Selling or Gifting Property in Turkey as a Foreign Owner

Turkish law separates agreeing to sell from transferring ownership. A sale of immovable property is valid only if the contract is made in official form, and the same applies to a promise to sell, a repurchase agreement and an option to buy. Ownership passes on registration in the land register (tapu sicili).

The official deed (resmi senet) is drawn up by the land registry staff, not by the parties or an estate agent. It is signed by the parties and by the registry staff who prepared it, and approved by the registry director or an authorised officer. The parties' identity details and their tax identification numbers are recorded in the deed, so a foreign seller needs a Turkish tax number before the appointment.

If you do not speak Turkish, a sworn interpreter must be present. The interpreter signs the deed too, and staff of the registry where the transaction is made cannot act as interpreter. Where there is doubt about a party's identity, two witnesses are required.

Yes, by one of two routes. The first is an attorney. A general mandate is not enough: unless specifically authorised, an agent may not transfer immovable property, encumber it with a right, or make a gift. The power of attorney therefore has to state the authority to sell, or to give, the property. How such a power is executed abroad and made usable in Turkey is covered in the guide on powers of attorney.

A mandate also covers the legal acts needed to carry out the task it describes. For that reason the scope is worth writing narrowly: which property, at what minimum price, and whether the attorney may receive the purchase money.

The second route needs no attorney. Since an amendment made in 2019, the Land Registry Law allows a contract transferring ownership of immovable property to be completed where the parties are at different land registries or at the registry's organisation abroad: officials take each party's declaration separately and the contract is completed. The procedure is set by regulation, so whether this route is open for your location and timetable should be settled before a completion date is agreed.

On a sale, the title deed fee (tapu harcı) is charged to the transferor and the transferee separately. The rate shown in the Fees Law tariff as currently applied is two per cent (binde 20) each. The President may vary the statutory rate of one per cent (binde 10) for that item, by type of property, between one tenth of it and double it, so the rate on the day of completion should be confirmed.

The fee is calculated on the price declared at the registry, which may not be lower than the property tax value. If it later emerges that the fee was paid on less than that value, or that the declared price did not reflect the real one, the shortfall is assessed together with a tax loss penalty equal to it. Declaring the real price is in the seller's own interest.

Several checks apply to a sale. First, the land registry checks the municipality's records and will not register a sale or gift of a building or land that has unpaid property tax (emlak vergisi). The exceptions are transfers that are not made by the owner's choice, such as registration of an inheritance, a court order or enforcement, so they do not cover a sale by an owner who inherited the property. Second, for a building or independent section subject to compulsory earthquake insurance (DASK), the registration cannot be carried out unless it is documented that the policy has been taken out and is valid on the transaction date. Third, if you acquired the property by inheritance or gift, the inheritance and transfer tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi) on it must have been paid in full before the land registry will process a sale, unless security is accepted for it.

The essential rule is in the Income Tax Law. Gains from disposing of immovable property within five years of the date of acquisition are capital gains (değer artışı kazancı), whatever the manner of acquisition, except where the property was acquired without consideration. Disposal means sale, transfer for consideration, exchange, expropriation, nationalisation or contribution as capital to a company.

Two consequences matter for families. A property you received without consideration, such as by gift, is outside the five-year rule when you sell it. And a gift is not among the listed forms of disposal, because it is a transfer without consideration.

How the gain is calculated, the annual exemption amount (revalued every year) and how a non-resident seller declares are explained on the page on property taxes in Turkey.

A gift (bağışlama) is a contract by which the donor undertakes to make a transfer from their assets to the recipient without consideration, with effect during their lifetime. A promise to give immovable property, or a real right in it, is valid only in official form, and the rule that an informal promise becomes a valid gift once performed does not apply where official form is required. In practice, a gift of land or a flat is made by an official deed at the land registry, exactly as a sale is.

The donor may stipulate that the property returns to them if the recipient dies first. Where the gift is of immovable property, that return condition can be annotated in the land register, which makes it visible to anyone dealing with the property later.

If the recipient is a foreign national, the rules on acquisition by foreigners apply to them as they would to a buyer: they must be a citizen of a country designated by the President, the total area acquired by foreign nationals may not exceed ten per cent of the privately owned area of the district, and no one may acquire more than thirty hectares nationwide.

Do not record a gift as a sale. In a decision of 18 June 2025, the Court of Cassation (1st Civil Chamber, E. 2024/3052, K. 2025/3097) upheld the dismissal of a parent's claim to take back a home transferred to their son. According to the parent, the intention was a gift, but the transfer had been registered as a sale at the son's request so that he could use a loan. Because the transfer was made as a sale, the Court held that the grounds for revoking a gift had no application. The lower courts had also found that the claim that the sale was a sham required written evidence, and that it was proved neither in writing nor by the oath the parent relied on.

Recording a gift as a sale also exposes the transfer after your death. Under the Court of Cassation's settled case law, based on its 1974 unifying decision, where an owner who in reality wanted to give a registered property declared a sale at the land registry in order to deprive heirs of their inheritance, every heir whose inheritance right was infringed, whether or not they hold a reserved share, may sue to have the sale declared invalid and the title entry cancelled (muris muvazaası). The heirs bear the burden of proving that purpose; in a decision of 14 May 2026 (1st Civil Chamber, E. 2025/5797, K. 2026/4124) the Court reversed a judgment for an heir who had not proved it.

The transfer without consideration of property located in Turkey is subject to inheritance and transfer tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi). For property located in Turkey the tax applies whatever the nationality of the parties. It also extends to property that a Turkish citizen acquires abroad in the same ways, which matters if the recipient holds Turkish citizenship. The taxpayer is the person who acquires the property, so on a gift it is the recipient, not the donor.

The rates for transfers without consideration rise through bands from 10 to 30 per cent. Where the gift comes from the recipient's mother, father, spouse or child, the tax is calculated at half those rates. The band thresholds, and an exemption amount for transfers without consideration, are revalued every year, so the current figures have to be confirmed.

The recipient must file a return within one month of the date on which the property was legally acquired; for land, that is the registration. A recipient living abroad files the return with a Turkish consulate. The tax is paid over three years in two equal instalments each year, in May and November.

Until the tax on a gifted property has been paid in full, the recipient cannot transfer it or create a real right over it, and the land registry will not process a transfer without a clearance certificate (ilişik kesme belgesi) from the tax office, unless security for the tax has been accepted.

The Fees Law tariff has a separate item for gifts of immovable property, charged on the registered value. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the fee is payable by the person acquiring the property.

I advise foreign owners on sales and gifts of property in Muğla within my property law work. This page is general information and does not replace advice on your own situation; fee rates and revalued tax figures change, so the current position should be confirmed before you act.