Moving to Türkiye in 2026: What the New Package Really Buys You

Türkiye stopped being just a citizenship-by-investment story in 2026. A 20-year foreign-income tax exemption, a halved corporate rate for manufacturers, a compliance regime that finally looks like the rest of the OECD, and a passport route that still closes in under a year, have combined into a relocation package that the big global advisory firms started quietly recommending this spring.

We build files at Easy Turkish Citizenship for a living, and the mix of who calls us has changed. Two years ago the caller was almost always an investor looking for a second document. Today it is a family who has read the tax law, priced their move against Dubai, London and Lisbon, and wants to know whether the 20-year window is as real as it reads.

This guide is what we tell them.

What the 2026 package really includes

The two laws that changed the conversation both hit the Resmî Gazete in the first half of 2026.

Law No. 7582 (Gazette 22 May 2026) introduces the headline piece: a 20-year exemption on qualifying foreign-source income for individuals who become Turkish tax residents in 2026 and were not Turkish residents in the previous three years. There is no cap on the amount exempted, no sunset for the individual applicant, and the exemption follows you for two decades of residency.

Alongside the personal-income measure, Türkiye halved corporate income tax for qualifying manufacturers, moved inheritance and gift tax on Turkey-based assets to a low single-percentage framework and folded an asset-declaration window into the transition.

Meanwhile, the citizenship-by-investment programme survived 2026 with its rules intact: $400,000 in appraised real estate held for three years, or $500,000 in a bank deposit, fund subscription or government bond. Neither Law 7579 nor Law 7584 (the 2026 property-market reforms) altered the threshold, the appraisal requirement or the three-year tapu annotation. If a promoter tells you the CBI rules just moved, they are selling you a different jurisdiction.

The combined effect is what makes the 2026 conversation different: a live 20-year tax window, layered on top of a fast passport, layered on top of a real-estate market that has recovered from the 2022 lows.

The 20-year window, in the language a family asks about

Every question we get on Law 7582 comes back to three sub-questions. Here is how we answer them.

1. “Am I eligible?”

The eligibility gate is a three-year clean-slate test. If you were not a Turkish tax resident in any of the three calendar years before your residency-establishing move, you qualify. That means most first-time movers pass by definition. Returning Turks who left more than three years ago also qualify.

You also need to become a Turkish tax resident in fact, not just on paper. That happens automatically if you spend more than 183 days in Türkiye in a calendar year, or by establishing a permanent home and formally electing residency earlier. Our becoming-a-tax-resident guide breaks down the timing.

2. “What income does it cover?”

Foreign-source income means income economically generated outside Türkiye. In practice that covers:

• Dividends from foreign holding companies you own or control
• Employment income from a non-Turkish employer for work performed at least partly abroad
• Capital gains on foreign shares, bonds and real estate
• Rental income from properties outside Türkiye
• Royalty and licence income sourced abroad

What the exemption does not cover: Turkish-clients-routed-through-a-foreign-shell (the source rule looks through), Turkish real estate rental income and Turkish employment income. This is why relocating with a foreign holdco structure that predates your move usually works cleanly, while spinning up a shell in month two rarely does.

3. “How does this compare to the ones I have heard of?”

For the profile most likely to read this page (offshore income above $500,000/year, family of three or four, existing exposure to a high-tax jurisdiction), the closest analogues are the UK’s now-abolished non-dom regime, Italy’s flat-tax and Portugal’s dead NHR.

Türkiye’s 20-year framework is materially longer than any of them.

Regime	Duration	Cap	Status
UK Non-Dom	Until 2025	None	Closed to new claimants
Italy €200k Flat Tax	15 years	Flat €200k/yr	Open
Portugal NHR	10 years	Rate-based	Closed to new claimants
Cyprus 60-Day Non-Dom	17 years	None	Open
Türkiye Law 7582	20 years	None	Open (2026 onwards)

For the UK non-dom refugee or the Portuguese NHR-locked family, Türkiye is now the only mainstream European-adjacent regime that offers a 20-year window without a per-year flat charge.

Citizenship, layered on top

The tax measure is powerful on its own. What most callers want, and what pushes them from a shortlist of jurisdictions to a decision, is that Türkiye layers citizenship in under twelve months on top of the exemption.

The real-estate route: $400,000, and you keep the asset

The default choice for 2026 applicants remains buying qualifying property. One or more properties with an SPK-licensed appraisal totalling at least $400,000. A three-year no-sale annotation on the tapu. Presidential decree usually six to nine months after the purchase.

Unlike a Caribbean donation, the money does not disappear. You own the property. You can live in it, rent it, or sell it at the end of the three-year lock. We tell every applicant to run the cheapest-CBI comparison numbers themselves: a $400,000 Istanbul apartment sold three years later at a realistic haircut often lands cheaper than a $100,000 Dominica donation, once you count what you got back.

The bank-deposit route: $500,000, no property

The deposit route closes at the same speed and needs no real-estate homework. Since the KKM scheme wound down in August 2025, the currency risk sits with the depositor rather than the Treasury. That has changed the calculus enough that our real-estate vs deposit split has moved from 80/20 to closer to 95/5 in 2026.

At a glance

Route	Minimum	Lock-in	Recoverable?	Typical timeline
Real estate	$400,000	3 years	Yes, sellable at term	6–9 months
Bank deposit	$500,000	3 years	Yes, principal returned	7–12 months
Investment fund	$500,000	3 years	Yes, at NAV	7–12 months
Government bonds	$500,000	3 years	Yes, at maturity	7–12 months

The Easy Turkish Citizenship team walked more than forty families through a qualifying tapu transfer in the first half of 2026 alone. The number that mattered to almost all of them was not $400,000. It was the difference between a route where the capital comes back and one where the fee is gone.

Dual citizenship is permitted under Article 44 of Turkish Citizenship Law No. 5901. Turkey does not ask you to renounce anything.

For the operational sequence, our process page has the week-by-week playbook. For an all-in cost breakdown for your specific situation, the calculator handles the numbers.

Where the value compounds: cities, districts, real prices

Once families accept the tax and passport arithmetic, the next question is always where in Türkiye.

The three cities we open most files in are Istanbul, Antalya and Bodrum. Each has a different profile.

Istanbul is the business capital. Beşiktaş, Şişli, Nişantaşı and Etiler on the European side sit at $2,400 to $4,800 per square metre in 2026 for the kind of stock a $400,000 to $700,000 CBI budget can secure. Kadıköy and Ataşehir on the Asian side trade slightly below. Net rental yields for a well-managed short-let unit in Beşiktaş land at 4 to 6 percent in 2026.

Antalya is where families relocate for lifestyle rather than business. Lara, Konyaaltı and Kepez trade at $1,300 to $2,700 per square metre. Yields are higher (5 to 7 percent net) because tourist rental demand runs eight months a year. The airport handles direct flights to most of Europe.

Bodrum is where second-passport buyers overlap with second-home buyers. Yalıkavak, Türkbükü and Göltürkbükü trade above $3,500 per square metre for the villa stock a CBI file targets, and materially more for waterfront. Yield is a summer story: high in July and August, thin the other ten months.

Before any deposit is signed, every 2026 file also gets a closed-district check (foreign-buyer restrictions apply to roughly 1,100 mahalles) and a forest-cadastre check (see our 2026 property-reforms explainer).

The foreign-buyer property guide covers the full seven-step process, from tax number to title transfer.

What the month really costs

For a family of three moving to the European side of Istanbul in 2026, our clients report the following realistic monthly numbers:

Category	Realistic monthly (family of 3)
Furnished rent, Beşiktaş or Şişli	$1,500–$2,500
International primary school	$800–$2,100
Private health insurance (2 adults + 1 child)	$250–$450
Groceries, dining out	$1,200–$2,000
Car, fuel, parking	$400–$600
Utilities, internet, phone	$150–$250
Household help (part-time)	$200–$400
Everything else	$500–$1,200
Total	$5,000–$9,500

The comparable London family lives at $16,000 to $22,000 monthly. Central Dubai closer to $13,000. Zurich rarely below $20,000. That gap is what funds the relocation for most of the profiles we work with.

Antalya and Bodrum land 20 to 35 percent below the Istanbul numbers.

The practical plumbing: banking, business, foreign workforce

Türkiye’s paperwork infrastructure has improved measurably since 2023. A Turkish tax number takes fifteen minutes at any tax office. A bank account can be opened in person on arrival or by power of attorney beforehand. A limited-liability company (limited şirket) can be incorporated in two to three business days at the trade registry.

The one thing that has not simplified is the source-of-funds packet the receiving bank now expects. The 2025 compliance pass reshaped what banks accept. A statement showing a lump sum is no longer enough. Our team at Easy Turkish Citizenship maintains active relationships with three banks that will open for a well-documented CBI-track applicant on the day of arrival, but the packet still has to be built.

For the foreign-exchange side, every CBI file needs a Döviz Alım Belgesi (DAB) from the receiving bank showing that the foreign currency was sold to a Turkish bank at spot rate before purchase. The compliance layer above that is what most first-time buyers underestimate.

For companies employing foreigners, the work-permit process runs through the Ministry of Labour and typically closes in four to six weeks. Turkish employment law recognises remote-work contracts, which matters for founders keeping their existing team distributed while they relocate.

The trade-offs nobody sells you on

We do not write pages that pretend Türkiye is Switzerland. The trade-offs are real, and understanding them before you move is what separates a family who compounds value here from one that leaves after eighteen months.

Inflation. Headline CPI ran near 44% at 2024’s peak and has moderated through 2026, but the print is still measured in double digits. If your salary is Turkish and your groceries are lira-denominated, that is a cost. If your income is foreign and the exemption is in force, high domestic inflation quietly works in your favour because it depreciates the currency you spend without touching the currency you earn.

Lira exposure. The Central Bank has managed the currency more actively since 2023. That has narrowed the tail-risk range but has not removed it. Families with lira-denominated income should hedge or limit exposure. Families with foreign income and offshore savings usually only carry lira for their monthly spending float.

Tax-residency timing. Move too early in a calendar year and the 183-day clock starts running before your paperwork is filed. Our first-year-as-resident guide covers when to arrive, when to elect and when to trigger the exemption filing.

Military service, in one paragraph

For dual-national males born after 1996 who acquire Turkish citizenship after age 22, military service can usually be discharged through bedelli askerlik (paid exemption) at roughly TRY 68,000 (approximately $2,000 at 2026 exchange rates) or through age-based exemption after 22 continuous years of residence abroad. For late-thirties and older investors, this is almost never the deciding factor. For applicants with sons approaching 20, it is a conversation to have with your file lawyer before you sign anything.

Who this fits, without the marketing

Every jurisdiction is a fit for some profile and a mistake for others. Five patterns show up over and over in the Easy Turkish Citizenship intake:

• The offshore-income founder earning $500,000+ from a foreign holdco who was going to move to Dubai and quietly discovered Türkiye halves their all-in cost while adding a passport.
• The crypto exit family wanting a real place to live plus a tax-efficient base for the eight-figure realisation. See our Turkey crypto-gains page.
• The sanctions-adjacent household for whom Türkiye is one of the few remaining jurisdictions with functional banking and a fast passport. Our Russian-nationals guide and Iranian-nationals guide cover the specific mechanics.
• The pre-retirement Northern European trading Zurich or Munich costs for Antalya or Bodrum lifestyle, using the 20-year window for pension and investment income.
• The US E-2 candidate using Turkish citizenship as the gate to a US treaty investor visa, given Turkey’s E-2 treaty status and the three-year domicile rule that follows.

For each of these, the tax exemption is the reason to look and the citizenship is the reason to close.

The first twelve months, mapped

A typical family moving in Q3 2026 runs the following sequence. It is not the only order that works. It is the one we run most often.

Months 1–2 (pre-move). Source-of-funds packet built. Turkish tax number obtained by power of attorney. Bank account opened. Property shortlist run against closed-mahalle and forest-cadastre filters.

Months 3–4. Purchase closes. Appraisal in file. Tapu transferred with three-year annotation. DAB certificate issued. CBI file opens with the Ministry of Interior.

Months 5–7. Residence permits issued. Biometric appointment at the Provincial Directorate. Family joins on the same file.

Months 8–10. Security check. Presidential decree. Passport application at the Provincial Directorate or a Turkish consulate.

Month 11–12. Turkish tax residency election and Law 7582 exemption filing timed to the calendar year that maximises the 20-year window.

The Easy Turkish Citizenship intake team runs about twenty files a month through this exact sequence in 2026. The variability is at the front (how ready the source-of-funds packet is) and at the back (Turkish consulate scheduling). The middle is boringly reliable.

The bottom line for 2026

Türkiye in 2026 is a different value proposition than Türkiye in 2020 or 2023. The addition of a 20-year foreign-income exemption to an already fast citizenship programme has produced a package that stands up to comparison with the UK non-dom regime at its peak and outperforms the Portuguese NHR and Italian flat-tax on duration.

The path is not for everyone. If your income is Turkish, your spending is lira and your appetite for currency risk is low, other jurisdictions serve you better. If your income is foreign, your family is mobile and you want to close a full residency-plus-passport package inside twelve months, no other 2026 jurisdiction combines the pieces this cleanly.

We spend our days at Easy Turkish Citizenship helping families decide which side of that line they sit on. When we say the tax package works for a particular profile, we say it because we have run the number. When we say it does not, we say that too.

If you want to know which category you fall in, tell us your specific situation and we will tell you where the fit is real and where it is not.

See also

• The 20-year foreign-income exemption explained (Law 7582) — the underlying legislation, in plain English.
• Turkey tax residency hub — the 12 sub-pages covering different income types under the new framework.
• The real-estate CBI route and the deposit route.
• Turkey vs UAE, Portugal, Malta and the Caribbean — the head-to-head comparisons families run before deciding.
• The 2026 programme guide — for the qualifying rules in their current form.