From property to passport: the 2026 timeline

Stage 1 — Tax number and a Turkish bank account

Everything starts with a Turkish tax number, now obtainable fully online through the Interactive Tax Office. With it, you open an account at a Turkish (BDDK-supervised) bank.

This has to come first, because the entire investment must flow through that account for the currency conversion to be documented properly.

Stage 2 — SPK valuation and confirming eligibility

An SPK-licensed valuation report must confirm the property is worth at least $400,000. Crucially, eligibility is judged on this appraised value, not the price you negotiate.

Remember the three-value rule: the paid price, the appraisal, and the value declared at the Land Registry must all clear the threshold.

Stage 3 — Paying correctly: FX conversion and the DAB

Your funds are converted to lira via the Turkish bank and sold to the Central Bank. The bank issues a foreign-exchange purchase certificate (DAB) — the proof the state needs that the money arrived through official channels.

Paying the seller directly in foreign currency, outside the banking system, is the classic way to invalidate an otherwise-good file.

Stage 4 — Title deed transfer and the 3-year annotation

The title (Tapu) is transferred at the Land Registry with a mandatory three-year no-sale annotation recorded against it. That annotation is your commitment to the holding period and protects the integrity of the program.

In practice, the property, banking and transfer steps together typically run about one to three weeks.

Stage 5 — The Certificate of Conformity

The Land Registry (TKGM) verifies that the transfer, the annotation, the SPK appraisal and the DAB all align, then issues the Certificate of Conformity (Uygunluk Belgesi) — the gateway document for the citizenship application.

This usually follows the deed and annotation by about one to two weeks.

Stage 6 — Residence permit and biometrics

CBI applicants file for a short-term residence permit, and the main applicant and spouse must attend in person for biometrics in Turkey.

From February 2026, Istanbul's same-day priority procedure lets eligible applicants complete residence-permit approval and the citizenship submission in a single day, where it previously meant two visits and a wait of several business days.

Stage 7 — Filing the citizenship application

The complete file goes to the General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs. Personal documents must be in order:

• Passport and biometric photos
• Birth certificate and marriage / marital-status certificate — apostilled, translated and notarised
• A clean criminal record, generally dated within the last six months

The security and background review is the longest single phase — commonly two to four months.

Stage 8 — Presidential approval and passport

The final decision rests with the President of the Republic. Once granted, the citizenship certificate is issued and the passport typically follows within a week or two.

Realistic total: about three to six months from completed investment to passport, faster under the 2026 streamlining — but every figure here depends on authority workload and a complete, correctly sequenced file. Most delays are self-inflicted, through errors in the valuation, the DAB or the apostilles. Build in a buffer, and get the sequence right the first time.