Turkish Citizenship By Investment (TCBI) is an immigrant investor program launched in January, 2017. [1] Participants are required to either purchase real estate worth at least US$400,000 and hold it for 3 years, or to deposit US$500,000 in a bank in Turkey (or invest in bonds, fixed capital contributions, etc.) for a period of 3 years. [2] Upon investing as above and duly submitting citizenship application, a Turkish passport is typically granted in several months or up to a year. [3] As of 2015, approximately one quarter of all nation-states issued such "golden visas, [4] of which approximately half as of 2023 were Turkish. [5] It is the most popular such program in the world. [6]
In October 2024 the opposition İYİ Parti (Good Party) filed lawsuits to revoke such citizenships, claiming an existential demographic crisis for Turkey, there being at least half a million citizens under the program. [7]
