New legislation introduced in Turkey in January 2017 allows a person acquiring property at the value of USD1 million to acquire Turkish citizenship. There are a number of steps involved in this process which need to be considered before investment.
There is a holding period of three years during which the applicant cannot sell or transfer the acquired property to a third party. Before acquisition, a real estate appraisal report is required, which should evidence that the property is worth at least USD1 million. The report should be dated no more than one month prior to the application to the Land Registry. The investment does not have to be in one property, but can be made up of multiple investments, such as, for example, two villas and an office.
The only requirement is that the property must have been acquired after Jan 12, 2017. If the applicant does not already have residence in Turkey following the acquisition, such applicant should first apply for a residence permit before applying for citizenship. The citizenship application process takes around five to seven months, depending on the work load of the authorities.
Based on our experience so far, we believe this timescale can be shortened to three to four months, although, when added to the residency permit procedure, the whole process might take around 10-11 months. Legally speaking, an investor can buy property anywhere in Turkey, but we have witnessed that foreign buyers mainly prefer properties in Istanbul, Bursa, Antalya, Muğla, Yalova and other touristic cities.