Turkey: citizenship through property maintained at $400,000

Turkey grants its nationality to a foreigner who acquires a property of a minimum value, provided they keep it for a period set by the regulations.

The threshold is set at from $400,000¹. The property must be kept for 3 years², with a restriction on sale recorded in the land registry.

An alternative route exists through fixed capital investment, with a minimum amount of $500,000³.

The scheme is the fastest among programmes granting nationality and one of the few based on a recoverable asset, whereas the Caribbean contribution is lost for good.

The first is the exchange rate. The threshold is denominated in dollars, but the Turkish property market trades in Turkish lira, whose value has depreciated sharply. The same property may therefore meet the threshold or not depending on the rate used and the date of the valuation.

The second is the official valuation. The Turkish authorities require a report from an approved valuer, and it is the value in that report — not the price paid — that is measured against the threshold. A gap between the two is common and can cause an already-funded application to fail.

These two parameters explain why an apparently stable threshold produces, in practice, a variable requirement. A buyer who reasons solely on the headline amount risks an unpleasant surprise at the valuation stage.

A third point deserves attention: resale. The 3 years² restriction on sale ties up the asset, and the resale market at this price level is largely made up of other applicants to the same scheme.

We do not publish Turkish application fees, transfer duties or processing times: they do not appear in the official sources we have been able to verify.

The Turkish passport gives visa-free access to about 118⁴ destinations. For a French national, whose passport opens considerably more, the gain in mobility is therefore nil.

The programme's real value lies elsewhere: in the access it opens to the United States through the treaty trader and investor visa, as Turkey is one of the countries bound to the United States by a treaty to that effect.

In tax terms, nationality changes nothing. Turkish tax residency follows its own criteria, and the income tax schedule ranges from 15%⁵ on its first band to 40%⁶ at its top marginal rate.

Corporate tax stands at 25%⁷, and inheritance tax ranges from 1%⁸ to 30%⁹ depending on the nature of the transfer.

Turkey is therefore not a low-tax jurisdiction, and a French national who acquired Turkish nationality without moving their residency there would remain fully taxable in France.

The threshold has already been raised significantly once, and pressure on the property market in Turkey's major cities fuels a recurring public debate about the presence of foreign buyers.

The authorities have also restricted property purchases by foreigners in certain saturated neighbourhoods. A project must therefore check not only the threshold, but also the eligibility of the intended location.

Finally, Turkish inflation and the volatility of the lira are the underlying risk. A Turkish property investment is a bet on the currency as much as on bricks and mortar, and rental income received in local currency suffers the same erosion.

For a French buyer, the practical conclusion is that this programme should be judged as a high-risk property investment coupled with a passport of little added value. It only makes sense for those specifically seeking the access to the United States that it opens.