Turkish Citizenship by Investment (CBI)

Turkish CBI has seven qualifying routes: (1) USD 400,000+ in Turkish real estate, one property or several combined, with a 3-year non-resale annotation on the title deed; (2) a USD 500,000 fixed-capital investment; (3) USD 500,000 (or the equivalent in foreign currency) sold to a Turkish bank, which sells it on to the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, and kept in Turkey for 3 years; (4) USD 500,000 in Turkish government debt instruments held for 3 years; (5) USD 500,000 in real-estate or venture-capital investment fund shares held for 3 years; (6) USD 500,000 in the private pension system (BES) held for 3 years; or (7) creating jobs for at least 50 people. On the property route the SPK valuation must reach USD 400,000, and so must the title-deed price and the foreign-currency payments (a higher contract price does not make up for a lower valuation); shared-title (hisseli) purchases have not counted since 1 February 2023, agricultural and unbuilt land have not counted since 12 December 2023, and an off-plan purchase must be covered in full by a single notarised sale-promise contract.

From opening a Turkish bank account to receiving the passport, the complete process typically runs 8–12 months. Steps include tax-ID registration, investment execution, the foreign-currency purchase certificate (DAB), real-estate valuation (for the property route), the eligibility certificate (Uygunluk Belgesi), the J-type investor residence permit, the citizenship application, and ID/passport collection. Having your documents ready from day one helps avoid delays, but the length of the final review is set by the authorities, not by us.

Your spouse and any children under 18 qualify under the same investment, at no additional cost. Parents, adult children (18+), siblings, and other relatives do not qualify under the same application, they would need their own qualifying investment or a separate residency pathway (a work permit, a student permit, or a property-based short-term residence permit for residential property of at least USD 200,000).

Turkey permits dual citizenship. However, the People's Republic of China does not recognise dual nationality, acquiring a foreign passport may be treated as automatic loss of Chinese nationality, which can affect your children's long-term schooling, social insurance, and inheritance rights in China. Before applying, we strongly recommend a cross-border planning session covering: how the new passport will be used, whether any declaration to Chinese authorities is needed (to be confirmed with qualified PRC counsel), and how to protect your family's long-term position. This is not 'one more passport', it deserves a 10-year plan.

3 years from the title-deed transfer (real estate) or deposit date (bank / pension fund). During the 3-year lock-up: real estate carries an explicit non-resale annotation registered in the land registry, and bank or pension fund balances are blocked. After 3 years, you may sell, withdraw, or restructure the investment freely without affecting your Turkish citizenship. If the investment conditions are breached, or the valuation is later found to have been inflated or otherwise irregular, the eligibility certificate can be cancelled and the citizenship of the investor and family members revoked.

We run the complete CBI engagement as your project manager: independent property valuation coordinated through an SPK-licensed appraiser (avoiding the inflated-CBI-property trap), Turkish tax-ID and bank account opening, foreign-currency purchase certificate (DAB) compliance, a step where files often go wrong, title-deed transfer with the correct 3-year annotation executed at the land registry, then the eligibility certificate, J-type investor residence permit, and citizenship application, each filed by your independent Turkish lawyer while we manage the file and report to you at every milestone. Beyond the procedural work, we coordinate the cross-border tax planning and China-side nationality strategy that brokers don't touch. Our fees are transparent and agreed in writing before we start.