 September 2026 the valuation report on the property route may come from any valuation firm authorized by the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye (SPK).

Most of what decides a file is settled before the first transfer. On the property and the deposit routes the money is sold to the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye through a Turkish bank, and once that sale is complete it can be neither abandoned nor cancelled (CBRT Implementing Instruction of 16 May 2022, Article 7); on the deposit route the bank that sells the currency must also be the bank that holds the lira deposit for the three years (Article 6/1). Serka Law Firm takes these files from the first step as citizenship by investment lawyers: write to us before the first payment, on WhatsApp at +90 530 127 59 35 or at info@serkalaw.com. What the regulation allows and what a given bank will actually run are two separate answers: the second, as the banks wrote it to us in August and September 2026, and the way civil-status papers from the investor’s own country reach Türkiye, are on that page.

The property route changed on 28 September 2026 in three ways a buyer feels. The certificate in which the land registry confirms the amount invested, the TTB, now serves the citizenship transaction for twelve months instead of six; the valuation it rests on is no longer reserved to GEDAŞ, the single firm accepted since 4 March 2024, and any valuation firm authorized by the SPK may write it; and a real estate investment trust selling a unit gives the buyer the valuation report it published on KAP before the deed, or requests a new one through WebTapu, in place of a TTB. The minimum is still USD 400,000. For an investor whose TTB was issued seven to twelve months ago the certificate is usable again, and a new report can be ordered from any authorized firm rather than from one, so a stalled property file can move now (TKGM Circular 2024/4 as amended on 28 September 2026; the text is on our valuation rule page).

Turkish citizenship by investment lets a foreign national acquire a Turkish passport by making a qualifying investment and holding it for the period fixed by regulation, without a residence or language requirement. There are seven investment routes: real estate, a blocked bank deposit, government debt instruments, fund participation shares, the private pension system, fixed capital and the employment of fifty people, each with a minimum set by the Turkish Citizenship Law Implementing Regulation and, on five of them, a three-year holding period. The spouse and the children who are under 18 or dependent are included in the same application. The legal basis is the exceptional naturalization provision of Citizenship Law No. 5901, applied through the Implementing Regulation. Because the monetary thresholds are set by regulation and have been revised before, confirm the figure that applies on your filing date rather than relying on any single published number.

Serka Law Firm acts for the investor on written instruction under an engagement agreement; the advocate who signs the file answers for it before the administrative courts if the file is ever questioned.

What is Turkish citizenship by investment?

Turkish citizenship by investment is the acquisition of Turkish nationality through the exceptional naturalization route, granted to a foreign national who makes a qualifying investment and keeps it for the regulated holding period. It is created under Citizenship Law No. 5901 and administered through its Implementing Regulation. Unlike residence-based naturalization, it does not require prior residence in Turkey, a language test, or physical presence beyond one short biometric visit.

The route is exceptional naturalization decided at the discretion of the competent authorities once the legal and documentary conditions are met. Because eligibility turns on documentary compliance rather than on time spent in the country, the quality of the file and the accuracy of the valuation and banking paperwork are decisive. For applicants weighing this against other pathways, our immigration and residence permit services set out the residence-based alternatives.

Which investment routes qualify for citizenship?

Seven routes qualify, not five. Article 20/2 of the Implementing Regulation lists them at letters (a) to (f): a real estate purchase at 400,000 USD under (b); and at 500,000 USD each, a fixed capital investment under (a), a blocked bank deposit under (ç), government debt instruments under (d), real estate or venture capital fund participation shares under (e), and a private pension contribution under (f). Letter (c) is the seventh and asks for headcount rather than capital: the employment of 50 people. The private pension route is the one most guides drop, which is how the market settled on a count of five.

The amounts below reflect the thresholds in force when this guide was last updated. The Implementing Regulation has been amended before, so treat any figure as subject to revision and verify the amount that applies on your own filing date.

Real estate purchase

The real estate route is the most common. The investor buys one or more properties whose combined declared value meets the regulated minimum. Any valuation firm the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye (SPK) has authorized may, from 28 September 2026, value a property bought for citizenship, on a request made through Web Tapu (from 4 March 2024 until then, only by GEDAŞ Gayrimenkul Değerleme A.Ş.), and since 9 December 2024 the amount is confirmed by the TTB that the land registry’s system builds from that report, which may be no more than twelve months older than the application for the citizenship transaction at the registry (TKGM circular Genelge 2024/4, as amended by the Makam Oluru of 28 September 2026, no. 21914825). What changed that day, for a purchase already under way too, is set out in Turkish citizenship valuation report rule change of 28 September 2026. Since Presidential Decision No. 7938 of 12 December 2023 the property must carry condominium title (kat mülkiyeti) or a construction servitude (kat irtifakı), or be land with a building on it, and more than one such property can be combined to reach the threshold. The declared value must equal or exceed the regulated amount measured against the Central Bank exchange rate on the transfer date, and a no-sale annotation (şerh) is registered on the title deed (tapu) for the holding period. The property must be acquired from a Turkish citizen or a Turkish company; a transfer between two foreign nationals does not qualify. Property acquisition itself follows the general rules covered in our real estate and property acquisition practice.

Paying before the deed passes is where this route is lost rather than won. Turkish law has no private escrow industry; what it has is the notary deposit of the Notaries Act and three contractual alternatives, compared in full under escrow agreements in Turkey.

Blocked bank deposit

The deposit route requires placing the regulated minimum into an approved Turkish bank, where it stays blocked for the holding period under a written non-withdrawal commitment confirmed to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency. The funds are returnable once the holding period ends.

The mechanic behind that sentence decides whether a deposit file works at all, and most summaries drop it. Article 20/10 of the Implementing Regulation requires the foreign currency to be sold to a bank operating in Turkey, and by that bank on to the Central Bank, before the transaction; it is the Turkish lira proceeds of that sale that sit in the blocked deposit for three years. The Central Bank’s Application Instruction of 16 May 2022, to which Article 20/10 delegates, names the currencies the Central Bank buys as US dollars, euros, pounds sterling and Swiss francs; any other foreign currency is converted by the Turkish bank first and then sold, so a transfer in roubles, dirhams or yuan works. A transfer in Turkish lira does not, because there is no foreign currency left to sell, and converting lira into dollars at a Turkish branch runs the operation backwards and creates nothing. The same instruction requires the bank that sells the currency and the bank holding the lira deposit to be one and the same, and once the Central Bank has completed its purchase the sale cannot be abandoned.

Two consequences follow that no investor should meet for the first time after signing. There is no exchange-rate-protected version of this deposit: the protected-deposit scheme was closed to new accounts and to renewals on 23 August 2025. And no Turkish bank prices a three-year lira deposit at all, so the account is opened short and rolled at whatever rate applies on each renewal day; treat any table showing a three-year yield as fiction. What is fixed is the entitlement rather than the money, because Article 20/6 measures the amount at the Central Bank rate on the determination date, so a later fall in the lira reaches the deposit and not the citizenship already granted. Against that, the property route converts once and then holds a real asset whose price re-rates with the currency, at a threshold 100,000 USD lower, which is why most files choose it.

Government debt instruments

The government debt route under Article 20(2)(d) is determined by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, and the Ministry runs it on a revised procedure of its own that ends the one of 14 February 2020. The currency is sold to the bank for sale on to the Central Bank, and the lira from that sale buys Turkish lira government bonds or lease certificates the same day or the next working day, at the same bank, with no transfer between banks (Article 4(2) of the procedure). An instrument with less than three years to maturity is not used, and choosing one that qualifies is the responsibility of the bank and the investor (Article 4(4)); the investor keeps the coupon, and a later fall in the bond’s price does not affect the application (Articles 4(5) and 4(10)). The file reaches the Ministry only as the bank’s official letter, signed by two of its senior officers and sent by registered electronic mail or registered post, and the Ministry answers through the bank, never to the investor or his lawyer directly (Articles 5 and 6). Two things set this route apart from the deposit. The investor cannot move from one bond to another during the three years unless the Ministry redeems an issue early (Article 7(1)), although Article 20(8) of the Regulation still allows a move to another type of investment. And not every bank runs it: in August and September 2026 three bank branches wrote to us that they offer only the deposit for citizenship, while a state-owned bank’s branch confirmed the bond route in writing.

Fund participation shares

Real estate and venture capital investment fund units under Article 20(2)(e) are determined by the Capital Markets Board and held for three years (Article 20(2)(e)), the currency being sold first under Article 20(10). These suit an investor who prefers a financial instrument to a single property and can document the holding precisely.

Fixed capital and job creation

A fixed capital investment establishes or expands a business in Turkey at the regulated minimum, confirmed by the Ministry of Industry and Technology. A separate job creation route grants eligibility to an investor who employs 50 people, determined by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Neither of these two routes carries a holding period. Entrepreneurs structuring a Turkish entity will also need the corporate steps handled by our company formation services.

Who is eligible to apply?

Any foreign national of any age can apply, with no language test and no requirement to live in Turkey before, during, or after the application. Turkey permits dual and multiple citizenship, so an applicant does not renounce an existing nationality. Article 12(b) of Turkish Citizenship Law no. 5901 covers the applicant’s spouse and the children who are under 18 or dependent, in the same application and without an additional investment. A child aged 18 or over comes in only as a dependent child, on documents that prove the dependency and are assembled before the application is filed; a child who is neither is outside the family limb and needs a route of his own.

No nationality is barred by the citizenship rules themselves: neither Article 12(b) of Law No. 5901 nor Article 20 of the Implementing Regulation names one. The nationality gate that does exist sits in property law, and it reaches one route. Under Article 35 of the Land Registry Law No. 2644, foreign individuals acquire real estate in Türkiye as citizens of the countries the President has determined, and the President may restrict or stop acquisitions by country, region or period; the same article caps a foreign individual’s holdings at 10 per cent of a district’s privately owned area and at 30 hectares nationwide. The deposit, government debt, fund and pension routes involve no purchase of land by the investor, so a nationality the land registry turns away is not shut out of the program. On every route that passes through the Central Bank, the selling bank also checks the transaction against anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing standards and reports a breach to the Central Bank at once (Central Bank Instruction of 16 May 2022, Article 9).

How do you get Turkish citizenship by investment? The process step by step

The Turkish citizenship by investment process runs in sequence: secure a tax number and bank account, make the qualifying investment, obtain the Certificate of Conformity, secure a residence permit, then file the citizenship application with the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Citizenship Affairs. Each stage produces a document the next stage depends on, so an error early in the chain delays everything after it.

Step 1: Tax number and bank account

Before investing, the applicant obtains a Turkish tax identification number from a local tax office and opens a Turkish bank account. Both can be arranged through a legal representative holding a power of attorney, which is what allows the rest of the file to proceed without the applicant being physically present.

Step 2: Make the qualifying investment

For real estate, the purchase is completed at the Land Registry Office, the no-sale annotation is registered on the title deed, and the valuation report, the TTB built on it and the DAB foreign exchange certificate are prepared so the declared value and the currency conversion match. For a deposit or debt instrument, the funds are transferred to an approved institution and a written commitment confirms the blocked holding period. Aligning the valuation, the DAB certificate, and the deed value is the single most common point of failure.

Step 3: Obtain the Certificate of Conformity

The Certificate of Conformity is the government document confirming that the investment meets the citizenship conditions. It is issued by the authority matching the route: the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change for real estate, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency for deposits, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance for government debt instruments, the Capital Markets Board for fund units, the SEDDK for the private pension, the Ministry of Industry and Technology for fixed capital, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for job creation. The citizenship application cannot be filed without it.

Step 4: Residence permit

A valid residence permit is required before the citizenship application is submitted. Investment-based permits are processed through the Provincial Directorate of Migration Management and move quickly once the Certificate of Conformity is in hand. Our residence permit team manages this step alongside the investment file.

Step 5: File the citizenship application

The complete file is submitted to the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Citizenship Affairs. It typically includes the passport and certified translations, the Certificate of Conformity, the residence permit, apostilled and translated birth certificates for every applicant, a marriage certificate where relevant, biometric photographs, the title deed or investment documentation.

Article 20/3 of the Implementing Regulation sets out the application documents and the list is closed: the form petition; the passport or an equivalent document; civil-status records and the marriage, divorce or death certificate where applicable; a birth certificate or population record together with the records proving the family tie for a spouse and children; population records of any first- or second-degree Turkish relatives; a document completing an incomplete date of birth where one is needed; and the receipt for the service fee. The regulation does not require a criminal record certificate. If one is demanded as a condition of the citizenship application, ask which provision it is being asked under.

Step 6: Receive the ID and passport

Once the application is approved, the applicants receive Turkish identity cards and can then apply for passports. A legal representative holding a power of attorney can complete the entire sequence, so the investor need not be in Turkey while the file is processed.

How long does the process take?

On a well-prepared file, Turkish citizenship by investment takes three to four months from completed investment to passport. The earlier stages, securing the Certificate of Conformity and the residence permit, move in weeks, while the citizenship review itself accounts for most of the elapsed time. Files with multiple properties, complex source-of-funds documentation, or missing apostilles take longer.

Our own files bear that range out. On the files we ran for a developer’s buyers in 2019 and 2020, the residence card was in hand about three weeks after the filing, and applications filed in January 2020 were approved by the end of March and by the end of May, through the first Covid-19 closures; the one file whose Certificate of Conformity came late took fifteen months from the first document list to the application. The dated record is on our Turkish citizenship by investment lawyer page.

Published processing estimates shift with workload at the competent directorates, so treat any timeline as an estimate rather than a guarantee and build margin into commitments that depend on the passport date.

What does the process cost beyond the investment?

Beyond the investment itself, applicants budget for transaction taxes, the valuation report, sworn translation and notary fees, administrative registry fees, mandatory earthquake insurance for residential property, and legal fees. The exact figures depend on property type, the number of family members, and the scope of services, and several of these line items are set in Turkish lira and move with official tariffs.

First-time foreign buyers paying in foreign currency may qualify for a VAT exemption on qualifying new-build properties, which materially affects the total. Because tax rates and exemptions are amended periodically, confirm the current treatment before you model the cost. Tax structuring questions are handled by our tax and customs practice.

What are the benefits of Turkish citizenship?

Turkish citizenship grants the right to live and work in Turkey, access to its healthcare and education systems, full use of its banking and financial services, and a passport with broad visa-free or visa-on-arrival access. It is held alongside an existing nationality, and it can be passed to descendants.

Two features draw investors in particular. Turkish citizens can apply for a US E-2 treaty investor visa, which opens a route to operating a business in the United States (for a nationality acquired by investment, only after three years of domicile in Türkiye, as set out below), and they can access a multi-year Schengen visa facility under the applicable bilateral arrangements. The precise country count for visa-free travel and the terms of these visa facilities change with diplomatic agreements, so verify the current position for the passports and destinations that matter to you. Investors building a cross-border structure often pair citizenship with foreign direct investment and corporate planning.

What citizenship gives, and the order in which it matters

Once the money is committed, the benefits weigh in this order: an entitlement that does not expire and never needs renewing; the right to live, work, own property and trade without an immigration status attached to any of it; a spouse and the children who are under 18 or dependent included in the same application with no second investment; dual nationality unrestricted on the Turkish side; broad visa-free and visa-on-arrival travel; and the E-2 treaty route into the United States, the only item on the list that carries a waiting period. Travel is the one benefit that moves with diplomatic agreements; the first four are fixed by law, and they are the ones that tell you whether this route answers your problem.

Which countries can a Turkish passport enter without a visa?

A Turkish passport carries visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a broad list of destinations, and the useful way to hold that fact is to check your own route rather than a headline number. Three regimes hide behind the same phrase and they are not equivalent: visa-free entry, where you board on the passport alone; visa on arrival, where you are admitted but pay and register at the border; and electronic authorization, issued online before departure. Schengen is in none of them and still requires an application, although Turkish citizens may apply for multi-year Schengen visas under the applicable bilateral arrangements. The list moves with diplomatic agreements, so the only figure worth planning around is the current one for your own destination. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes it country by country in its own register of visa requirements for Turkish citizens, which is the source to open before you build anything on a travel claim.

Healthcare, education and social security as a Turkish citizen

Citizenship carries civil entitlements a residence permit does not. A Turkish citizen is registered in the general health insurance system run by the Social Security Institution and uses the state hospital network on the same terms as anyone born into it, with the private sector available alongside. Children enter state schooling without foreign-student status, and state universities open on the domestic examination route rather than the international quota. Banking, property registration, company shareholding and professional licensing stop asking for immigration status altogether. None of this expires the way a permit does, which is the reason families weigh citizenship against a long-term residence permit instead of treating the two as the same purchase.

Dual citizenship: Turkey does not ask you to renounce

Turkey places no restriction on dual or multiple citizenship. Nothing in the acquisition process asks an applicant to surrender an existing nationality, and holding a Turkish passport alongside another is the ordinary case rather than an exception. Where a constraint exists it comes from the other side: some states do not recognize dual nationality at all, China and India among them, and a national of such a state faces a question under that country’s law rather than under Turkish law. That question belongs at the start of the file rather than after the passport issues, because it decides whether the route suits the applicant at all.

The E-2 treaty advantage, stated accurately

Turkey has stood on the United States’ E-2 treaty table since 18.05.1990, which is what puts the E-2 treaty investor visa within reach of a Turkish passport; it is not alone there, because Grenada (03.03.1989), Egypt (27.06.1992) and Jordan (17.12.2001) also run citizenship-by-investment routes and appear on the same table (9 FAM 402.9-10). What no new passport does is open the E-2 on the day it is issued. Since Pub. L. 117-263, section 5902(b), amended 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(E), a person who acquired the nationality through a financial investment and has never held E status qualifies only after being domiciled in that country for a continuous period of not less than three years at some point before applying. Plan the Turkish passport as a strategic route into the E-2 framework with those three years in view, and be careful with any adviser who presents it as immediate.

Can you buy Turkish citizenship?

No, and the distinction is not a quibble. Turkish citizenship is not sold and carries no price. What the regulation creates is a qualifying investment that makes an applicant eligible to be considered under the exceptional naturalization provision, with the grant made by Presidential decision and conditional on there being no national-security or public-order impediment. The money buys eligibility, never the outcome. That is why describing the route as a purchase misleads in a way that costs applicants real money: it suggests a transaction that completes on payment, when what actually decides a file is documentary compliance, a valuation and banking chain that reconciles, and a clean security review. An applicant who understands the difference spends the budget on getting the file right rather than on buying speed. The Directorate General of Civil Registration and Citizenship Affairs is the authority that receives and decides the application.

Are you locked into the route you choose?

No. Article 20/8 of the Implementing Regulation permits an applicant to move between investment types in order to complete the three-year period. Someone who begins with a blocked deposit and later prefers property does not lose the time already served: the holding period runs across the change rather than restarting with it. It matters most on the deposit route, where the exposure is to the Turkish lira for three years, and it is the single most useful thing to know before committing to a structure that later turns out to be the wrong shape for the investor’s balance sheet. The change still has to be documented so that the continuity of the holding period is provable, which is exactly where files that attempt it without advice come apart.

Is the citizenship permanent?

Citizenship acquired through investment is permanent and is not subject to renewal. It can be revoked only in narrow circumstances, principally where it was obtained through fraud or material misrepresentation, which is why an accurate, fully documented file matters well beyond approval. After the holding period ends, the investor may sell the underlying property or release the deposit while keeping citizenship.

This permanence is also why valuation accuracy is not a formality. The annulments of 2026 came after the grant, once the valuation reports behind the eligibility certificates were found to be forged (Ministry of Interior, 4 August 2026), and Article 40 of Law No. 5901 lets a decision given without its legal conditions be withdrawn without any false statement by the investor; a file whose deed, report, transfers and foreign exchange certificate all record the same real value leaves such a review nothing to find.

What are the most common mistakes?

Most rejections trace to a handful of documentary errors rather than to ineligibility. Avoiding them is largely a matter of preparing the valuation, banking, and family paperwork correctly before filing.

• Undervaluation. The declared deed value and the transfers must each reach USD 400,000 as the foreign exchange purchase certificate records them, and the TTB built on the valuation report must confirm it (TKGM circular Genelge 2024/4 and its guidance). An understated value triggers rejection.
• Inconsistent banking documents. The DAB certificate, the bank transfer confirmation, and the title deed must show matching amounts. Even small discrepancies cause delays.
• Buying from another foreign national. The property must come from a Turkish citizen or company; foreign-to-foreign transfers do not qualify.
• Missing the no-sale annotation. The holding annotation must be registered at the time of purchase, or the Certificate of Conformity will not issue.
• Incomplete family documents. Birth and marriage certificates must be apostilled, translated by a sworn translator, and notarized.
• Weak source-of-funds evidence. Authorities scrutinize the origin of investment funds. Bank statements and income documentation should be assembled in advance.

Can Turkish citizenship by investment be revoked?

Yes, on one statutory ground, and it was used at scale in 2026. Article 31 of Citizenship Law No. 5901 lets the authority that granted citizenship annul the decision where it was obtained through the applicant’s own false statement or the concealment of important matters on which the acquisition was based; the annulment reaches the spouse and children who acquired citizenship through the same file under Article 32. On 4 August 2026 the Ministry of Interior announced that 6,134 people had lost Turkish citizenship in an operation against forged property valuation reports, 5,391 of them through annulled decisions and 743 on security grounds, with 72 suspects detained across sixteen provinces. The provision attaches the false statement to the applicant, which is why a buyer whose deed value, bank certificate and transfer confirmations agree has a case, and Article 33 paragraph 2 leaves the liquidation of the property to the end of that case once it is filed. The deadline, the court and the family rules are set out in our guide to challenging the annulment of Turkish citizenship acquired by investment. For an investor who has not yet bought, the lesson is the one this page keeps returning to: the valuation report, the foreign exchange certificate and the deed have to reconcile in your own name, because those three documents are what the 2026 investigation read.

Which investment route should you choose?

The route is chosen by the constraint you cannot move, not by the headline figure, and the regulation itself sorts the seven routes into three groups. The table below is the decision we walk through with every investor before a tax number is even requested.

Do you need a criminal record certificate for Turkish citizenship by investment?

Not for the citizenship application, and yes for the residence permit that precedes it, which is why the two lists are confused. Article 20/3 of the Implementing Regulation lists the documents of the citizenship application and the list is closed: the form petition, the passport, the civil-status records, the birth and family-tie records, the population records of any Turkish relatives, a document completing an incomplete date of birth, and the fee receipt. A criminal record certificate is not on it. Article 32 paragraph 1 of the Foreigners and International Protection Law No. 6458 is where the certificate lives: it is a condition of the short-term residence permit, produced on request from the country of nationality or lawful residence, and the investor’s residence permit is issued under Article 31 paragraph 1(j) of that law before the citizenship file is opened. So the certificate is obtained once, apostilled and translated, for the permit stage, and an officer who asks for it again at the citizenship stage is asked which provision requires it.

What is the title-deed tax on a citizenship purchase?

Two per cent of the declared price from each side, four per cent of the transaction in all, and the base can never fall below the property’s tax value. The rate is item 20/a of tariff (4) of the Fees Law No. 492, which fixes the title-deed fee at twenty per thousand and, in the tariff’s own words, separately for the transferor and the transferee. The base is the price declared at the registry, and the law does not let it drop below the property tax value the municipality holds for the property. Which side actually pays is not in the tariff; it is a term of the sale contract, and a foreign buyer who has not negotiated it usually finds both halves on his own invoice. On a 400,000 USD purchase the fee is therefore a five-figure dollar sum that sits outside the investment threshold, because the threshold is measured on the price, not on the cost of buying.

When is the property purchase exempt from VAT?

Only on the first delivery of a newly built residence or workplace, bought with money brought into Türkiye in foreign currency, by a buyer who is not settled in Türkiye, and the exemption is clawed back if the property is sold within three years. Those are the conditions of Article 13 paragraph 1(i) of the Value Added Tax Law No. 3065, and each one is load-bearing. First delivery means a resale never qualifies, whatever the seller says at the viewing. The price must enter Türkiye in foreign currency, so money already inside the country or brought in as lira fails the condition. The buyer must be a foreign natural person not settled in Türkiye, a Turkish citizen resident abroad for more than six months holding a work or residence permit, or a foreign entity without a Turkish place of business. Where the exemption was applied and the conditions were not met, the buyer is jointly and severally liable with the seller for the tax, the penalty and the interest. And if the property is disposed of within three years, the uncollected tax is collected from the disposing party with deferral interest before the registry will process the transfer. That three-year clock and the citizenship route’s three-year annotation run from different events, so an investor who sells the day the annotation lapses can satisfy the citizenship condition and still meet the VAT at the counter.

Which taxes follow a Turkish passport?

Income tax follows residence and inheritance tax follows nationality, and the two are different statutes with different tests. Under Articles 3 and 4 of the Income Tax Law No. 193, a person is taxed in Türkiye on worldwide income only if settled in Türkiye, which the law defines as having a domicile there or residing there continuously for more than six months in a calendar year; a Turkish passport held by someone living abroad does not by itself create that liability. Under Article 1 of the Inheritance and Gift Tax Law No. 7338, by contrast, property belonging to persons of Turkish nationality is subject to inheritance and gift tax on transfer wherever the property is located, and the law says expressly that this extends to property a Turkish national acquires abroad by inheritance or gift; the one carve-out is a foreign person without a domicile in Türkiye who inherits a Turkish national’s property situated outside Türkiye. That second rule is the one the investment migration industry rarely mentions, and it is the reason a family’s succession plan is read before the citizenship file is opened rather than after.

What happens when you sell after the three years?

The citizenship condition is met, and a second clock may still be running. Repeated Article 80 paragraph 6 of the Income Tax Law taxes the gain on an immovable disposed of within five years of acquisition and none of it after, and the five years run from the acquisition date, not from the day the no-sale annotation lifts. An investor who sells the moment the three-year annotation lapses has obeyed the citizenship rules and walked into the capital gains charge, with the cost indexation and the annual exemption then deciding how much of the gain is taxed. The computation, the indexation gate and the current exemption are set out in the guide to capital gains tax on property disposals in Türkiye, which is the page to read before fixing a sale date.

British investors: what the passport changes on tax, and what it does not

A British investor applies on the same seven routes and the same figures as any other nationality (Article 20(2) of the Implementing Regulation), and nothing on the Turkish side asks for the British passport to be given up. What decides the move is tax, and the first answer is in the treaty. Under Article 4(2) of the 1988 UK-Turkey Double Taxation Agreement, a person resident in both countries is treated as resident where a permanent home is available to him, then where his personal and economic relations are closer, then where he has a habitual abode, and only after all three by nationality. A Turkish passport held while the home and the family stay in Britain therefore moves nothing on income tax.

The gap is inheritance. The 1988 agreement covers taxes on income and on capital gains only (Article 2), and HMRC’s own list of UK-Turkey tax treaties carries no inheritance tax treaty. So nothing in a treaty stands between Türkiye’s Inheritance and Gift Tax Law No. 7338, which reaches the property of Turkish nationals wherever it lies, and UK inheritance tax, which since 6 April 2025 turns on long-term residence, meaning residence in the UK for at least 10 of the previous 20 tax years (section 6A of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, inserted by section 44 of the Finance Act 2025), rather than on domicile. Whether either side’s own law gives credit for the other’s tax is read for the estate in question before the file is opened.

Must the fifty employees be Turkish citizens?

The regulation does not say so. Article 20/2(c) of the Implementing Regulation reads, in full, that the applicant has created employment for at least fifty persons as determined by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and the word employment occurs exactly once in the regulation, in that sentence, with no nationality attached to the persons employed. Article 20/9 then provides that the procedure and principles for determining whether the investment conditions are met are set by the institution making the determination, so how the fifty are counted and what happens if the number falls during the file belongs to the Ministry, reading its own social security registrations. An investor whose workforce is partly foreign asks the Ministry for its determination rather than a guide for its assumption.

Does Turkish citizenship protect against extradition?

A Turkish citizen is not extradited to a foreign state for a criminal offense, and the rule is constitutional rather than a ministry practice. The final paragraph of Article 38 of the Constitution provides that, apart from the obligations arising from being a party to the International Criminal Court, a citizen may not be surrendered to a foreign country on account of a crime, and Article 11 paragraph 1(a) of Law No. 6706 on International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters repeats it as the first ground on which an extradition request is refused. The provision speaks of a citizen and says nothing about how the citizenship was acquired. The limit sits elsewhere in the same body of law: the protection belongs to the citizenship, and a citizenship annulled under Article 31 of the Citizenship Law takes the protection with it, which is one more reason the acquisition file has to be clean rather than merely approved.

How have the thresholds moved, and by which instruments?

The real estate figure stood at 250,000 USD until Presidential Decision No. 5554, published in the Official Gazette of 13 May 2022 (No. 31834), raised it to 400,000 USD with effect from 13 June 2022, and the same decision added the private pension route and rewrote the currency-sale mechanism in Article 20/10. The 500,000 USD figures for the deposit, the debt-instrument, the fund and the fixed-capital routes, and the fifty-person employment figure, were set by Presidential Decision No. 5072, published on 6 January 2022 (No. 31711). The most recent amendment to Article 20 is Presidential Decision No. 7938 of 12 December 2023 (No. 32397), which redefined the property types that qualify under the real estate route as those with established condominium or construction-servitude title, or land carrying a building. Those are the three instruments behind every figure on this page, and the consolidated text linked above carries each of them in its own footnote.

How does this route compare to other paths to Turkish nationality?

Investment is the fastest documented route to Turkish citizenship for a foreign national who can commit the capital, because it removes the multi-year residence requirement that ordinary naturalization imposes. The trade-off is the locked investment and the documentary precision the file demands. Residence-based naturalization, marriage-based acquisition, and citizenship by descent follow different statutory tests and timelines.

Which path fits depends on your capital, your family situation, and how quickly you need the passport. Where a matter touches family status or a cross-border marriage, our family law practice works alongside the immigration file. The choice should be made after reviewing your specific facts rather than from a general comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Can I sell the property after I obtain citizenship?

Yes, but only after the regulated holding period ends. Once the holding period measured from title deed registration has run, the no-sale annotation is lifted and you may sell the property freely while keeping your citizenship.

Does my spouse also receive citizenship?

Yes. A spouse and the children who are under 18 or dependent are included in the same application without an additional investment. A child aged 18 or over is included only as a dependent child; the regulation sets no test for dependency, so the file is built to show it on documents gathered before filing.

Do I need to live in Turkey?

No. There is no residence requirement before, during, or after the application. The entire process can be managed remotely through a legal representative holding a power of attorney.

Can I rent out the investment property during the holding period?

Yes. You may rent the property and earn rental income during the holding period without affecting your citizenship, provided the no-sale annotation stays in place.

What happens if the property value falls after purchase?

Nothing, for citizenship purposes. The threshold is tested at the time of purchase against the title deed value and the Central Bank rate on the transfer date. Later changes in market value do not affect citizenship already granted.

Before any money moves

If you are considering Turkish citizenship by investment, the decisive work happens before any funds move: confirming the threshold that applies on your filing date, aligning the valuation and banking documents, and structuring the file to survive a later audit. Our team manages the full sequence remotely through a power of attorney, from route selection and due diligence to the Certificate of Conformity and passport delivery, for clients worldwide.

Whether your route qualifies as planned is settled before any money moves; on a property file that means the seller, the unit’s citizenship history, the deed’s mortgages and annotations, and the valuation and TTB under the 28 September 2026 circular. Tell us the route you are leaning towards, the currency you can remit in, and who is on the file, on WhatsApp at +90 530 127 59 35 or at info@serkalaw.com. The full practice page is our Turkish citizenship by investment service, and the deepest single-route guides are the 500,000 USD bank deposit and the 400,000 USD property route.

This article is general information about Turkish law and is not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it; representation begins only under a signed engagement.