The Döviz Alım Belgesi (DAB) explained for foreign buyers

The Döviz Alım Belgesi (DAB) is a piece of paper Turkish banks have been issuing since 1989 and that nobody outside Türkiye has heard of. Translated literally it is “Foreign Currency Purchase Certificate”. In the citizenship file it is the document the entire investment side hangs off, and a missing or wrongly-issued DAB is the second most common cause of conformity-certificate refusal after the appraisal gap.

This guide is what we wish someone had handed to us the first time we ran a foreign buyer’s file. The first half is the mechanics. The second half is the four traps, with the workarounds.

What the DAB actually is

The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (TCMB) runs the country’s foreign-exchange clearing system. When foreign currency enters Türkiye through the banking system, the receiving Turkish bank converts it to lira at the buyer’s instruction and books the FX leg of the trade against the Central Bank’s daily FX position. The DAB is the document that records that conversion: the amount of foreign currency that came in, the date, the rate applied, the lira amount produced, and the parties on both sides of the property or investment transaction.

Three things make the DAB special for the citizenship file:

• It is the only Central-Bank-recognised proof that the qualifying-investment funds actually arrived in Türkiye through the official FX system.
• It links the foreign-currency inflow to a specific transaction (a property purchase, a bank deposit, a fund subscription) by listing the parties.
• It carries a serial number that goes into TKGM’s electronic system at the deed-registration moment. No serial, no annotation, no conformity certificate.

A SWIFT confirmation alone is not enough. A wire receipt alone is not enough. Lira already sitting in a Turkish account is not enough. The Central Bank wants the conversion to happen at a Turkish bank, in the right window, with the right paperwork.

How the DAB is issued in practice

For a real-estate purchase, the operational sequence is this:

1. Buyer’s foreign account wires foreign currency (USD, EUR, GBP) to the seller’s Turkish bank account. Increasingly, buyers also wire to their own newly opened Turkish account first, then transfer lira to the seller after the DAB is issued; both patterns work, the first is faster.
2. The receiving Turkish bank holds the foreign currency until the conversion instruction. The instruction is typically given by the seller (or the seller’s lawyer) on the day of the planned deed transfer.
3. The bank converts foreign currency to lira at that day’s TCMB rate, books the FX trade against the Central Bank’s position, and prints the DAB. The certificate carries the buyer’s name, the seller’s name, the property identifier (ada, parsel, bağımsız bölüm numarası), the foreign-currency amount in, the rate, and the lira amount out.
4. The lira balance is then paid to the seller (or, in the some-banks-pattern, to the seller’s bank account at the same bank).
5. At the Land Registry, the deed is transferred and the DAB serial number is entered into TKGM’s record alongside the title transfer. The 3-year no-sale annotation is added in the same transaction.

For a bank deposit, the sequence is shorter: foreign currency in, DAB issued at the deposit-acceptance moment, lira deposited, BDDK letter follows.

For a fund subscription, similar: foreign currency in, DAB issued, lira subscribed, MKK custody record follows.

The DAB is on bank letterhead, stamped, and the original (not a copy) is what goes into the file. Banks issue duplicates on request if the original is lost, but the duplicate carries a “düplikat” note; the file goes through faster with the original.

Trap 1: Converting before the deed transfer date

The most common first-timer mistake. The buyer’s foreign currency arrives in the Turkish bank account three weeks before the deed transfer. To “secure the rate” the buyer instructs the bank to convert immediately. Three weeks later, at the Tapu Müdürlüğü, the DAB date does not match the deed transfer date and TKGM raises a question.

The question is usually resolvable, but it adds time. The cleaner pattern is to leave the foreign currency in the Turkish account until the day before the deed transfer, then convert. Banks are used to this; ask them to expect the conversion call. The FX rate is what it is on the day; trying to time the lira does not produce a better outcome at the scale of a citizenship transaction.

Trap 2: Converting at a bank that is not the seller’s bank

If the buyer’s bank converts the foreign currency and then wires lira to the seller’s bank, the DAB lists the buyer’s bank. The seller’s bank — which is the one with the seller as a customer — has no record of receiving foreign currency. Some Land Registries accept this; some ask for a second confirmation from the buyer’s bank explicitly identifying the seller; some send the file back.

The clean pattern is to wire the foreign currency directly to the seller’s Turkish bank and have the seller’s bank issue the DAB. The seller’s bank has a relationship with the seller and is set up to handle the conversion-plus-DAB pattern. If the buyer’s lawyer recommends otherwise, ask why.

Trap 3: A DAB amount that does not match the appraisal

If the SPK appraisal is $410,000 but the buyer wired $400,000 (intending to make up the difference with a separate lira payment from a Turkish account), the DAB shows $400,000 and TKGM compares it with the $410,000 appraisal and asks where the other $10,000 came from.

The clean answer is that the foreign-currency portion of the purchase must equal the appraisal value (or more), with the excess refunded after the deed. Or: the buyer wires the full appraisal value to the seller’s bank, converts it all in one DAB, and the seller refunds any surplus to the buyer’s local account afterwards. Whatever pattern is chosen, the DAB amount needs to be greater than or equal to the appraisal amount for the conformity certificate to issue cleanly.

Trap 4: Multiple wires, multiple DABs

For larger purchases or for buyers who staged the funds across several wires, multiple DABs are issued by the same bank for the same transaction. This is fine, but the conformity certificate review will ask whether the sum of the DABs equals the appraisal value, and whether all of them refer to the same property. The clean pattern is one DAB per property, even if the funds came from several sources. If multiple DABs are unavoidable, ask the bank to issue a covering letter that references all of them as parts of one transaction.

What the DAB is not

The DAB is not:

• A receipt of payment to the seller (that is a separate wire confirmation).
• A tax document (although it can be referenced in tax computations).
• A residence-permit document.
• Transferable. The DAB is issued to a specific buyer-seller pair on a specific transaction. You cannot reuse a DAB from one property purchase on a different property.

It is, simply, the Central Bank’s stamp that says “foreign currency entered Türkiye, was converted at this rate on this day, for this transaction”. The file lives or dies by it.

Working examples

For a clean $420,000 real-estate purchase with the seller’s bank issuing the DAB:

• Foreign currency in: $420,000 wired from buyer’s US account to seller’s account at Garanti BBVA Beyoğlu branch.
• Hold for two days; deed transfer scheduled for 14 May at 10:30 at the Beyoğlu Tapu Müdürlüğü.
• Morning of 13 May, seller’s lawyer instructs Garanti to convert.
• DAB issued same day at TCMB indicative rate (illustrative: 1 USD = TRY 39.42, lira amount TRY 16,556,400). Buyer’s name, seller’s name, property identifiers (mahalle, ada, parsel, bağımsız bölüm) on the certificate.
• 14 May, deed transfer. TKGM enters the DAB serial into the record. The 3-year no-sale annotation is added in the same transaction. The buyer leaves the Tapu Müdürlüğü with a stamped deed and a copy of the DAB.

For a $500,000 bank deposit at İş Bankası: similar pattern, slightly compressed. Foreign currency in, conversion the same day, lira credited to a 3-year locked deposit account. BDDK letter follows within ten business days.

See also

• The requirements page for the place the DAB sits in the document file.
• The real-estate route page for the deed-transfer end of the process.
• The process and timeline page for where the FX leg lands in the overall sequence.
• The source-of-funds pack for the documentation the receiving bank wants to see before it agrees to the conversion.