YUVAM discontinued: what it means for the deposit route

The Treasury and the Central Bank quietly wound down the YUVAM (Yurt Dışında Yaşayanlar Mevduat) currency-protected deposit through the first half of 2025. The last batch of new YUVAM accounts opened in March 2025; existing accounts continue to mature at their original terms. The standard Turkish lira and foreign-currency deposit routes for citizenship are unaffected; the wind-down has narrowed the menu of subsidised options for non-resident depositors but it has not closed the deposit route to citizenship.

This post lays out what changed and what to do if you were planning the deposit route in 2026.

What YUVAM was

YUVAM launched in February 2022 as a parallel to the better-known KKM (Kur Korumalı Mevduat) currency-protection scheme, specifically for non-residents bringing foreign currency into Türkiye. The deposit was converted to lira at account opening and the Central Bank subsidised the lira account’s effective return so that the depositor was no worse off if the lira depreciated against the original foreign currency. It was a subsidy tool, not a citizenship instrument; it just happened to fit cleanly with the $500,000 deposit route for citizenship applicants who wanted lira-rate yields without lira-depreciation risk.

For programme-applicant traffic, YUVAM was popular in 2022 and 2023. The subsidy made the lira deposit produce returns that looked like high-grade emerging-market yield in dollar terms.

Why it was discontinued

The Central Bank stopped accepting new YUVAM accounts in March 2025 as part of the broader normalisation pass that wound down KKM at the same time. The subsidy was expensive (the Treasury covered the difference between the lira yield and the FX depreciation), and as the lira’s depreciation rate slowed in 2024–2025, the political case for continuing was weak. Existing YUVAM accounts roll off at maturity; there is no migration to a successor product.

For citizenship applicants whose three-year lock began in 2022 or 2023 on a YUVAM account: nothing changes. The account holds, the subsidy continues to maturity, the BDDK letter that supports the citizenship file is unaffected.

The deposit route in 2026

The $500,000 deposit route remains open, but the mechanics are narrower than most English-language guides describe. Since 6 January 2022, the rule has required the inbound foreign currency to be sold to the Central Bank on receipt; the resulting Turkish lira amount sits in a 3-year fixed-term deposit, blocked for the full term. There is no USD or EUR variant of the deposit itself. The “currency choice” you read about elsewhere refers to what you wire in, not what your deposit holds.

What YUVAM (and KKM, retired 23 August 2025) did was paper over the FX risk that comes with this structure. The Treasury subsidised the lira return so that, over the term, the depositor came out close to whole in dollar terms. Without that subsidy in 2026, the route’s TRY depreciation exposure is bare. Lira interest rates are still high in nominal terms, but the dollar-bar arithmetic over the last three-year windows has not been kind. Anyone considering this route now should run the math at the realistic depreciation they can stomach, not the headline coupon.

Which banks accept the deposit route cleanly

The bank choice matters more than is commonly understood. Some Turkish banks have a clear citizenship desk and process the BDDK letter within ten business days. Others process every file as a one-off and add weeks.

Working with foreign citizenship-route depositors in 2026: Garanti BBVA, İş Bankası, Akbank, Yapı Kredi, QNB Finansbank and Ziraat Bankası are all running the deposit route. The state-owned banks (Ziraat, Vakıfbank, Halkbank) sometimes take longer on the source-of-funds review; the private banks tend to be faster but more selective.

For applicants from sanctioned jurisdictions (most often Russia and Iran), the bank choice narrows further; not all banks accept the source-of-funds chain even when the chain is clean. See the Russian and Iranian nationality pages for the operational variants we use.

What changed in the file

Practically nothing on the citizenship side. The BDDK letter still confirms the deposit meets programme conditions. The conformity certificate still issues against that letter. The 3-year lock still produces the citizenship file’s qualifying-investment evidence.

What is gone is the subsidy. If you were planning the deposit route on the strength of YUVAM, the math is different now; run the calculator on the standard deposit option and compare with the real-estate route.