Turkey citizenship by investment scheme since its launch in 2018, has hit $1 billion investment target, with already 1000 applications approved and 1700 applicants pending as of July update.
The soaring demand for the turkish CBI scheme is fuelled by middle east investors, along with plunging value of turkish lira making it cheaper to buy real estate in Turkey. Currently Turkey just requires to buy a single or multiple residential homes of combined value of USD 250,000, which is currently cheapest route for citizenship.
Currently, these six investments qualify for immediate citizenship in Turkey
- Real Estate:Â Â Â Â USD 250,000
- Capital Investment:Â USD 500,000
- Employment:Â Â Â Â who employ at least 50 employees
- Bank deposit:Â Â Â Â USD 500,000
- Debt Instruments:Â Â Â Â USD 500,000
- Real Estate Fund:Â Â USD 500,000
Turkish lira has plummeted by 30% since last year due to tariffs imposed by US. Recently the Lira plunged and recovered slightly after President Erdogan announced removing central bank governor. It is expected Turkey may enter into recession with prices becoming more cheaper.
Large number of investors from middle east especially Iranians have invested in Turkey, under the investor citizenship scheme.  Only few chinese investors have invested in the citizenship scheme.
The Ministry of Interior announced the processing time for background and security checks takes about 5 months, which the reason for backlog of pending applications.
Turkey CBI statistics
Here is the breakdown of investors by country for the turkish citizenship by investment scheme who have invested in the country
| Iran | 253 |
| Iraq | 143 |
| Yemen | 97 |
| Afghanistan | 94 |
| Syria | 59 |
| Palestine | 58 |
| Jordan | 57 |
| Egypt | 45 |
| China | 21 |
| Azerbaijan | 15 |
| United States | 6 |
| Russia | 4 |
| Canada | 4 |
| Italy | 4 |
| Ukraine | 2 |
| United Kingdom | 2 |
| Australia | 1 |
| Greece | 1 |
In May 2019, in an exclusive interview with CIP journal, Invest Turkey has announced the rules has eased the Citizenship by investment (CBI) rules making it efficient and faster.  From now on, the residence permit and citizenship applications can be submitted together at private/common offices. Also New special joint offices have been established in Ankara and Istanbul to provide faster service to CBI applicants.
Turkey is the only CBI country with a $2 trillion dollar economy, a major trading hub of asia and europe, and its GDP projected to reach $3 trillion by 2023. The country is also the 17th largest economy in the world. Over 95% of Turkey is in Asia, while 5% occupies Europe.
