Turkey’s Interior Ministry announced that 6,134 citizenships granted through its citizenship‑by‑investment (CBI) programme have been cancelled or withdrawn. The revocations affect 1,413 principal investors and their spouses and children, and stem from two separate legal grounds: fraudulent investment transactions and security‑related vetting failures.
Scope of the revocations
| Category | Investors affected | Total people affected (including dependents) |
|---|---|---|
| Fraudulent or irregular transactions | 1,150 | 5,391 |
| Security / public‑order objections (no fraud alleged) | 263 | 743 |
| Total | 1,413 | 6,134 |
Since 11 February 2026, 443 investors and their families (1,358 people) have had eligibility certificates cancelled, and seven additional individuals were stripped on security grounds.
Legal basis
- Article 31 of Law No. 5901 – “cancellation” (iptal) for citizenship obtained through false declarations or concealment of material facts. This applies to the fraudulent‑valuation cohort.
- Article 40 of Law No. 5901 – “withdrawal” (geri alma) when the legal conditions for citizenship were never met, used for the security‑related cases.
- Article 32 extends any cancellation to the spouse and children of the principal applicant; dependents are not assessed individually.
- Article 33 requires a cancelled citizen to revert to foreigner status under Turkish residence law and, if ordered, liquidate Turkish assets within one year. Unsold assets are sold by the Treasury, with proceeds credited to the former citizen’s account.
Related police operation
- Justice Minister Akın Gürlek disclosed a concurrent police operation that resulted in 90 detention warrants, 72 arrests across 16 provinces, and the seizure of 1,045 properties, a hotel in Bodrum, 15 vehicles, a yacht, 10 bank accounts, and seven companies placed under trusteeship.
- The operation’s estimated missing investment funds total roughly TL 2.5 billion (≈ US$52.6 million).
- Revocation proceedings have also begun against 687 individuals linked to this criminal case; the ministry’s 6,134 figure covers the entire CBI programme and may overlap partially with the 687.
Changes to the valuation system that underpin the crackdown
- TKGM Circular 2024/2 (effective 4 March 2024) gave exclusive appraisal authority for citizenship‑purpose real estate to Gayrimenkul Değerleme A.Ş. (GEDAŞ), a unit of the Housing Development Administration (TOKİ).
- Since 9 December 2024, the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (TKGM) issues an amount‑determination certificate (TTB) generated automatically from the GEDAŞ report and uploaded directly to the land‑registry system. No physical certificate is processed, eliminating the manual route previously exploited for forged appraisals.
These reforms close the “paper trail” that fraudsters used to submit inflated valuations from Capital Markets Board‑licensed valuers.
Timeline of the vulnerable period
- 19 September 2018 – Real‑estate investment minimum reduced to US$250,000.
- Mid‑June 2022 – Minimum raised to US$400,000 after an amendment in the Official Gazette.
The revocations largely target applications submitted during this 2018‑2022 window, when the lower threshold and the private‑valuation regime made the scheme more susceptible to abuse.
Context and unknowns
- Interior Ministry data cited by LSE researcher Kristin Surak indicate over 5,000 investor naturalisations by the end of 2019, with about 9,000 applications pending at that time.
- No public denominator is available to gauge what share of total CBI approvals the 6,134 cancellations represent; the programme is estimated to account for more than half of worldwide CBI approvals.
Practical implications for affected individuals
- Cancellation or withdrawal results in loss of Turkish citizenship for the principal applicant and all listed dependents.
- Affected persons must comply with a one‑year deadline to dispose of any Turkish‑registered assets; otherwise the Treasury will sell the assets and retain the proceeds.
- Re‑application for citizenship would require a fresh, compliant investment under the current, stricter valuation and due‑diligence procedures.
The sweep signals a tightening of enforcement around Turkey’s CBI programme, with the government emphasizing that the earlier “scam” exploiting low‑value, privately appraised real‑estate investments is no longer viable under the revised system.
Source article: www.imidaily.com
