Until 31 July 2027, money, gold, foreign currency, securities and other capital-market instruments held outside Türkiye can be declared to a Turkish bank or intermediary institution, brought into the country within two months, and thereafter neither audited nor assessed for tax on the declared amount. The bank collects a one-off tax of 5 per cent of the declared value, and that rate falls to 4, 3, 2, 1 or 0 per cent where the assets are committed for one to five years to a time deposit, a government bond or lease certificate, or a venture-capital fund. The instrument is Transitional Article 19 of the Corporate Tax Law No. 5520, added by Law No. 7582 of 21 May 2026 and in force since 4 June 2026, and every figure on this page is read from that consolidated text. Two facts decide whether it is for you: a person with no Turkish tax liability at all may use it on lighter conditions than a taxpayer, and the protection it gives is lost, with the tax kept, on any of the six failures listed below.
What does the 2027 asset amnesty in Türkiye actually cover?
Two classes of asset, under paragraphs 1 and 3 of Transitional Article 19. The first is money, gold, foreign currency, securities and other capital-market instruments held abroad by any natural or legal person, whether or not that person is a Turkish taxpayer. The second is the same kinds of asset held in Türkiye but absent from the statutory books of an income- or corporate-tax payer. Real estate is not in the list, and neither are receivables, company shares that are not securities, or crypto-assets; a declaration under this article covers what the paragraph names and nothing else.
What is the deadline, and can it be extended?
The declaration is made to a bank or intermediary institution by 31 July 2027. Paragraph 11 lets the President extend that date in steps of no more than six months, up to one year in all, so the outside date is 31 July 2028; nothing in the statute obliges an extension, and the rate rises for late declarants whether or not one comes. Paragraph 10 adds the rule that catches people who file first and think later: a declaration cannot be corrected after the deadline has passed.
How much tax is paid, and how does it fall to zero?
The bank or intermediary collects the tax up front, at the moment of declaration, on the value declared, and pays it to its tax office by the fifteenth day of the following month in its own name as withholding agent. The base rate is 5 per cent. Paragraph 6 reduces it where the declarant undertakes in writing to keep the asset, for a stated number of years, in a time deposit, in domestic government borrowing instruments or lease certificates issued under Law No. 4749, or in a venture-capital investment fund. The undertakings bear no stamp duty.
| Commitment | Declared by 31 December 2026 | Declared 1 January to 31 July 2027 | Declared after 31 July 2027, if the date is extended |
|---|---|---|---|
| No commitment | 5% | 5.5% | 6% |
| One year | 4% | 4.5% | 5% |
| Two years | 3% | 3.5% | 4% |
| Three years | 2% | 2.5% | 3% |
| Four years | 1% | 1.5% | 2% |
| Five years | 0% | 0.5% | 1% |
The middle column is the half-point surcharge paragraph 6 attaches to every declaration made from 1 January 2027, and the last column the full point that applies to declarations made after 31 July 2027 under an extension. The arithmetic of the table is the statute’s own; the practical reading is that a declaration filed in 2026 with a five-year commitment costs nothing but the commitment, and every month of delay after that costs money.
What must happen after the declaration?
Assets held abroad must be transferred within two months of the declaration into an account opened in the declarant’s name at a Turkish bank or intermediary, or, where they are brought in physically, deposited into such an account with the customs declaration as proof; the customs administration reports those declarations to the Revenue Administration by the end of the following month. Assets already in Türkiye but outside the books must be deposited with a bank or intermediary on the day of the declaration. A taxpayer who keeps statutory books records the assets at the declaration date; a company keeping balance-sheet accounts places them in a special fund account that cannot leave the company for two years except by conversion into share capital, is not taxed if the company is liquidated, and after two years can be withdrawn without being counted in taxable or distributable profit. The declared assets do not enter the profit of the period in which they are declared.
Can a foreigner with no Turkish tax file use it?
Yes, and on lighter terms. Paragraph 5 provides that a person who has no income-tax or corporate-tax liability in Türkiye benefits from the article without the bookkeeping conditions of paragraph 4, provided the foreign assets are brought in within the two-month period, or the domestic assets are deposited at the declaration date. The article does not ask why the assets were abroad, does not ask for a tax return, and does not require the declarant to become resident. What it produces is a bank record of the transfer, a tax receipt, and a statutory bar on any audit of the declared amount, which is why the article is read alongside the source-of-funds file of a client bringing capital into a Turkish bank for other reasons.
What protection does the declaration give?
Paragraph 8 states that no tax audit and no tax assessment is made in respect of the declared amounts. Where an audit begun for some other reason, or an assessment commission, finds a base difference that traces to the declared assets, no assessment is made up to the declared amount, and only any excess is assessed; where the difference is found for reasons unconnected with the declared assets, it is assessed in full and the declared amount is not set off against it. The article is a tax provision and says so: measures required under other legislation are not affected by it, and it is not a defense to anything but tax.
How is the protection lost?
Paragraph 9 names the failures, and any one of them removes the protection while the tax already paid is kept: the foreign assets are not brought into Türkiye or transferred to a Turkish account within two months; the domestic assets are not deposited on the declaration date; the tax on the declared amount is not paid on time; a holding commitment given for a reduced rate is not honoured; or another condition of the article is not met. Tax that was not accrued in time is then collected with late-payment interest, though without the tax-loss penalty. A declaration made after a tax audit has begun, or after the file has gone to an assessment commission, gives no protection against the assessment that audit produces. Tax collected under the article is not refunded, the tax cannot be deducted as an expense or credited against any other tax, and a loss on the later disposal of a declared asset is not deductible.
Who should read this before moving money into a Turkish bank?
Three people. A Turkish tax resident, which under Article 4 of the Income Tax Law includes anyone who spends more than six months of a calendar year in Türkiye, who holds savings abroad that never appeared in a Turkish return and who now wants to bring them home. A company whose books do not show cash or securities it actually holds. And an investor who will place several hundred thousand dollars in a Turkish bank for a citizenship, residence or property file and who expects that money to be looked at: the article turns a transfer that would otherwise have to be explained into a transfer the statute itself has cleared, and the one-, two- and three-year holding commitments run in parallel with the holding periods those files carry. Which route fits, and whether an asset qualifies at all, is decided on the documents, not on the description.
Speak to us before the declaration is filed
We review the asset list against the article, prepare the declaration and the commitment letter, sequence the transfer inside the two-month window, and put the position in writing before the bank is approached, for clients in any country and in their own language. A declaration that cannot be corrected after the deadline is drafted once. WhatsApp +90 530 127 59 35 · Email info@serkalaw.com. The corporate side of the same law is set out in the guide to corporate tax in Türkiye, the deposit route to citizenship in Turkish citizenship by bank deposit, and the wider system in the Turkish tax system guide.
This article is general information on Transitional Article 19 of Law No. 5520 as consolidated on 2 September 2026, not legal advice on a particular declaration. The rate, the deadline and the commitment schedule are the statute’s; the Ministry of Treasury and Finance sets the forms and procedure under paragraph 11.