Practice Area
Citizenship by Investment
Yatırım Yoluyla Türk Vatandaşlığı
Turkish citizenship through the bank deposit or real estate route, conducted end to end by an attorney registered with the Istanbul Bar.
Scope of the Practice
Citizenship by Investment (Yatırım Yoluyla Türk Vatandaşlığı) is the practice this office was built around, and it has been its principal work since 2019. The governing provision is Article 12(1)(b) of the Turkish Citizenship Law (Türk Vatandaşlığı Kanunu) No. 5901, which permits the acquisition of Turkish citizenship by exceptional decision of the President where the applicant has made an investment of a kind and amount determined by the President. The kinds and the amounts are set out in Article 20 of the Implementing Regulation, enacted by Council of Ministers Decision No. 2010/139.
Two routes carry almost all of the office's files. The first is a bank deposit of at least USD 500,000 placed with an institution supervised by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) and held under a three-year blocking undertaking. The second is the acquisition of Turkish real estate valued at not less than USD 400,000, held for three years under a restriction annotated on the title. Both routes end in the same legal result, a Presidential decree conferring Turkish citizenship on the applicant, on the spouse, and on children who are minors at the time.
The instruction is accepted as a whole matter rather than as a set of separate errands. A file that will be examined years later has to be assembled so that it survives that examination, and the documents created at the beginning are the ones that decide whether it does. The office conducts the matter under a notarised power of attorney (vekâletname) where the client cannot be present in Türkiye at every stage, and the client keeps direct access to his own bank account and his own banking relationship throughout.
Specific Services
Eligibility assessment before any commitment
Review of the intended investment, the family position, and the documentary record against Article 12(1)(b) and Article 20 of the Regulation, before money moves.
Bank deposit route (USD 500,000)
Conduct of the deposit file with a BDDK-supervised institution, including the blocking undertaking (blokaj taahhütnamesi) from which the three-year term runs.
Real estate route (USD 400,000)
Title examination, verification of the valuation report, conduct of the transfer at the land registry, and the three-year restriction annotated on the title.
Valuation report scrutiny
Independent examination of the appraisal on which the application will stand, under the assigned-appraiser regime introduced by the TKGM circulars of 2024.
Certificate of conformity (Uygunluk Belgesi)
Application to the competent authority for the certificate that establishes the investment qualifies, the document on which the citizenship application depends.
Investor residence permit (İkamet İzni, Article 31(1)(j))
The residence permit that the citizenship application requires, obtained on the investor track rather than a standard category.
Citizenship application and its conduct
Filing before the Directorate General of Population and Citizenship Affairs (NVİ) and conduct of the file through to the Presidential decree.
After the decree, and the three years that follow
Registration, passport, the holding period and its expiry, and the tax and disposal questions that arise once the term has run.
Adverse decisions
Where an application is refused, or a certificate or citizenship decision is annulled or withdrawn, the position under Articles 31 and 40 of Law No. 5901 and recourse to the administrative courts.
Statutory Authority
Principal instruments: Turkish Citizenship Law (Türk Vatandaşlığı Kanunu) No. 5901, in particular Article 10 on the absence of any absolute right to citizenship, Article 12(1)(b) on acquisition by exceptional decision, and Articles 31 and 40 on annulment and withdrawal; the Implementing Regulation on the Application of the Turkish Citizenship Law, Council of Ministers Decision No. 2010/139, Resmî Gazete of 6 April 2010, No. 27544, in particular Article 20 on the qualifying investments; the Foreigners and International Protection Law (Yabancılar ve Uluslararası Koruma Kanunu) No. 6458, Article 31(1)(j), for the investor residence permit; the Banking Law (Bankacılık Kanunu) No. 5411 for the supervisory framework of the depositary institution; and the circulars of the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (TKGM) of 2024 governing valuation and the confirmation of the amount. The Advocacy Law (Avukatlık Kanunu) No. 1136 governs the professional responsibility the attorney carries for the file.
Cross-Border Considerations
The three-year term is the point most often misunderstood, and it is worth stating precisely. On the deposit route it runs from the signing of the blocking undertaking at the bank, not from the date of the decree. On the real estate route it runs from the date of the transfer recorded at the land registry. An investor who counts from the decree will reach the end of the period later than he expects. Since March 2024 the appraiser on the real estate route is assigned rather than chosen by the parties, and the deed price, the payments made, and the confirmed amount must each independently reach the threshold, so a file in which the recorded figure diverges from what was actually paid does not satisfy the test. Türkiye permits its citizens to hold another nationality; whether any other nationality is affected is a question governed by the law of the state concerned and belongs to counsel in that jurisdiction. Applications are decided by the administration, and Article 10(1) of Law No. 5901 provides expressly that fulfilling the conditions confers no absolute right to citizenship.
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