Citizen based on Investment

@Good_day

Good morning, I hope all is well. I will answer your questions in detail belwo, but first I will give my recommendation based on my 6 years of experience in the sector.

It is always advised (and preferred by 99% of investors) to obtain Turkish citizenship via real estate investment of $400,000. Real estate in TUrkey (and especially in Istanbul) brings huge profits to investors. Statistically, in the past 4 years, the $ vs TL exchange rate has gone up by 274% while real estate prices (in $) have gone up by 400% (in some cases even more). This ratio clearly shows that there are huge profits to be made in $ when your real estate is correctly chosen by the right professional. Istanbul still remains the best city in Turkey to invest in. Some developers sign a contract with you where they oblige to buy back your real estate after 3 years. An official notarized contract is drawn up in this case.

Now, let us go to your questions.

1. It takes a minimum of 6-8 months to obtain your passport in hand. Whoever tells you it can be done quicker is not telling you the truth. The whole process is handled by an inhouse citizenship and immigration lawyer and consists of 8 stage. Each stage is processed by the government and can not be influnced / sped up by anyone.
2. Real Estate is the preferred option by majority. Durng my 6 years of experience I have only come across a couple o people who have invested into government bonds and have later regretted it as they haven't made any profit, while those who invested in real estate have made sustantial amounts (many still are making money because they have passed their real estate to property managing companies instead of selling it).
3. If you invest into funds or government bonds then you will simply lock your money for 3 years and let the government reap all the profit. You will get your money back in the same currency you have invested it in which can only be $, however, you will not have made any profit at all, so realistically, it can not be called an investment.
4. Every licensed company has an inhouse legal team headed by an immigration and citizenship lawyer who prepare, submit and track the entire application form beginning till end.

***

Sincerely,

Maksym

@The Abode Istanbul

Thank you Maksym. I was hoping that there will be more people on the forum who went through the investment route and can chime in.

Hello, I am considering acquiring Turkiye citizenship through investment. I believe there three ways. One is to buy real estate worth $400,000. Another is to invest $500,000 in government bond and the third is to invest $500,000 in real estate investment fund. All the three requires minimum three years of holding period. Has anybody on this forum gone through this route? If so, I have the following questions if you can please answer.

How much time did it take from beginning to getting the passport in the hand?
Which of the three investment is recommended? I am not keen on buying the real estate. May be invest in fund?
After the three years if I want the money back, do I get it in the Turkish currency or in the dollars I invested? Do I have the option? If I get it in the Turkish currency, I may lose quite a bit of capital because of the depreciating currency.
How did you find the law firm to assist you with the immigration processing?


Regards,
Good Day
-@Good_day

I know some people who got citizenship through the citizenship investment program in Turkey.

Some of them got it through the real estate investment program and they bought properties in Istanbul, and Yalova, and every single one of them have lost huge amounts on the properties, and it has all devalued far below what they originally invested into it.

I know others who put their money into a Turkish bank account, or buy bonds, and if you do that it automatically gets converted from USD or Euros to Turkish Liara, and then you have to convert the TL back at the end back to USD or Euros. Most people who did this have lost over 60% of their money after converting it back to USD or Euro.

It can take anywhere from 4 months to 6 months depending on the speed of the government from investment and filing the paperwork to getting your citizenship. I have heard some take longer depending on the country you are from, or if there is anything in your background that they want to do an extra security screening on you for.

@Randomguy2000, thank you for your response. If the dollars are going to get converted to Lira and then converted again, most of the value will be lost because of the depreciation of the local currency. Doesn't seem like a good option. I will keep researching on this. Thank you.

@Good_day

I questioned the benefits for gaining Turkish citizenship last year and started a topic posing the question for why I should consider citizenship. As a retired US citizen becoming an expat in Turkey, I was informed that I should not consider it as there is nothing to be gained. Your circumstance may warrant consideration, however, as you can see from the response from Randomguy2000, there is risk involved in the investment required for citizenship. For reference, here is the link to the topic I initiated posing the citizenship question:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 03#5356797

I hope this helps. Good luck.