Document Checklist — Turkish Citizenship by Investment

This is the working checklist we use when opening a Turkish citizenship file. It covers every document the Provincial Directorate of Civil Registration, the Land Registry (TKGM), the relevant banking or capital-markets regulator and the consulate will want to see, in the order they tend to ask for them.

The PDF version is below. Save it, print it, hand it to your translator. It is updated each time the programme changes a rule, and the file you download has the date of the last update printed on it.

Download the 2026 checklist PDF — generated each quarter. Last refresh: 15 April 2026.

If the PDF link 404s, the file has been moved while we re-cut the new quarter; write to etc [at] virugroup [dot] company and we will send it back to you by reply.

Applicant (main investor)

• Valid passport — at least 12 months of validity remaining at the time of filing, two blank pages.
• Birth certificate, apostilled, with sworn Turkish translation.
• Marriage certificate if applicable, apostilled, translated.
• Criminal record certificate from every country in which you have lived for 6 months or more in the last 10 years. Apostilled. Issued within the last 6 months at the time of filing.
• Four biometric photographs against a white background, taken within the last 6 months.
• Health insurance valid in Türkiye for the application year.
• Turkish tax number (alınmış vergi kimlik numarası).
• Proof of the qualifying investment — see the route-specific section below.
• Source-of-funds packet — bank statements covering the origin of the qualifying investment, supported by employment evidence, business statements, sale-of-asset evidence or inheritance documents as applicable.

Spouse

The 2025 compliance pass moved the spouse from “named in the file” to “active applicant with their own document set”. Plan for this.

• Valid passport.
• Marriage certificate (already provided by the main applicant, but the spouse’s file references it).
• Criminal record certificate for the spouse, apostilled, with sworn Turkish translation. This is the single most-missed document by people who researched the programme before 2025.
• Four biometric photographs.
• Health insurance valid in Türkiye.
• Turkish tax number.
• Spousal residence permit application (filed alongside the main applicant’s).

Children under 18

• Valid passport.
• Birth certificate showing both parents’ names, apostilled, translated.
• Four biometric photographs.
• Health insurance.
• If only one parent is on the application (single parent, divorce, deceased other parent), a sole-parental-authority declaration or court order, apostilled and translated.
• If the other parent is alive and not applying, a notarised consent to the child’s acquisition of Turkish citizenship.

Children over 18 are not included in the family file and need their own qualifying investment.

Route-specific evidence

Real estate route

• Title deed (tapu) recorded at the local Tapu Müdürlüğü, with the 3-year no-sale annotation explicitly noted on the deed.
• SPK-licensed valuation report showing the appraised value of at least $400,000 (US dollar equivalent at the official transfer date).
• Foreign currency sale certificate (Döviz Alım Belgesi, DAB) for the full investment amount, issued by a Turkish bank documenting the conversion of foreign currency to Turkish lira through the Central Bank.
• Bank wire confirmations showing the buyer-to-seller payment route in full.
• Conformity certificate (Uygunluk Belgesi) issued by the Land Registry General Directorate confirming the investment qualifies.
• Tax-stamped sale contract.

Bank deposit route

• Bank account opening documents in your name at a BDDK-licensed Turkish bank.
• Deposit confirmation for at least $500,000 (or equivalent in foreign currency at the value date), with a 3-year no-withdrawal commitment annotated by the bank.
• BDDK confirmation letter that the deposit meets programme conditions.
• DAB if the deposit was made in lira after foreign-currency conversion.

Investment funds route

• SPK-licensed REIF or VCIF subscription documents.
• MKK (Merkezi Kayıt Kuruluşu) custody confirmation for the fund shares.
• SPK confirmation that the fund is on the qualifying list and that your subscription is locked for the 3-year period.
• Subscription payment evidence and DAB.

Government bonds route

• Custody confirmation for $500,000-equivalent in Turkish government bonds.
• Treasury confirmation of the 3-year no-trade commitment.
• DAB.

Fixed capital investment route

• Ministry of Industry and Technology confirmation of the qualifying capital investment.
• Company formation documents and capital injection evidence.

Job creation route

• Social Security Institution (SGK) records confirming at least 50 Turkish-citizen employees on the payroll.
• Ministry confirmation of qualifying employment.

Documents we generate for you, not the other way round

Do not start chasing these; the lawyer of record handles them.

• Power of attorney for the lawyer to act on the applicant’s behalf, notarised at a Turkish consulate or in Türkiye.
• Citizenship application form (Form VAT-4) with the certified Turkish translations stapled to each foreign-language supporting document.
• Conformity certificate request to the relevant authority.
• Residence permit applications for applicant and spouse.

Translations, apostilles and the timing trap

Every foreign document needs an apostille (or, where the issuing country is not party to the Hague Convention, consular legalisation) and a sworn translation by a court-sworn translator in Türkiye.

The trap most applicants fall into: getting a sworn translation done in their home country. Turkish authorities only accept translations from translators sworn at a Turkish notary. Translations done elsewhere are rejected on receipt. Budget for the Türkiye-side translation; we typically use translators in Beyoğlu or Şişli and turnaround for a four-person family file is two to three working days.

Source-of-funds — the bit nobody warns you about

The 2025 compliance pass made source-of-funds documentation the most common point of friction. Before transferring the qualifying investment, prepare a packet that tells a single coherent story:

• For employment income: three to five years of payslips, employer contracts, tax returns.
• For business income: company financials, audited where possible, tax filings, dividend records.
• For asset sale: the sale contract, the bank credit corresponding to the sale, evidence of original asset ownership.
• For inheritance: court probate documents, the executor’s confirmation of disbursement.
• For gift from family: notarised gift declaration, the donor’s source-of-funds for the gifted amount.

What does not work: a single bank statement showing the lump sum without an explanation of where it came from. The receiving Turkish bank will not move the file forward without an answer.

What we mean by “open the file”

The phrase appears throughout this site. “Opening the file” means: documents collected, source-of-funds packet built, lawyer of record engaged, qualifying investment ready to make. It does not mean “filed at the Civil Registration office”; that happens after the investment, when the conformity certificate is in hand. We open the file before the investment so that timing problems are caught before $400,000 has moved.

See also

• The requirements overview for the eligibility framework these documents support.
• The process and timeline page for the sequence in which these documents are actually needed.
• The real estate route page for the appraisal, tapu and DAB specifics.
• For Russian, Iranian and Pakistani applicants, the country-specific guides have the source-of-funds variations that come up in those files.