Turkey taxes the gain on a property sale only when the property is sold within five years of the date it was acquired. Sell after that and there is no capital gain to declare at all, however large the profit. Inside the five years the gain is taxable, but it is not the difference between what you paid and what you sold for: the acquisition cost is first uplifted by the official price index, and where that uplift reaches ten per cent it frequently removes the whole nominal gain in a currency that has moved as the lira has. What is left is reduced by an annual exemption, 150,000 TL for 2026, and taxed on the ordinary progressive tariff rather than at a flat rate, the 2026 brackets of which are on our page on income tax in Turkey. The rules are in articles 80 and 81 of the Income Tax Act (Gelir Vergisi Kanunu No. 193), and the four sentences that decide most files are set out below.
Is there capital gains tax in Turkey?
There is no separate capital gains tax and no separate rate. What exists is a category of income called değer artışı kazancı, “gain from an increase in value”, which is added to the seller’s income for the year and taxed under the ordinary tariff. That is why an answer that quotes you a single percentage is wrong before it starts: the figure depends on the size of the gain, on the indexed cost, and on what else the seller earned in Turkey that year.
The five-year rule, and the date it runs from
Article 80 (mükerrer 80), sixth limb, brings within the charge gains from disposing of immovable property “within five years beginning from the date of acquisition”. Two qualifications sit in the same sentence and are routinely dropped from summaries:
- Property acquired without consideration is outside the limb entirely. Inherited property and property received as a gift do not carry a five-year clock, and the gain on selling them is not a capital gain under this provision at all.
- The clock runs from acquisition, not from the latest deed entry. A correction, a merger of parcels or a re-registration does not restart it; what matters is when the property was acquired.
The period was five years only from 28 March 2007, when Law No. 5615 raised it from four. A property bought before that date and sold long ago may have been governed by the shorter period, which is why old files are read against the law in force at the time and not against today’s.
“Disposal” is wider than a sale
The article defines the term itself, and the definition catches transactions owners do not think of as selling:
sale, transfer and assignment for consideration, barter, exchange, expropriation, nationalisation, and contribution to a commercial company as capital.
Putting an apartment into a company in exchange for shares is a disposal on the day it is done. So is an expropriation, which surprises owners who did not choose the transaction. If the asset belongs instead to a business that is still trading, the gain is commercial income rather than a capital gain, and a different set of rules applies from the start.
How the taxable gain is actually computed
Article 81 (mükerrer 81) states the arithmetic: from the consideration received, deduct the cost of the asset, and deduct the expenses of the disposal together with the taxes and fees that the seller actually bore. A fee the buyer paid is not the seller’s deduction, which is why the allocation of the title-deed charge in the contract has a tax consequence and not only a commercial one.
Then comes the provision that decides most real files:
The acquisition cost is increased by the rate of increase in the official price index, excluding the month of disposal, provided that the rate of increase is ten per cent or more.
The ten per cent condition was added by Law No. 5281 of 30 December 2004 and it is a threshold, not a floor to be applied proportionally: below it there is no indexation at all, and at or above it the whole increase is applied. The practical effect in a high-inflation currency is that a sale showing a large profit in lira can show no taxable gain once the cost is indexed. Establishing the indexed cost is therefore the first calculation on the file, not the last.
| Step | What is added or taken away |
|---|---|
| 1. Consideration | Everything received for the property, in money or in kind. |
| 2. Indexed cost | The acquisition cost, uplifted by the price index excluding the month of disposal, only if the increase reaches 10%. |
| 3. Seller’s costs | The expenses of the disposal, and the taxes and fees the seller actually paid. |
| 4. Annual exemption | 150,000 TL for 2026. It does not apply to securities and other capital-market instruments. |
| 5. Rate | The ordinary progressive tariff, applied to the seller’s total income for the year. |
Where the acquisition cost genuinely cannot be established, the statute substitutes a value determined by an assessment commission rather than treating the cost as nil. That is worth knowing before anyone concludes that a missing invoice makes the entire proceeds taxable.
The 2026 exemption and the 2026 rates
Both figures are revalued every year by general communiqué. The amounts below are those set for the 2026 calendar year by Gelir Vergisi Genel Tebliği Serial No. 332, published in the Official Gazette of 31 December 2025, issue 33124 (5th repeated).
Annual exemption: 150,000 TL of capital gain in a calendar year, excluding gains from securities and other capital-market instruments.
| Income for the year | Tax |
|---|---|
| up to 190,000 TL | 15% |
| up to 400,000 TL | 28,500 TL on the first 190,000, remainder at 20% |
| up to 1,000,000 TL | 70,500 TL on the first 400,000, remainder at 27% |
| up to 5,300,000 TL | 232,500 TL on the first 1,000,000, remainder at 35% |
| above 5,300,000 TL | 1,737,500 TL on the first 5,300,000, remainder at 40% |
Because these are annual figures, any page that quotes them without a year and a source is unreliable by construction. Confirm the amounts in force on the date you file, and treat a rate quoted to you without its communiqué as a starting point for a question rather than an answer. The consolidated statute is published by the state at mevzuat.gov.tr.
Non-resident sellers
A non-resident owner is taxed in Turkey on Turkish-source income, and a gain on Turkish immovable property is Turkish-source. Two points are worth stating precisely because both are commonly overstated.
The statute contains a rule excluding exchange-rate gains from the computation for non-residents who brought capital into Turkey under the foreign-investment regime. Its own words limit it to securities and participation shares, and only where the taxpayer’s Turkish income consists solely of those instruments, and not where the taxpayer deals in securities continuously. It does not apply to immovable property. Anyone who tells a foreign property seller that currency movement is excluded from their gain is reading a provision that is not about them.
Separately, a double taxation treaty between Turkey and the seller’s country of residence may allocate the taxing right or give credit for tax paid. Which treaty applies, and what it says about gains from immovable property, is a question about that specific treaty and cannot be answered generically.
If you bought for citizenship, there are two clocks and they are not the same
This is the most expensive confusion in this area. A property used to obtain Turkish citizenship by investment carries a three-year commitment annotated on the title deed, during which it may not be sold. Capital gains tax runs on a separate five-year clock from the date of acquisition. The two are different periods, imposed by different instruments, for different reasons.
The consequence is concrete: the annotation lapses at three years and the property becomes sellable, but a sale in year three or year four is still inside the five-year capital-gains window. An investor who sells the moment the deed is free has done nothing wrong under the citizenship rules and has walked into the tax charge. Waiting until the fifth year has passed removes it. The citizenship route itself is set out in our guide to Turkish citizenship by investment.
What foreign sellers get wrong
- Treating the declared deed price as the cost basis without thinking about it. The price entered at the land registry is what the file will be read against, and a price declared low to save transfer duty raises the taxable gain on the way out by exactly the amount it saved on the way in.
- Assuming no tax because the money never entered Turkey. The gain is Turkish-source because the property is here. Where the proceeds are paid is not the test.
- Forgetting that the exemption is annual. Two sales in one calendar year share one exemption; the same two sales either side of 31 December have one each.
- Ignoring the indexation until the return is being prepared. It is the largest single number in the computation and it depends on the acquisition date, which is a fact you cannot change later.
Questions we are asked
Do I pay capital gains tax if I sell after five years?
No. Where the property was acquired for consideration and is sold more than five years after the acquisition date, no capital gain arises under this provision, whatever the profit. There is no partial charge and no tapering.
Is there capital gains tax on inherited property in Turkey?
Property acquired without consideration is outside the capital-gains limb, so a sale by an heir is not taxed under it. Inheritance and gift tax is a separate charge with its own rules and its own return, and it is not answered by this page.
What if I sell at a loss?
A loss computed under these rules is a loss, and after indexation a sale that looks profitable in lira may be one. That is a reason to compute the indexed figure properly rather than to assume either outcome.
Does the buyer withhold the tax?
No. There is no withholding on a property sale between individuals; the seller declares the gain in the annual return for the year of disposal. Nobody collects it at the deed office on the seller’s behalf, which is why sellers who have left the country are the ones who discover the obligation late.
Before you sign, not after
The tax position of a Turkish property sale is fixed by three facts that are all settled before completion: the acquisition date, the cost that can be evidenced, and who bears which charge under the contract. Send us the title deed, the purchase documentation and the offer you have, and you will get a written computation of the exposure and of what changes it. Write to info@serkalaw.com. The wider framework is in our guide to the Turkish tax system, and the transaction itself in Turkish real estate law for foreign buyers.
General information, not legal advice. Turkish law; figures are revalued annually and must be confirmed on your filing date.
Related reading
- How the price is secured before ownership passes: escrow in Turkey.
- What to check on the deed before you buy: title deed red flags for foreign buyers.
- To have a sale or purchase run by counsel from title search through registration, see our real estate lawyer in Turkey for foreign buyers.
- If the property is held through a company, the gain is taxed under the Corporate Tax Law instead, and the participation exemption no longer covers immovables: corporate tax on a Turkish company’s profits and disposals.