An Istanbul law firm · Turkish citizenship
There is a route into Turkish citizenship that involves no property, no agent and no developer. You contribute USD 500,000 to a Turkish pension plan, hold it in gold funds for three years, and collect passports for your whole family. At the end you take the money out.
The threshold for this route is USD 500,000. If your budget is between USD 400,000 and USD 500,000, the property route is open to you instead and we will tell you so.
What happened to the people who did this
Two gold pension funds commonly used for this route, measured over the three years to 21 August 2026, after converting back into dollars:
USD 500,000 contributed August 2023 · valued 21 August 2026
Plus Turkish citizenship for the applicant, spouse and children under eighteen.
That result was produced by the gold price, not by the citizenship programme. The same three years rewarded anyone holding gold anywhere in the world, without a passport attached. It is history, and history is not a forecast.
The recent record runs the other way. Both funds are below where they stood in January 2026, one of them by roughly a quarter, and neither has recovered. Anyone who started this route in late January is holding a loss today with two and a half years still locked. Over a longer view, gold fell about forty-five per cent from its 2011 peak to late 2015 and did not regain that level until 2020 — a three-year lock inside that window would have ended well down.
Both things are true at once. If you are choosing this route because you expect the last three years to repeat, please choose a different route.
The mechanic that matters
This is the part almost nobody explains. Under the regulations, your foreign currency is sold to a Turkish bank and by that bank to the Central Bank before the qualifying investment is made. Whatever the headline dollar figure says, what you actually hold is Turkish lira.
Deposit or Treasury route
Gold funds inside the pension route
Against the alternatives
| Gold pension route | Property | Bank deposit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | USD 500,000 | USD 400,000 | USD 500,000 |
| What you hold | Gold fund units | An apartment | A blocked lira deposit |
| Lira exposure | Largely avoided | Avoided | Full |
| Income during the term | None | Rent | Interest, taxable |
| Work required from you | None | Tenants, dues, management | None |
| Exit after three years | Redemption | Find a buyer, pay agency fees | Redemption |
| Main risk | The gold price falls | Valuation, resale, overpaying | The lira falls |
| Commission paid to anyone | None | Typically yes | None |
Property is the only route that generates a sales commission. Nobody earns a percentage when you place a pension contribution, which is why this option is rarely presented with the same enthusiasm, or at all. That is not an argument against property, which is often the right answer. It is an argument for asking how the person advising you is paid.
We charge a professional fee for the legal work, quoted in writing at the outset, and it is the same fee whichever route you choose. We have no financial reason to steer you.
The sequence
We confirm your budget, nationality, family situation and timeline, and tell you if a different route suits you better.
A new contract under a plan designated for citizenship applicants. An existing plan cannot be used.
Funds are transferred, sold to the bank and on to the Central Bank, and the contribution enters the system. The three-year clock starts here.
You select the funds within the plan. Gold funds are eligible; funds referring to foreign securities or external debt are not.
SEDDK issues the certificate of conformity. Residence permits and the citizenship file follow.
Collected on your behalf and couriered to you. Roughly four to six months from the contribution, subject to the authorities.
The firm
SARDAG Law & Consultancy is a boutique practice at Nurol Tower, Şişli, working only in citizenship by investment, real estate for foreign buyers, residence permits and international tax. The pension company, the regulator and the migration directorate are all a short drive away, and we deal with them in person, in Turkish, every week.
Start here
Within one business day you get a written answer from the lawyer who would run your file: whether this route suits you, what it costs in total, and what could go wrong. No brochure, no sales call.
Your details are used only to respond to this enquiry. We do not sell or share enquiry data.
Tell us your budget and deadline. Within one business day the lawyer who would run your file writes back personally — whether it is realistic, what it costs in total, and which districts fit. No brochure, no sales call.
Your details are used only to respond to this enquiry.