This is aggressive policy. Turkey is competing directly with Portugal's NHR scheme (which ended in 2023), Italy's flat-tax offer, and Greece's non-dom status. Twenty years is longer than most competing programs. Zero percent beats a flat fee.
The trade-off: you have to actually move to Turkey and establish tax residency there. You can't just hold a visa and keep your tax home elsewhere. You need to spend enough time in the country, register with authorities, and show genuine relocation intent. Turkish bureaucracy can be opaque, and tax law changes. A twenty-year promise from a government is only as good as the government's stability and willingness to honor it.
For someone with significant income who wants to live in Istanbul, Ankara, or the Mediterranean coast and can navigate the residency process, this is worth exploring with a Turkish tax advisor. For everyone else, it's a headline that sounds better than it works.
Knowing the rule changed is the easy part.
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