The law has not changed, but residence permit renewals are refused more and more often: pressure on newcomers stands at 20 out of 100.
Turkey has one of the widest gaps between law and practice in our sample. On paper it looks decent: a decision within 90 days, citizenship after five years, dual citizenship allowed, no integration exams for a residence permit, and children with an ikamet attend state school free. Since 2026 it has added one of the most generous tax breaks anywhere: 20 years without tax on foreign income.
Practice is what breaks. The law has not changed, yet renewals are refused more and more often; checks became stricter and more detailed in 2025, and the state does not publish refusal statistics. Tourist grounds are accepted, but you must prove your purpose with an itinerary, bookings and return tickets; without that, refusal is still the norm. Existing permits are cancelled mainly when the holder does not live at the registered address. From 2022 foreigners could not register in 1,169 neighbourhoods where their share topped 20%; by June 2026 the restriction was lifted almost everywhere except Fatih and Esenyurt in Istanbul.
Employment keeps your status on a short leash. A work permit is issued for a specific employer, which must hire five Turkish citizens per foreigner and hold capital of at least 500,000 lira. When you are dismissed the permit is cancelled, the employer notifies the ministry within 15 days, and changing jobs means a new application. The ikamet itself is not tied to an employer, but the law gives no grace period if a ground such as a lease or funds falls away. A renewal filed on time keeps your stay legal until the decision.
Families can live here but not work: a family ikamet gives a spouse no right to work, so a separate employer-sponsored permit is needed. The sponsor must earn at least the minimum wage. Opening a bank account is possible, and some banks do it on a tax number and address even without an ikamet, but with friction: rules differ from branch to branch, unexplained refusals happen, and some banks demand a large deposit.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa for up to 90 days within 180. The US is on the list of countries eligible for the digital nomad visa.
The digital nomad visa is open only to a closed list of about 36 countries: most EU states, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Canada and the countries named in this section. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other CIS countries are not on it. Citizens of Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, Kosovo, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Syria and Turkmenistan are exempt from the ikamet fee by reciprocity.
No visa for up to 90 days; on direct flights from Ukraine you can enter with a biometric ID card. Ukraine is on the list for the digital nomad visa.
No visa for up to 60 days for tourism and business. From 26 December 2022 first-time tourist permits for Russian citizens were refused en masse, by lawyers' and press estimates about nine applications in ten; no official directive was issued. In 2025-2026 tourist grounds are accepted with strict checks of purpose, and refusal for an unproven purpose remains the norm. Russia is on the list for the digital nomad visa. Accounts can be opened, including at Ziraat and VakıfBank, but not every bank serves Russian citizens.
No visa for up to 30 days per trip and no more than 90 days a year. Belarus is on the list for the digital nomad visa.
The place interval 46-65 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Path to citizenship: 80 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 57.1. The weakest is Status security: 44 against 57.9. Above the world average: 4 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
By law the ikamet decision takes up to 90 days. In practice you give biometrics 3-6 weeks after applying online, and the decision arrives 30-90 days later.
Yes. A tourist or rental ikamet needs no employer but gives no right to work. For remote workers there is the digital nomad visa: $3,000 a month, age 21-55, a university degree and a passport from a closed list.
964 lira for the card and a fee of 653.70 lira for the first month plus 2,232.30 for each further month: about 26,200 lira (≈$620) a year per adult. After visa-free entry the first application adds 9,376.40 lira.
Yes. An ikamet is cancelled if you do not live at the registered address, and renewals are increasingly refused without any change in the law. A work permit is cancelled along with your job.
Long-term ikamet after 8 years of continuous residence. Citizenship after 5 years with dual citizenship allowed, but the decision is discretionary, and years on a tourist ikamet may not count.
The law is mild and the practice harsh: unexplained renewal refusals, neighbourhoods closed to registration until 2026, cancellations over addresses. At the same time, since 2026 Turkey offers new residents 20 years without tax on foreign income.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.