For most owners it did not arrive as a letter from a ministry. It arrived as a change on the platform: the listing stopped accepting new bookings, and a field appeared demanding a permit number.

Since 1 April 2026, Airbnb requires every Turkish listing to carry the number of a Tourism Rental Permit Certificate together with the name of the person the certificate was issued to, and it checks both against Ministry records. A listing without a valid, matching entry cannot host.

If you own a flat in Istanbul and live somewhere else, this is probably how you discovered that a law passed two years ago now has teeth. This guide covers what the permit actually requires, why the requirement is usually impossible for an owner abroad to satisfy, and what to do with the flat instead — because for most people in this position there is a straightforward answer, and it is not the one the internet keeps suggesting.

What changed, and what did not

The law itself did not change in April 2026. Law No. 7464 on the Renting of Residences for Tourism Purposes has been in force since 1 January 2024. Under it, letting a residence for 100 days or fewer under a single agreement is "tourism-purpose letting", and it needs a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism before the letting relationship begins.

What changed is enforcement. For two years, compliance was policed by complaint and by officials scanning listing sites — which meant a good deal of unpermitted letting simply carried on. The platform now checks at the point of listing, against the government's own records, which closes that gap in a way inspections never did.

So the honest framing is this: nothing became illegal in April 2026 that was legal in March. What ended was the practical possibility of ignoring it.

What the permit requires

  • The application goes through the e-Devlet portal, and reaches the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in practice via the Provincial Directorate. The certificate must be in hand before the letting relationship starts, not after the first booking.
  • The unanimous consent of every flat owner in the building. This is the condition that decides most cases, and it is not a majority or a management-company decision — it is a decision taken unanimously by all owners. One neighbour who declines ends the application.
  • A plaque bearing the permit number displayed at the entrance to the flat, and the permit number reproduced in every advertisement.
  • Residential use on the title deed. A unit registered as an office or commercial premises cannot be licensed until that status is changed.

The fines are structured to escalate rather than to punish once. The first assessment is made per unit with a short window — around a fortnight — to obtain the permit; failure to do so raises it several times over, and continued operation raises it again into seven figures. The base figure was set at 100,000 TL when the law came into force and is revalued upward each year, so take the current number from the Ministry rather than from any article, including this one.

Why owners abroad almost never clear it

The rules are identical for a foreign owner and a Turkish one. The difficulty is not legal, it is practical, and it concentrates in a single line: unanimous consent.

Getting every owner in an Istanbul apartment block to sign something is hard when you live on the third floor and can knock on doors. From another country it is a different order of problem. You are asking neighbours you have never met to agree, in writing, to a use of the building that many of them actively dislike — strangers with suitcases, lift traffic, keys changing hands weekly. In buildings where short-term letting has already caused friction, the answer is usually no before you finish asking.

There is also a category of building where the question never gets that far, because the management plan itself prohibits commercial or tourism use of the units.

None of this is a reason for despair, and it is certainly not a reason to relist and hope. The verification is automatic now. What it is, is a reason to make the decision that most owners in this position eventually make anyway.

The realistic alternative: a long-term tenancy

There is one line in the law that owners consistently miss, and it is the useful one. The permit regime bites on lettings of 100 days or fewer under a single agreement. A tenancy longer than that is an ordinary residential letting, governed by the Turkish Code of Obligations like any other, and it needs no tourism permit at all.

That opens two routes.

A conventional long-term tenancy, typically a year, is what most owners land on. It is the lowest-attention option by a wide margin: one tenant, one contract, rent arriving monthly, no cleaning, no guest turnover, no permit.

A mid-term letting — beyond 100 days but well short of a year — suits owners who want to keep some flexibility, and the trade-offs are set out in short-term or long-term letting, which also carries the fuller argument about the permit regime.

Your furnishings just became an advantage

The interior you built for nightly guests is not wasted. Furnished flats let at a clear premium over empty equivalents in Istanbul, and the hotel-standard finish that photographed well for a booking site photographs well for a tenancy listing. Owners switching over routinely find the flat lets faster than an empty comparable on the same street.

Your price expectation has to be rebuilt

This is where the switch goes wrong. An owner who has been looking at nightly rates for three years reads every long-term rent as an insult, holds out, and the flat sits empty for months — which costs more than the difference they were arguing about.

The comparison that matters is not last year's gross takings. It is what was left after the platform's commission, cleaning between guests, utilities you were paying, the nights that never sold, and your own time. Set that net figure against a monthly rent and the decision usually makes itself. If you want the arithmetic laid out properly, it is in the guide linked above; if you want to know what your specific flat commands in today's market, that is what a free valuation is for.

What changes on the tax side

Two things are worth knowing before you assume the tax position carries over.

Short-term letting run at any scale looks like a business to the Turkish tax authorities — guest notifications, invoicing, the works. An ordinary residential tenancy is taxed as rental income, with a residential exemption applied to the year's income and a return filed the following March. The exemption for 2026 income is 58,000 TL. Rental income from Turkish property is taxable in Turkey regardless of where you live, so a non-resident owner does not escape the filing by being elsewhere — the whole position is set out in rental income tax in Turkey.

The second point is duller and more important: rent must move through the banking system. Collecting in cash is penalised, and for an owner abroad it is a bad idea for reasons well beyond the fine — see collecting rent in cash.

Doing it from where you are

A long-term tenancy needs decisions made in Istanbul, on a schedule, by someone who can stand in the flat. That is the part owners abroad underestimate, and it is the part that decides whether the arrangement is peaceful or exhausting.

Practically, four things have to happen properly and none of them happen over email:

  • A tenant who is actually screened — income evidence, employment, references, and a guarantor where the profile calls for one. The single most expensive mistake in Turkish letting is a tenant chosen quickly, because the law that protects tenants is genuinely protective. Tenant screening in Turkey covers what to look at.
  • A contract that says the right things — the annual increase clause, the inventory of what you supplied, who carries which running cost. What a Turkish rental agreement must include has the list.
  • Someone who can open the door, deal with the boiler, sign for the meter, and be at the handover. What that looks like when the owner is not in the country is described in who watches your Istanbul apartment while you're away.
  • The listing itself, which under Turkish rules requires the owner's authorisation before an agency can publish it — a two-minute e-Devlet step explained in granting listing permission.

In short

Your listing stopped because the platform started checking, not because anything about your flat changed. The permit exists, but its unanimity requirement makes it unreachable for most owners, and unreachable in a way that being abroad makes worse rather than better.

The flat itself is fine. It is furnished, it is in Istanbul, and the long-term market wants it. What it needs is a realistic price, a properly screened tenant, and somebody on the ground — and that is a solved problem rather than a new one.

If you would like to know what yours would let for on a twelve-month tenancy, start with a free valuation; what the full service covers is on our property management page.