Turkish citizenship, tax residency and property — assessed, bought and filed from one desk in Istanbul. You never have to board a plane.
A Turkish passport used to be one decision.
A Turkish tax position was another.
Since Law No. 7582, they are the same decision.
From USD 400,000 in property. Spouse and children under 18 included. Two days in Türkiye, then you fly home.
How it works →Twenty years of foreign income outside the Turkish tax base. No entry charge, no annual fee — but a strict three-year test.
Who qualifies →Central Istanbul resale, not off-plan. Title, permits and valuation checked by us before it ever reaches you.
What we check →Article 12(b), Law No. 5901
Every route leads to the same passport. They differ in liquidity, holding period and exit risk. Choosing between them is a legal decision, not a sales one.
Purchase with a three-year sale restriction annotated on the title deed. Requires centralised valuation and a certificate of conformity.
Held in a Turkish bank for three years. Simplest documentary file; no asset to manage and no exit market to time.
Participation shares in a qualifying fund, held for three years. Includes gold and real estate funds.
Fixed-income instruments held for three years, confirmed by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.
Contribution to a private pension system, retained for three years.
Employment of at least fifty people, confirmed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Suits operating businesses, not passive investors.
The threshold is the entry ticket, not the cost. Transfer taxes, valuation, translation and filing sit on top of it — and they differ by route.
The journey
Twenty-two steps, most of which happen without you. Walk through them one at a time and you will see exactly where you are needed — and where you are not.
The route most investors take
Buy real estate valued at USD 400,000 or more, hold it for three years, and you and your immediate family qualify for Turkish citizenship. That sentence is accurate and it is also where most people stop reading — which is why files fail. Below is what the process actually involves, in the order it happens.
Before anything is spent, we check that the applicant can hold Turkish property at all. Nationals of a small number of countries are restricted from acquiring real estate in Türkiye, and for them the deposit or fund routes are the only viable path. We also confirm which family members can be carried on the same application.
Law No. 5901, Article 12(b)This is the single most common cause of refusal, and it is built before the money moves — not after the Ministry asks. Every material element of the investment has to trace to a legitimate, documented origin. Gifts, company distributions, sale proceeds and crypto each need a different evidentiary treatment.
A power of attorney issued at a Turkish consulate or before a Turkish notary allows the whole transaction to run without you being in the country. A Turkish tax number and bank account are opened in your name — both are prerequisites for the transfer.
We inspect the property, pull the title deed record, and check for mortgages, liens, injunctions, zoning irregularities and whether the occupancy permit was ever issued. We also verify that the building is not subject to an urban transformation decision that would compromise the three-year hold.
An appraisal by a licensed valuation firm, issued through the centralised system. The report must independently support the USD 400,000 threshold — the price you agreed is not what the Ministry looks at. Where the valuation comes in short, the file has to be restructured before, not after, transfer.
Funds are converted into Turkish lira through a Turkish bank and a foreign currency purchase certificate is issued in the buyer's name. Skipping this step, or converting in the wrong sequence, invalidates an otherwise perfect file.
Transfer at the Land Registry, with the three-year non-sale undertaking annotated on the deed itself. Title deed fees are calculated on the declared value. From this point the property is legally yours, with a recorded restriction on resale.
The ministry confirms in writing that the investment satisfies the citizenship conditions. This certificate, not the title deed, is what the citizenship file is built on.
A residence permit is issued to the investor and to each accompanying family member. It is a procedural requirement rather than an obligation to live in Türkiye — there is no minimum stay.
Law No. 6458, Article 31(1)(j)The complete file goes to the Ministry of Interior. Background and security checks follow, then approval by presidential decree, civil registry enrolment, national ID card and passport. We track each stage and tell you where the file actually is, rather than waiting for you to ask.
Common questions
USD 400,000, confirmed by an official valuation report rather than by the price on the contract. The property is held for three years, with a non-sale annotation recorded on the title deed.
Yes. One qualifying investment covers you, your spouse and your children under 18. Children over 18 need to qualify in their own right, which is worth planning for in advance if a child is close to that age.
No. There is no minimum stay requirement before or after the application, and no language test or interview on the investment route.
Yes. The annotation is lifted at the end of the three-year period and the property can be sold freely. Selling does not affect the citizenship, which is already granted.
Yes, provided each property is separately valued and each meets the eligibility conditions. This is often the better structure for liquidity, since it lets you exit in parts rather than all at once.
Not necessarily. The transaction can be completed end to end under a power of attorney. Most clients still choose to come and see the property, and we arrange viewings when they do.
From the citizenship application being filed to the decree, our files typically run eight to nine months, with the purchase and conformity stages before that adding roughly two months. Timing varies with nationality and with how straightforward the source-of-funds file is. We will give you a realistic range for your own situation rather than a marketing number.
No. Owning property does not by itself create tax residency, which turns on domicile and on days spent in Türkiye. That said, the two decisions now interact — the twenty-year exemption on foreign income makes tax residency worth considering deliberately rather than by accident.
Tell us your situation and we will come back with a straight answer: whether the property route works for you, what it realistically costs all-in, and how long it is likely to take. No obligation, and we will tell you if the answer is no.
Income Tax Law · Mükerrer Article 20/D
An individual who becomes Turkish tax resident, and who had neither a domicile nor a tax liability in Türkiye during the three preceding calendar years, may keep twenty years of foreign-source income outside Turkish income tax. There is no entry charge and no annual fee — which makes it structurally different from the Italian and Greek regimes it is usually compared against.
It is also not automatic. It has to be applied for, it is gated by a strict non-residence test, and Turkish-source income remains fully taxable. Getting the sequence wrong is expensive.
Assess your eligibilityInvestment finder
Every route leads to the same passport, so the choice comes down to what you want the money to do afterwards. Answer six questions and you will get a written recommendation explaining which route fits your objective, what it means for liquidity and exit, and what to watch out for.
Current opportunities
Central Istanbul resale, not off-plan. Every listing here has been inspected, title-checked and tested against the citizenship threshold before reaching this page.
Furnished · sea view
USD 410,000
Ref. 01 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
Central Şişli
USD 455,000
Ref. 02 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
Tenanted
USD 460,000
Ref. 03 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
High floor · city views
USD 460,000
Ref. 04 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
Tenanted
USD 470,000
Ref. 05 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
Pool view
USD 480,000
Ref. 06 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
Two deeds · two districts
USD 510,000
Ref. 07 · Two title deeds combined · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
32nd floor
USD 530,000
Ref. 09 · Single title deed · Rental figures and full file on request
View details →
What we do differently
Not unusual claims in this market. What is unusual is explaining how each one actually works — including the parts that carry a caveat.
On some properties we can arrange a rental guarantee: a contractual undertaking that a fixed amount is paid to you for an agreed term whether or not the unit is occupied. For an owner living abroad this removes vacancy risk and the burden of finding tenants, and it makes income predictable from the day of transfer.
A guarantee is only as good as the party standing behind it. We tell you who the counterparty is, what happens if they default, and how the obligation is secured — because a guarantee from an entity with no assets is a marketing line, not a protection. We draft these agreements ourselves rather than accepting a developer's template.
We source the property and we act as your lawyers on it. That means the title search, the encumbrance check, the occupancy permit, the urban transformation status and the valuation are all done by the people recommending the unit — before it is recommended, not after you have paid a deposit.
We work the central Istanbul secondary market rather than off-plan developer stock: completed buildings, existing tenants, real transaction history to price against, and an exit into a market of individual buyers rather than a queue behind the developer's unsold inventory.
We hold two roles here and we say so plainly. As Turkish advocates we are bound by professional duties to the client that an agency is not, and we set out our fee basis and any commercial interest in writing at the outset. If you would prefer independent counsel to review our work, we will hand over the file without complaint.
You do not have to come to Türkiye. Under a power of attorney issued at a Turkish consulate in your own country, we obtain your tax number, open your Turkish bank account, complete the purchase and the currency conversion, register the title in your name and file the citizenship application — while you stay where you are.
The account is yours and remains fully usable afterwards: for building dues and utilities, for receiving rent, and for holding funds in Türkiye. Turkish lira deposits have carried high nominal interest rates in recent years.
One caution on that last point, since it is regularly oversold. A high lira interest rate is compensation for currency risk, not a free return — measured in dollars or euros the outcome depends on where the exchange rate goes over the same period. Foreign currency accounts are available at ordinary international rates. We are lawyers, not investment advisers, and we will not tell you which of those is the right choice. How remote account opening works →
Price check
Foreign buyers are routinely quoted more than the same unit transacts at between Turkish parties, and there is no public register to check against. Enter the details of a property you are considering. For buildings we transact in, we position the price against our own deals. For anything else, the tool researches current listings and tells you what it found — and what that does and does not prove.
The tool positions an asking price against other asking prices. It does not read the title deed, verify the seller, check the occupancy permit, or tell you whether the building sits under a regeneration decision — and those are the things that decide whether a purchase is safe rather than merely priced. Send us the property and we will look at the file itself.
Ask us about this propertyTotal cost
Investors are quoted the property price and then meet the rest of it one invoice at a time. Enter your numbers and every cost appears at once, with the arithmetic shown.
Legal fees are quoted per file, because the work is not the same in every case. Everything above is payable in Türkiye during the transaction. Not included: furnishing, building service charges, annual property tax, insurance, or the spread on converting your funds into lira.
Get a written quoteDocument checklist
Every citizenship file needs civil status documents from the country that issued them, legalised in a particular way and translated in another. Which ones you need depends entirely on your family's shape — a previous marriage, a child not joining the application, or a name that changed at some point each add their own requirements. Answer the questions below and you will get the list for your situation, not a generic one.
Please do not enter names, passport numbers or dates of birth — the list does not need them. Your answers are sent to an AI service to generate the list and are not stored by us. This is a general checklist of what files of this shape usually require, not advice on your specific case.
A divorce decree that never got registered, a birth certificate from a country that has stopped issuing them, a name that appears three different ways across three documents — these are the things that hold files up for months. Send us your list and we will tell you which items to start on first, and which ones we can obtain on your behalf.
Ask us about your documentsFree assessment
Applicants are rarely told what "normal" looks like, so a routine wait and a genuine problem feel identical. Enter what you know about your file and you will get a written assessment in English: which stage you are at, how your elapsed time compares to typical processing, and what usually causes a delay at that point.
This is a timeline assessment based on the information you enter. It is not a lookup of your official record — no public system allows that — and it is general information, not legal advice on your specific file.
How a file actually runs
Most investors use a broker for the property, a separate lawyer for the application, and nobody afterwards. We hold the whole chain — which is why problems surface early.
We establish your objective — liquidity, yield, appreciation or speed — and eliminate the routes that do not serve it.
The file most applications fail on. We build it before the money moves, not after a request from the Ministry.
Inspection, encumbrance check, valuation, and the three-value test against the citizenship threshold.
Land Registry transfer, currency conversion, and the certificate of conformity application.
Investor residence permit, then the citizenship file, tracked to decree and passport issue.
Tax residency positioning, rental management, and the eventual exit at the end of the holding period.
Insights
The three-year non-residence test is where most applicants fail, and the reasons are rarely the ones they expect.
CitizenshipWhy a clean bank statement is not enough, and what a defensible funds file looks like in practice.
Real estateSix districts worth a foreign investor’s attention, and the areas we steer clients away from.
The firm
SARDAG is a boutique Istanbul practice, not a call centre with a legal department attached. The person who assesses your file at the start is the person who runs it to the decree.
Istanbul Bar Association, registration no. 70004. He has personally run investor files across every Turkish route — real estate, bank deposit, investment fund, government bond and private pension — including files complicated by prior immigration restrictions, multi-jurisdiction identity documents and source-of-funds histories spanning several countries.
Cited as a source on Turkish tax and citizenship developments by the industry press. Works in Turkish and English.
Av. Burak Kelleci — Istanbul Bar no. 50292. Application files, administrative procedure, and litigation where a decision has to be challenged.
Av. Emine Gül Özgül — Real estate due diligence, title and Land Registry work, residence permit files.
Small enough that nothing gets lost between departments, because there are no departments.
Legal fees are quoted per file, in writing, before any engagement. Where we have a commercial interest in a transaction we say so in the same document. You will not find out what something costs after you are committed to it.
If you would prefer independent counsel to review our work on a purchase, we will hand the file over without complaint. More about the firm →
Registered with the Istanbul Bar Association. Professional duties to you, professional indemnity behind the work, and privilege over what you tell us.
Completed buildings with real transaction history behind them, so the price can be tested and the exit is into a market of individual buyers.
Property, title, transfer, application and management held by the same team. Nothing falls between an agent and a lawyer, because there is no gap.
Free tool
Tell us what actually matters to you and the programmes reorder themselves. We act on Turkish files, so the tool is also built to tell you when Türkiye is the wrong answer — which it says more often than you might expect.
What matters most? Choose as many as apply
Registration and standing
We do not publish awards or league table positions. Turkish professional rules do not permit an advocate to advertise superiority over colleagues, and a firm willing to breach that rule to win your instruction is telling you something. What follows is registration and affiliation — facts you can verify yourself.
İB
IMI
TBB
Contact
Tell us the outcome you are after and the budget you have in mind. If a Turkish route is not the right answer for you, we will say so — that is a cheaper conversation for both of us than the alternative.
SARDAG Law & Consultancy
Nurol Tower, Office 2109
Şişli, Istanbul, Türkiye
WhatsApp — fastest reply
+90 545 830 93 22
arda.sardag@icloud.com
We answer in English and Turkish. If you write outside Istanbul working hours, you will still get a reply the same day in most cases.
Prepared for your family situation