Turkey sharply lowers financial requirement for Turkish citizenship

MENA

Published: 2018-09-20 13:15

Last Updated: 2024-03-18 11:44


The move comes amid the country’s struggle to cope with the financial crisis caused by US tariffs. (Hurriyet Daily News)
The move comes amid the country’s struggle to cope with the financial crisis caused by US tariffs. (Hurriyet Daily News)

How would you fancy presenting border control with a Turkish passport the next time you’re travelling abroad? Well, now you can for as “little” as $250,000, a sharp drop from the previous $3 million requirement.

Turkey announced on Wednesday that it has sharply lowered the financial requirement for citizenship by investment.

According to revised regulations published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday, investors are now only required to make a bank deposit of $500,000 instead of $3 million, while the amount of needed fixed capital investment was reduced to $500,000 from $2m.

The decision also stipulates that applicants “could qualify by employing 50 Turkish citizens, down from 100, or by investing $250,000 in the real estate market, half the previously required amount,” reported Al Jazeera.

The move comes amid the country’s struggle to cope with the financial crisis caused by US tariffs, which, last month, saw the Turkish lira lose more than 40% of its value against the US dollar.