Property Taxes in Turkey for Foreign Owners

Turkish income tax divides individuals into two groups. A full taxpayer is taxed on income earned inside and outside Turkey; a limited taxpayer, someone not resident in Turkey, only on income earned in Turkey. The group you are in decides whether Turkey looks only at your Turkish rent and sale proceeds, or at your income from abroad as well, although a new resident may have that foreign income exempted for twenty years, as the next section explains.

Two kinds of person are resident. The first is a person whose domicile (yerleşim yeri) is in Turkey; the Civil Code defines domicile as the place where a person lives with the intention of staying permanently. The second is a person who stays in Turkey continuously for more than six months within one calendar year; temporary absences do not interrupt that period.

The next article carves out an exception that matters to many foreign owners. Foreigners who come for a specific and temporary job, and those who come for study, medical treatment, rest or travel, are not resident even if they stay longer than six months. Nor are those kept in Turkey by circumstances outside their control, such as detention or illness.

The statute does not define rest or travel or limit how long such a stay may last. Whether someone who in practice lives in Muğla for most of the year is still a visitor, or has a domicile in Turkey, is a question of fact.

Law No. 7582, adopted on 21 May 2026, added repeated article 20/D to the Income Tax Law. It exempts from income tax, for twenty years, the earnings and income that an individual treated as resident in Turkey derives outside Turkey. The article speaks of individuals in general; it is not limited to foreign nationals.

The statute sets one condition: in the last three calendar years before becoming resident, the person must have had neither a domicile nor a tax liability in Turkey. Under the commencement article of Law No. 7582, the exemption applies to persons treated as resident in Turkey from 1 January 2026. Whether you are resident is still decided by the rules in the previous section; the exemption does not change them. The article authorises the Ministry of Treasury and Finance to set the rules for its application, and the Ministry has done so in Income Tax General Communiqué (Serial No. 333), published in the Official Gazette on 4 July 2026 and in force from that day. Neither the article nor the communiqué states expressly from which date the twenty years run.

The communiqué adds a procedural step that is easy to miss. A person who wants the exemption must apply to the tax office competent to assess their tax and obtain an exemption certificate for earnings and income derived from abroad (istisna belgesi) by the end of the calendar year in which they are treated as resident; a person treated as resident in the last two months of a year has until the end of the second month of the following year, that is, the end of February. You must already be treated as resident on the date you apply. The tax office checks the three-year condition, your residence and whether the application was made in time, and issues the certificate only once all of these are established. The communiqué's own example is a person who met the conditions but applied after the end of the year of residence: no certificate is issued. Where it is later found that someone used the exemption without meeting the conditions, the tax under-assessed is collected with a tax loss penalty and late payment interest.

The second paragraph of the article matters most to property owners. An earlier tax liability in Turkey because of immovable capital income (rent), income from movable capital (menkul sermaye iradı) or a value increase gain does not prevent the exemption. So having declared rent from a flat in Muğla, or a gain on selling one, as a non-resident does not by itself shut you out; the domicile condition still has to be met. The article names only these three kinds of income; it makes no such provision for an earlier liability on business, professional or employment income. Neither the article nor the communiqué says whether the property tax you pay to the municipality as an owner counts as a 'tax liability' for the three-year condition; the article's express carve-out covers only rent, income from movable capital and value increase gains, so raise this with the tax office when you apply.

The exemption covers only earnings and income derived outside Turkey. Rent from your Turkish property and a gain on selling it are not foreign income and remain subject to the rules on this page. The exempt income is not declared on an annual return, and if you file a return for other income it is left out of that return. Expenses and costs relating to the exempt income are not taken into account in computing taxable income, and foreign tax paid on it cannot be deducted from Turkish income tax. If it is later found that the conditions were not met, the tax not assessed is treated as lost (ziyaa uğramış), which brings in the tax loss rules described below.

Every building in Turkey is subject to building tax, and land is taxed separately. The tax is paid by the owner, by the holder of a usufruct where there is one, or, failing both, by whoever uses the building as if they owned it. Co-owners pay in proportion to their shares; owners in joint ownership (elbirliği mülkiyeti) are jointly and severally liable.

The rate is one per thousand of the tax value for residences and two per thousand for other buildings; undeveloped land is taxed at one per thousand and building plots at three per thousand. All these rates are increased by one hundred per cent inside metropolitan municipality boundaries. Under Law No. 6360, Muğla's metropolitan municipality has the provincial boundaries, so the increased rates apply throughout the province. The President may halve the rates or raise them up to three times.

There is one exception inside metropolitan provinces such as Muğla. Where the metropolitan council, on the proposal of the district council, has designated a former village or town that became a neighbourhood as a rural neighbourhood (kırsal mahalle), or has designated a rural settlement area (kırsal yerleşik alan) within another neighbourhood, buildings used as residences there are exempt from property tax, and buildings, plots and land used for commercial, industrial or tourism activities pay it with a fifty per cent reduction. Neither applies to taxpayers who keep balance-sheet books. The statute does not list the designated neighbourhoods; they are fixed by the council's decisions.

The President may also reduce the rate to zero for the single residence, up to 200 square metres gross, of certain owners, such as those whose only income is a pension from a statutory social security institution, veterans and persons with disabilities. Residences used periodically for rest are excluded, so a holiday home does not qualify.

The tax is paid in two equal instalments, in March to May and in November. Liability begins in the budget year following the event that changes the tax value, and a change of owner is such an event. The owner files a property tax declaration with the municipality where the property is located within the budget year of the change, or within three months if it falls in the last three months of the year.

For 2026 a transitional article limits the increase: the building and land tax values calculated for 2026 may not exceed the 2025 tax values by more than two times (the statute's words are 'iki kat fazlasını geçemez'). Where the owner changes, as on a purchase, the same limit applies. The values for 2027 to 2029 are calculated from the values so determined; check the value on your own assessment.

Added to the Property Tax Law in 2019, this is a separate annual tax on residential property in Turkey whose building tax value exceeds a statutory threshold. The threshold and the value bands are increased every year by half of the revaluation rate under the Tax Procedure Law, and the President may raise that increase up to the full rate, so the figures must be checked for the year in question.

Only the part of the value above the threshold is taxed: at three per thousand in the lowest band, six per thousand in the middle band and ten per thousand in the top band. For property held in shares or in joint ownership, the bands apply to the total value of the property, not to each share. The owner, or the usufructuary where there is one, pays; co-owners pay in proportion to their shares.

The exemption that matters most to foreign owners: a person with only one residential property within Turkey is exempt for it, and a person with more than one is exempt for the lowest-value one that falls within the tax.

This tax is declared to the tax office of the Revenue Administration where the property is located, not to the municipality, by the end of 20 February of the year after the value first exceeds the threshold, and every year after that. It is paid in two equal instalments by the end of February and the end of August.

Rent from letting land or a building, including any amount charged for furniture, is immovable capital income (gayrimenkul sermaye iradı). For a limited taxpayer it is earned in Turkey when the property is located in Turkey, so living in the United Kingdom does not take rent from a Fethiye flat outside Turkish income tax.

Rent from letting a building as a residence carries an annual exemption amount, revalued each year. The article does not distinguish between full and limited taxpayers, so whether a limited taxpayer can use it, and how the income ceiling below is measured for them, should be confirmed for your own return. It is lost if receipts above it are not declared or are under-declared. It is not available to anyone who must file an annual return for commercial, agricultural or professional income, or whose gross wages, investment income, rental and other income together exceed the amount in the third bracket of the tariff for wage income.

Net income is found by deducting either actual expenses or a lump sum. Actual expenses include lighting, heating, water and lift costs paid by the landlord, insurance, taxes and fees on the property, depreciation, repairs and maintenance. In the current wording, interest on borrowing is deductible except for residences; for one property let as a residence, five per cent of the acquisition cost may be deducted for five years from the year of acquisition. The alternative is a lump sum of fifteen per cent of receipts, and having chosen it you cannot return to actual expenses for two years. Fines and tax penalties are never deductible.

Where the tenant is a company or another payer listed in the statute, it withholds income tax when paying the rent, and a limited taxpayer whose Turkish income has all been taxed by withholding files no annual return for it. Otherwise the return for a calendar year is filed between 1 and 25 March of the following year; for a limited taxpayer with a tax representative (vergi muhatabı) in Turkey, at the tax office where that representative lives. Rates are progressive, from fifteen to forty per cent, and the brackets are revalued every year.

Short stays raise a separate question. Under Law No. 7464, letting a residence for a maximum of one hundred days is tourism-purpose letting and needs a permit before the agreement is made, whatever the tax position.

What is called capital gains tax elsewhere is, in Turkish law, income tax on a value increase gain (değer artışı kazancı), one of the items of other income in the Income Tax Law. For property the decisive rule is the holding period: the gain is taxable only where the property is disposed of within five years from the date of acquisition.

The rule applies however the property was acquired, with one exception: property acquired free of charge, by inheritance or gift, is outside it. Disposal is not limited to sale; it covers any transfer for consideration, exchange, expropriation and contribution as capital to a company.

The net gain is the price received less the cost of the property, the seller's expenses of the disposal and the taxes and fees paid. The cost is increased by the rise in the wholesale price index determined by the State Institute of Statistics, as the statute words it, excluding the month of disposal, but only where that rise is ten per cent or more. A fixed annual amount of value increase gains is exempt and is revalued each year.

A resident seller includes the gain in the annual return. A non-resident seller not otherwise obliged to file an annual return declares it on a separate return (münferit beyanname) to the tax office where the property is located, within fifteen days of the date the income is acquired.

Inheritance and gifts are taxed separately: property located in Turkey that passes on death, or free of charge in any other way, is subject to inheritance and transfer tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi), covered on the inheritance page. The title deed fee and other costs of a purchase are covered on the page on buying property.

Turkish law taxes a full taxpayer on income from inside and outside Turkey, subject to the twenty-year exemption for new residents described above, and a limited taxpayer only on income earned in Turkey. Your country of residence applies its own law to the same income, and where both claim it, the overlap is resolved, if at all, by a treaty between the two states.

Under the Turkish Constitution, international agreements duly put into effect have the force of law, and they cannot be challenged before the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional. A treaty in force can therefore change the result the domestic rules on this page would produce.

Turkish law also has a domestic rule for residents. A full taxpayer may deduct similar taxes paid abroad on foreign income from the part of the Turkish income tax that falls on that income, but not beyond it. The foreign tax must be a personal tax on income, proven by documents from the competent foreign authorities certified by the Turkish embassy or consulate there. This deduction is not available for foreign tax paid on income that is exempt under repeated article 20/D.

This page does not summarise any treaty. If you live in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, check whether a treaty between Turkey and that country is in force, and read its provisions on income from immovable property, gains and pensions together with the relief rules at home.

Failing to file, or filing late or incompletely, so that tax is not assessed on time or is assessed short, is a tax loss (vergi ziyaı), and collecting the tax later does not prevent a penalty. The tax loss penalty is one times the tax lost, and three times where the loss results from the acts listed in article 359. For a return filed after its deadline the penalty is applied at fifty per cent, unless the return comes only after a tax inspection has started or the matter has been referred to an assessment commission.

Failing to file a return on time is also a first-degree procedural irregularity, punished under the table annexed to the Tax Procedure Law, and tax assessed later carries late-payment interest (gecikme faizi) from the normal due date.

Tax that is not assessed and notified within five years, counted from the beginning of the year following the year in which the tax claim arose, is time-barred. Referral to an assessment commission suspends that period for at most one year.

The statute offers a way to put things right first: voluntary disclosure (pişmanlık). If you report the matter yourself by petition before an informer has done so and before an inspection or assessment commission referral, file the missing return within fifteen days and pay the tax with the statutory surcharge within the same fifteen days, no tax loss penalty is imposed. Voluntary disclosure does not apply to property tax.

I advise on the legal framework and act in disputes; returns are ordinarily prepared and filed by a mali müşavir, and where a question crosses borders I work alongside your accountant and your adviser at home. This page is general information and does not replace advice on your own situation. Thresholds, exemption amounts and tax brackets are revalued every year and tax legislation is amended often, so confirm the current position before acting.