Selling Your Business from Turkey: 0% Capital Gains for 20 Years

The number that decides where a founder lands their exit is not the rate on dividends or the price of a passport. It is the rate on the day the wire hits for the sale of the company. Turkey just dropped that number to zero for the next twenty years.

Under Law 7582, a Turkish tax resident pays 0% Turkish capital-gains tax on the sale of a foreign business or shareholding, and the gain never appears on a Turkish return.

What the home-country rate would have been

Jurisdiction	Headline rate on a founder exit
United Kingdom	24% CGT
United States	20% LTCG + 3.8% NIIT = 23.8% federal
France	30% PFU (flat)
Germany	~26.4% (25% + solidarity)
Turkey under Law 7582	0% for 20 years

On a $5M exit the differential is around $1.2M. On a $25M exit, roughly $6M. On a $100M exit, $24M. The point of the move is the differential at the size of your actual outcome.

Timing is the dominant variable

The most expensive mistake in 2026 is the right destination on the wrong calendar.

The exemption attaches to the person at the moment the gain is realised. Become Turkish tax resident before the sale closes and the gain runs through Law 7582. Close first, move second, and the gain belongs to your prior residence.

A workable sequence:

1. T-minus 12 to 18 months: Turkish residence or citizenship route initiated. Banking opened. Source-of-funds packet built and dated.
2. T-minus 6 months: Physical relocation. School enrolment for kids. The kind of moving that survives a residence test in two countries at once.
3. T-minus 3 months: Turkish tax residence confirmed for the calendar year of the sale.
4. Closing: Gain realised by a Turkish tax resident. Zero Turkish tax.

Compress that and a tax authority somewhere will read it as exit planning, not a real move.

Your home country still has rules on the leave side

Three to watch:

• UK temporary non-residence. Leave, sell, return inside 5 years, and certain gains get pulled back into UK CGT on return. The plan has to assume you are not returning.
• US expatriation tax. US citizens are taxed worldwide regardless of residence. Renouncing triggers Section 877A, a mark-to-market exit charge above the exclusion. Turkish residence does not change US filings; only renunciation does.
• German Wegzugsteuer. A German resident holding more than 1% of a German corporation triggers an exit tax on unrealised gains at departure.

The Turkish layer is one side of a two-sided trade.

Foreign exits, not Turkish operating companies

The exemption covers foreign-source gains. Sell shares in a Delaware C-corp, a UK Ltd, a Dutch BV, and you are in scope. Sell shares in a Turkish A.Ş. or Ltd. Şti. and the gain is Turkish-source and taxed normally.

The implication: do not redomicile a foreign operating company into Turkey expecting the exemption to travel with it. It will not. Keep the value-creating entity outside Turkey; keep the person inside Turkey.

Earn-outs and deferred consideration

Most exits are not one wire on one day. A closing tranche, an escrow release, an earn-out over two or three years, sometimes equity rollover into the acquirer. Each tranche is its own taxable event with its own source and date. Keep Turkish residence intact across the full earn-out window so every tranche lands at 0%. Break residence in year two for personal reasons and the year-three tranche may belong to wherever you went next.

A worked example

A UK founder closing a SaaS exit for $25M in mid-2027. UK CGT exposure at 24% would be around £4.8M.

She begins her Turkish move in mid-2026: citizenship under the $400,000 property purchase, banking, residence permit. By Q1 2027 she is Turkish tax resident for the year. The sale closes Q3 2027, $20M at closing and $5M escrow released through 2029.

• $20M closing tranche, as a Turkish tax resident: 0% Turkish under Law 7582.
• $5M escrow release in 2029, still Turkish tax resident: 0% Turkish.
• UK exit position handled on its own basis; she plans to remain non-resident for more than 5 years.

Turkish layer clean. UK position needed its own plan. Both worked because the timeline had room.

Read this before you brief a banker

• The law is weeks old. Law 7582 published 4 June 2026, with Treasury implementing communiqués still landing on the cross-border mechanics. Confirm specifics with a Turkish tax advisor before closing.
• Source-of-funds will be examined. The bigger the exit, the more the receiving Turkish bank wants a documented chain back to founding equity. Build the file ahead, not on demand.
• Residence is the trigger, not the passport. A Turkish citizen who lives in London is taxed by the UK. A Turkish tax resident who lives in Istanbul gets the 0%.

General information, not tax advice. Cross-border exits need a qualified professional on each side of the deal.

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If a sale is on your calendar inside the next 24 months and you have been quoted a seven- or eight-figure tax bill at home, the Turkish stack deserves a serious look. Tell us the rough size, timing and your current residence, and we will map the citizenship, the move and the exit as one plan.