Turkey Might Renounce Passports Obtained by Investment

Brittany Collins

In recent developments, Turkey's opposition İYİ (Good) Party has proposed the revocation of citizenship granted to foreigners under the country’s citizenship by investment program. According to opposition claims, over 238,000 foreigners obtained citizenship unlawfully.

Update — August 2026

This article reports a 2024 legislative proposal from Turkey's opposition İYİ Party to annul citizenships granted under the investment programme; that lawsuit is a separate political and legal track and did not result in government cancellations. Turkey's Ministry of the Interior has since taken its own enforcement action, on different grounds:

On 4 August 2026, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior (T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı) announced the cancellation or withdrawal of Turkish citizenship for 6,134 individuals, including 1,413 principal investors, who had acquired citizenship through the CBI programme's real-estate route. The action was taken under Articles 31 and 40 of the Turkish Citizenship Law No. 5901 and relates to fraudulent property valuation reports issued during the 2018–2022 window, when the real-estate minimum was USD 250,000 and valuations were performed by private SPK-licensed appraisers. Turkey has since restructured its valuation architecture: since March 2024, citizenship-purpose valuations are performed exclusively by GEDAŞ (a state-owned entity under TOKİ), and since December 2024 the amount determination certificate (TTB) is transmitted directly through internal government systems without passing through the applicant's hands — closing the specific methodology that enabled the historical fraud. Current applicants under the post-2024 valuation regime are not implicated in this enforcement action.

That action, and an earlier related phase from October 2025, are covered in our update on the confirmed citizenship revocations. It is unrelated to the opposition proposal described below and does not affect current applicants; our full guide to Turkish citizenship by investment covers how the programme works today, including the current property valuation process.

The proposal to annul investment citizenships, filed as a lawsuit with Turkey’s Council of State, is part of a broader critique from the İYİ Party, which argues that the policy compromises national integrity and opens pathways for criminal elements to exploit Turkish nationality.

The İYİ Party estimates that more than 500,000 people have gained Turkish citizenship through the Turkey citizenship by investment program over the past 7 years. Many of these acquisitions were linked to property purchases.

Granting citizenship to foreign investors compromises Turkey’s national security and sovereignty, as it potentially enables international criminals to use Turkey as a safe haven, the opposition leader Müsavat Dervişoğlu claims. He further contends that this program violates Turkish law and has been introduced in contradiction to the Turkish Constitution.

Criticism has also come from the public, with some citing concerns over high property prices, which they believe are driven in part by increased demand from foreign investors seeking citizenship.

Under Turkey’s CBI program, known as the Turkey Golden Visa, introduced in 2018, foreign nationals can gain citizenship by investing in real estate or other approved assets. The investment threshold starts at $400,000, depending on the option. Applicants are required to maintain the investment for at least three years, during which they are subject to security checks.