# Banking in Turkey: Non-Resident Accounts and the FX Perimeter

> Opening a Turkish bank account: tax number and residence permit, TRY 1.2m deposit insurance, the closed KKM scheme, the USD 500,000 citizenship deposit.

Author: Alena Dunaeva — Lawyer, Family Office (https://wiki.private.law/en/authors/dunaeva)
Last modified: 2026-08-30T19:16:00.000Z
Canonical: https://wiki.private.law/en/turkey-banks
Topics: banking
Jurisdictions: turkey
Product tags: banking, personal-banking
Semantic tags: banking, personal-banking

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A Turkish account is almost always opened for a specific job: an investment-citizenship transaction, rent and utilities after a move, receipts from a Turkish counterparty. As a place to keep capital for years, Türkiye loses to both the Emirates and Europe — the lira depreciates faster than interest accrues, and since 2024 Turkish bank compliance has been tuned to United States secondary sanctions.

The decision splits into three questions worth keeping apart. Whether a given applicant is admitted at all. Which currency the balance sits in. What happens to the account if the payment route draws OFAC attention. The regulatory half of the answers is verifiable against TCMB, BDDK and TMSF documents; an individual bank's policy towards an individual passport is published nowhere, and that difference governs what can be believed here.

## Concept

Entry conditions are set at two separate levels. The state governs customer identification, deposit insurance and foreign exchange regulation; the bank governs whether it takes this customer at all. The first is checkable against primary sources, the second only against dated testimony.

Deposit insurance does reach non-residents. According to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund \(TMSF\), the 2026 limit is TRY 1,200,000 per person per credit institution, and accounts held at domestic branches by persons living abroad are covered on the same terms as local ones. The figure was set by Fund Board decision 2025/706 \(Resmî Gazete of 13 December 2025, No. 33106\) using the revaluation rate for the preceding year. Accounts at foreign branches of Turkish banks and offshore banking units sit outside the cover, which the Fund states expressly.

Account-opening practice cannot be presented as established fact. The Turkish law firm Mıhcı Hukuk, in material carrying an update date of 16 July 2024, describes the position as follows: most banks decline applicants without a residence permit, Ziraat opens accounts against collateral, and holders of Russian, Iranian and Afghan passports meet particular difficulty. For 2026 none of these statements is confirmed by a public source — banks revise internal rules without announcing it.

## Entry: number, status, address

The procedure has four steps, and the first stopped requiring physical presence some time ago.

1. Potential tax identification number \(potansiyel vergi kimlik numarası\). The Turkish Revenue Administration issues it online through the [digital tax office portal](https://ivd.gib.gov.tr/): a completed form plus a photograph of the passport data page, with no visit to a tax office.
2. Residence status. A residence permit holder receives a foreigner identification number and enters the standard process — the route is covered under the [Turkish residence permit](https://wiki.private.law/en/turkey-residence-permit). Without a permit the question moves into the bank's discretion.
3. Address registration. The bank asks for proof of address; for a tenant that means a notarised lease and registration at the address.
4. Branch visit and source of funds. Remote onboarding for foreigners is effectively unavailable at Turkish banks, and the source-of-funds question comes at entry, long before the first sizeable transfer.
The order matters more than it appears: the tax number is obtained before the branch visit, because the customer file cannot be created without it.

## Currency of the balance, and what is left of KKM

The currency-protected deposit scheme is closed. TCMB announced \(press release 2025-45 of 23 August 2025\) that opening and renewal of KKM accounts ceased from that date, YUVAM accounts excepted, with accounts opened earlier running to maturity. The implementing communiqués 2021/14 and 2021/16 were repealed by TCMB communiqués 2026/1 and 2026/2, published in the Resmî Gazete of 24 January 2026, No. 33147. Any 2026 text still offering KKM as an option describes a product that no longer exists.

A lira deposit now competes with inflation head-on. The policy rate — the one-week repo — was held at 37 per cent by the TCMB Monetary Policy Committee on 23 July 2026 \(press release 2026-28\), with the overnight lending rate at 40 per cent. Annual consumer inflation for July 2026 came in at 31.75 per cent on a monthly increase of 1.78 per cent \(TurkStat data; CBRT consumer price table\).

The gap favours the depositor, though it is thinner than the headline rate and is eroded by withholding. Deposit withholding rates are set by Presidential Decision and have been revised repeatedly, so they are checked on the date the deposit is placed rather than taken from last year's note.

A foreign currency account removes exchange risk and pays close to nothing. Currency bought from a bank attracts BSMV: article 33 of Law 6802 sets the rate on exchange transactions at «binde iki» — 0.2 per cent of the sale amount — and the operative figures were fixed by Presidential Decision 3031 \(Resmî Gazete of 30 September 2020, No. 31260\); Turkish tax-practice sources as at April 2026 report a zero rate for particular categories, including exporters and holders of an industrial registry certificate. The figure is checked on the transaction date. Turkish regulation imposes no formal prohibition on a non-resident holding or transferring foreign currency; restrictions arise at the level of the individual bank and the individual transaction.

## Sanctions exposure

The mechanism that rewrote Turkish bank compliance is American. Executive Order 14114 of 22 December 2023 amended Executive Order 14024 so that section 11 now authorises sanctions against foreign financial institutions for significant transactions on behalf of Russia's military-industrial base, and OFAC reads that base as including every person blocked under E.O. 14024 \(OFAC FAQs 1147 and 1181, as updated 12 June 2024\). The remedy against the bank is a prohibition or strict conditions on United States correspondent accounts, or full blocking. The OFAC Russia programme remains active: the agency was still issuing general licences under it in August 2026.

For an account holder that translates into three practical consequences. A bank exits the relationship faster than it explains why. A payment with a Russian trace is stopped at the correspondent stage even when the Turkish bank released it. A second-passport holder is screened across all nationalities at once — the logic is set out in the material on [sanctions screening](https://wiki.private.law/en/sanctions-screening), on [OFAC](https://wiki.private.law/en/ofac) and in the [sanctions map](https://wiki.private.law/en/sanctions-map).

Mir cards and rouble corridors are a separate story. Major Turkish banks stopped accepting Mir in the autumn of 2022 after United States guidance addressed to foreign financial institutions. No official source establishing the status of Mir acceptance in Türkiye as at 27 August 2026 could be located; transfer services such as [KoronaPay](https://wiki.private.law/en/koronapay) and [Paysend](https://wiki.private.law/en/paysend) change available corridors more often than they announce it. Any claim about a working rouble route is verified on the date of the transaction.

## The deposit route to citizenship

A bank account is a required element of investment citizenship rather than an incidental one. Limb \(ç\) of article 20\(2\) of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Turkish Citizenship Law qualifies an applicant who deposits at least USD 500,000 or the equivalent in foreign currency with banks operating in Türkiye on condition of holding it for three years, as attested by the BDDK. The alternative and more popular option is real estate from USD 400,000 with a three-year resale restriction recorded on the title, attested by a different ministry.

The applicant does not choose the holding currency. Paragraph 10 of the same article — added by Presidential Decision 5072 \(Resmî Gazete of 6 January 2022, No. 31711\) and in force as amended by Decision 5554 \(Resmî Gazete of 13 May 2022, No. 31834\) — requires the foreign currency to be sold to a bank operating in Türkiye and by that bank to the Central Bank before the transaction; the lira proceeds under limb \(ç\) are then held in a Turkish lira deposit for three years, on implementation rules set by the TCMB. The dollar figure measures the contribution while the risk carried for three years is lira risk.

The deposit route wins on predictability and loses on economics: three years of lira interest against three years of holding real estate that at least reprices nominally with the exchange rate. Both scenarios are examined under [Turkish citizenship by investment](https://wiki.private.law/en/turkey-citizenship-investment); the comparison with other programmes sits in the [citizenship by investment](https://wiki.private.law/en/citizenship-by-investment) overview and in the material on a [second passport](https://wiki.private.law/en/second-passport-plan-b).

## Decision profiles

Three typical situations behave differently against the same criteria — entry, currency of the balance, what is protected, and how each usually ends.

| Profile | Entry | Balance currency | Protection | Main risk |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Citizenship buyer | Tax number, deposit from USD 500,000, BDDK attestation | Lira: the currency is sold to the CBRT first | Insurance to TRY 1.2m, the rest uninsured | Funds locked for three years under currency and political risk |
| Relocator with a residence permit | Tax number, residence permit, address | Mixed: lira for spending, currency for reserve | Insurance to TRY 1.2m | Inflation and withholding erode the lira portion |
| Transit payment route | Formally the same documents | Any | Effectively none | Account closure and payment reversal on sanctions grounds |

Only the first two profiles are durable. The third rests on an assumption that a Turkish bank will intermediate where a European one refused, and that assumption stopped holding before most such arrangements had paid for themselves.

## Transparency and tax

Türkiye takes part in the automatic exchange of financial account information. On the Revenue Administration's own guidance, the multilateral competent authority agreement was signed on 21 April 2017 and ratified on 31 December 2019, the first automatic exchange took place in 2018 with Norway and Latvia, and exchange of 2019 data with reciprocating jurisdictions followed. The set of partners changes, so the current list is read from the regulator itself, while the general mechanics are covered in the [CRS](https://wiki.private.law/en/crs-overview) overview.

The tax side of a Turkish stay is treated separately: preferential regimes under the [Turkish tax holiday](https://wiki.private.law/en/turkey-tax-holiday), and disclosure of previously undeclared assets under the [2026 asset amnesty](https://wiki.private.law/en/turkey-asset-amnesty-2026). A Turkish bank account creates no tax residence by itself, though it does make assets visible both to the Turkish revenue and to the holder's country of tax residence.

> ⚠️ **The risks that actually materialise.** Account closure without stated reasons: a bank owes no explanation for exiting a relationship, and exposure under E.O. 14024 makes such decisions routine.
> Exchange loss on a lira balance: a nominal 37 per cent against 31.75 per cent inflation leaves a narrow positive margin that withholding removes.
> Loss of payment access: a reversal at the correspondent stage is outside the Turkish bank's control and is not compensated by it.
> The citizenship deposit lock: the currency is sold to the Central Bank before the transaction, the lira balance then sits for three years with no right of withdrawal, and the exchange risk over that period is the applicant's.
> Stale information: KKM is closed, Mir acceptance is not publicly confirmed, withholding rates have moved — every numeric parameter is checked on the transaction date.

> 🍓 A Turkish account makes sense as a servicing instrument under a residence permit or a citizenship transaction and makes little sense as a store of capital. The verifiable weight of the page rests on the regulator and primary sources: insurance of TRY 1,200,000 per customer per bank \(TMSF, 2026\), closure of KKM from 23 August 2025 \(TCMB\), the USD 500,000 citizenship deposit, converted through the Central Bank and held in lira for three years under BDDK attestation, a 37 per cent policy rate and 31.75 per cent inflation. Everything touching individual banks and individual passports lives by its observation date and needs rechecking before documents are filed.

## Q/A

### Can a foreigner open a Turkish bank account without a residence permit?

No rule prohibits it: the bank identifies the customer by passport and tax number. Beyond that the individual bank's internal policy decides, and that policy is unpublished and changeable. On the account given by the Turkish law firm Mıhcı Hukuk, updated 16 July 2024, most banks declined applicants without a permit while Ziraat opened accounts against collateral; the 2026 status of that practice cannot be confirmed.

### Does the citizenship deposit have to be held in lira?

Yes. The threshold is expressed in dollars — at least USD 500,000 or the equivalent in foreign currency — but paragraph 10 of article 20 of the Regulation requires that currency to be sold to a Turkish bank, and by that bank to the Central Bank, before the transaction. The lira proceeds then sit in a Turkish lira deposit for three years: the BDDK attests compliance, the TCMB sets the implementation rules, and the exchange risk over those three years stays with the applicant.

### What happened to KKM and should it be counted on?

The scheme is closed. Opening and renewal ceased on 23 August 2025 by TCMB decision, and the implementing communiqués were repealed in January 2026. Material offering KKM as devaluation protection describes a product that has gone.

### How real is the risk of losing an account over sanctions?

The mechanism exists and aims at the bank rather than the client: section 11 of E.O. 14024 as amended by E.O. 14114 lets OFAC restrict a bank's United States correspondent relationships or block it outright. A bank pricing that risk prefers to part with the customer. The OFAC Russia programme was still active in August 2026.

### Will my country of tax residence see a Turkish account?

Where an exchange relationship is in force, yes. Türkiye signed the multilateral agreement on automatic exchange in 2017 and ratified it in 2019, and exchange runs with jurisdictions that provide reciprocity. The set of partners changes, so the specific country pair is checked against the Revenue Administration's current list.

### Does a Turkish account help with opening a European one?

It tends to complicate matters. European onboarding treats a Turkish banking history as an elevated-attention route, particularly alongside Russian or Iranian citizenship, and asks for a fuller source-of-funds file.

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## Factual claims

- The tax side of a Turkish stay is treated separately: preferential regimes under the Turkish tax holiday, and disclosure of previously undeclared assets under the 2026 asset amnesty.

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