Inheritance in Türkiye for Foreigners: Why a Brother Pays 4x More Tax

A 5 million lira flat in Istanbul left to a son costs him about 20,900 lira in inheritance tax in 2026. The same flat left to a brother costs 90,000 lira, more than four times as much. The rate is not different: the exemption is. This guide explains how inheritance works in Türkiye when the owner or the heir is a foreigner: whose law applies, who gets the apartment, who pays the electricity and water bills, and how much tax is due in 2026.

In brief

• A flat in Türkiye is inherited under Turkish law, even if the owner was a foreign citizen. Being a foreigner does not exempt an heir from inheritance tax.
• In 2026 the inheritance tax rates are 1% to 10%. Each child and the spouse (when there are children) get an exemption of 2,907,136 TL each; a spouse with no children or grandchildren gets 5,817,845 TL.
• The tax is calculated on the property value for municipal property tax (emlak vergisi değeri), not on the market price.
• Unpaid bills of the deceased do not disappear: heirs answer for the debts of the estate. An inheritance can be refused within three months.
• The tax return is due within 4, 6 or 8 months, depending on where the death occurred and where the heir lives, and it must be filed even when no tax is due.

The article covers two different situations that are often confused: a foreigner inheriting a flat in Türkiye, and a foreign owner of a flat in Türkiye dying. It is based on official sources available on 18 October 2026: the 2026 rules and the September 2026 brochure of the Turkish Revenue Administration (Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı, GİB), the laws, and official explanations of the Land Registry (Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü, TKGM). In a real case, citizenship, family structure, the date of death and the legal status of the property must be checked separately.

Which country’s law applies to a foreigner’s flat in Türkiye?

Turkish law, for property located in Türkiye. Article 20 of Law No. 5718 on Private International Law and Procedure (MÖHUK) sets the general rule and a special rule for real estate: inheritance is governed by the national law of the deceased, but Turkish law applies to immovable property located in Türkiye.

In practice this means:

• A flat, plot of land or other real estate in Türkiye passes to heirs under Turkish law.
• The foreign citizenship of the deceased does not by itself bring the Turkish flat under the law of his or her country.
• The same conclusion should not be drawn automatically for bank accounts, receivables or other assets: the general rule and the relevant special provisions are assessed separately.

For example, the heirs to a foreigner’s flat in Istanbul and the heirs to the same person’s bank account abroad may be determined under different laws and through different procedures. So the idea that “one country’s law covers all the assets” is wrong in international inheritance cases.

Who gets the apartment? Shares of the spouse and children

The spouse’s share depends on which relatives inherit alongside him or her. The shares below follow the statutory inheritance rules of the Turkish Civil Code (Türk Medeni Kanunu, TMK, article 499) and assume there is no valid will or other disposition changing them.

Within the parents’ or grandparents’ line, the split depends on who is alive and on the rules of inheritance by representation.

Spouse and two children

If the whole flat belonged to the deceased and nothing else needs to be corrected:

• the spouse receives 1/4;
• the two children together receive 3/4;
• each child receives 3/8.

This does not mean the flat is physically divided into three parts. When there are several heirs, they form a community of heirs until the estate is divided. Leaving the flat to one heir and paying the others, or selling it and sharing the money, are decisions taken at the division stage.

No children: does the spouse get the whole flat?

Not always. Even without children there may be heirs from the parents’ line or other groups named in the law. So “the flat of a person without children automatically goes entirely to the spouse” is not correct.

This matters for tax too. The spouse’s higher exemption when there are no descendants does not mean the spouse is the only heir. The legal wording of the 2026 exemption refers to “the share falling to the spouse when there are no descendants”.

What if there are no heirs at all?

Under article 20 of MÖHUK, an estate in Türkiye without heirs passes to the state. The death of a foreigner does not by itself lead to this: what matters is that there is no heir.

Does the spouse lose rights if the flat was itself inherited?

No, not automatically. Under the Turkish Civil Code’s regime of participation in acquired property, assets acquired by inheritance are personal property. But the fact that a flat is personal property does not mean the spouse cannot inherit it when the owner dies. Marital property rights and inheritance are separate legal questions.

For example, where this Turkish regime applies:

1. A person inherits a flat from his father.
2. As a rule, the flat is his personal property.
3. If he later dies, the flat becomes part of his estate.
4. The surviving spouse may have a statutory share alongside the other heirs.

So the common belief that “the spouse gets nothing because the house came from the family” is wrong. In marriages with a foreign element, however, the law applicable to the marital property regime must be determined separately: the fact that the flat is in Türkiye does not mean Turkish law governs all the financial consequences of the marriage.

Can a will leave the flat to anyone you choose?

Only within limits. A will (vasiyetname) can provide for a different division from the statutory one, but certain heirs are protected by reserved shares (saklı pay). The Turkish Civil Code contains reserved-share rules for descendants, parents and the surviving spouse, and dispositions that violate them can be challenged by an action for reduction (tenkis).

Both of these statements are therefore exaggerations:

• “If there is a will, the statutory heirs lose all their rights.”
• “A will changes nothing.”

The form, validity and scope of the will and its effect on reserved shares are assessed together. For wills made abroad, the applicable law and formal validity also matter.

Can a foreign heir keep the flat in his or her own name?

A foreigner can inherit; keeping the property is a separate question. According to the official TKGM explanation for foreigners, inheritance is one of the ways of acquiring property without registration, but whether the inherited property can stay in the foreign heir’s ownership is assessed under the legislation in force.

There are two stages:

1. The right of inheritance arises and the property passes to the heir.
2. The foreign heir’s right to keep it.

Where citizenship-based or property-acquisition restrictions do not allow the heir to keep the property, liquidation may follow: according to TKGM, the property is converted into money and the proceeds are paid to the heir. This does not mean every foreign heir’s flat is automatically taken away. A firm answer requires the heir’s citizenship and the location of the property; “foreign national” alone is not enough.

Who pays the electricity, water and gas bills?

Start by separating three things:

• debts that arose before the death;
• use and new charges after the death;
• closing the subscription or transferring it to a new user.

Transferring ownership of the flat to the heirs does not automatically transfer the subscriptions to one of them. Istanbul’s water utility İSKİ, for example, treats a new subscription application and the cancellation of a subscription as separate procedures.

Unpaid bills from before the death

Under article 599 of the Turkish Civil Code, heirs acquire the estate as a whole and, subject to the exceptions in the law, become personally liable for the debts of the deceased. Article 641 makes heirs jointly and severally liable for the debts of the estate.

In practice, an electricity, water, gas or other service debt for which the deceased was legally liable does not disappear because the person died. But it should be checked whether the bill really belongs to the deceased, which period it covers and whether it is disputed.

Joint liability towards the creditor and the final split between heirs are also not the same thing. Heirs agreeing that “everyone pays only in proportion to their share” does not by itself limit the creditor’s rights.

Bills after the death

If someone keeps living in the flat or the services continue to be used, new consumption charges may arise. These should not be treated automatically as “an old debt of the deceased”. The contract, subscription status, actual use and the rules of the service provider are looked at together. What to do depends on whether use will continue:

• if it continues, notify the provider of the death and ask about a new subscription or transfer;
• if it ends, cancel and settle the final account;
• establish the final consumption, any open debt and any deposit separately.

İSKİ, for instance, offers cancellation as a separate service and states that the deposit is refunded after cancellation. To whom and with which inheritance documents a deceased subscriber’s deposit is paid has to be completed with the utility itself. Do not assume there is one common list of documents for electricity, gas, water and internet across Türkiye: each provider’s official conditions apply.

Do the tenant’s bills pass to the heirs?

Owning a flat is not the same as owing every bill. If the subscription is in the tenant’s name, the debt does not become the heirs’ just because they inherited the flat. The test is which debts the deceased was legally liable for: the inheritance-debt rules of the Civil Code are about the debts of the deceased.

Can you take the flat and refuse the debts?

As a rule, no. Because the estate is acquired as a whole, an heir cannot say “I accept the flat but not the debts of the deceased”. Instead, refusal of the inheritance (mirasın reddi) and the other protections provided by law are considered.

Under article 606 of the Civil Code, an inheritance can be refused within three months; when the period starts depends on the heir’s situation. If the deceased was clearly or officially insolvent at the date of death, the deemed refusal under article 605 may apply.

The key point is that there are two different calendars:

• the general deadline for refusing an inheritance is three months;
• the deadline for the inheritance tax return is four, six or eight months, depending on where the death occurred and where the heir lives.

So the fact that the tax deadline has not passed does not mean the refusal deadline is still open.

What tax does a foreign heir pay in 2026?

Inheritance and transfer tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi). The taxpayer is not the deceased but the person who acquires the property by inheritance. Since transfers of assets located in Türkiye fall within the tax, the fact that the heir or the deceased is a foreigner is not in itself a reason to be outside it.

A tax assessment for the flat is therefore made in both cases:

• a flat passes from a Turkish citizen to a foreign heir;
• a flat in Türkiye passes from a foreigner to a foreign heir.

Special exemptions or regimes may exist, but there is no general inheritance tax exemption for all foreigners.

2026 exemptions per heir

These amounts are set by General Communiqué No. 57 on Inheritance and Transfer Tax, in force from 1 January 2026. The exemption is not one deduction applied once to the whole flat: each heir’s share is assessed separately. It does not automatically apply to parents, brothers, sisters or other heirs.

What are the inheritance tax rates in 2026?

From 1% to 10%, applied progressively. The general inheritance scale, as set out in the GİB 2026 brochure:

The rates are progressive. If the taxable share is 4,000,000 TL, 3% is not applied to the whole amount: 1% applies to the first 3,000,000 TL and 3% to the remaining 1,000,000 TL.

Do not confuse inheritance with gifts made during the owner’s lifetime. Both fall under the same tax, but the gift scale and the inheritance scale are different. The calculations here are for inheritance on death.

The special 1% rule in 2026

The September 2026 GİB brochure also says that for people using the foreign earnings and income exemption under article 20/D of the Income Tax Law, a 1% rate applies to transfers by inheritance within the twenty-year period of that exemption. This does not mean that “all inheritances of foreigners are taxed at a flat 1%”: the conditions of the special regime must be met. The examples below use the general scale. (On the 20-year exemption itself, see our article on Türkiye’s tax exemption on foreign income for new residents.)

Is the tax based on the flat’s market price?

No, on its value for property tax. Under article 10 of Law No. 7338, real estate is valued at the value used for property tax (emlak vergisi), whether or not it belongs to a business. For inheritance, the valuation date is the day the inheritance opens.

None of these is, on its own, the legal valuation for inheritance tax:

• the asking price in an online listing;
• an estate agent’s estimate;
• the price at which the flat was bought;
• the heir’s own approximate figure.

For the tax procedure, the document from the municipality showing the property tax value matters, and GİB lists it among the attachments to the return. A flat that could sell for 12,000,000 TL is not necessarily taxed on 12,000,000 TL: the legal value is established first.

Can unpaid bills reduce the tax?

Yes, if they are documented and belong to the deceased. Article 12 of the Inheritance and Transfer Tax Law allows the deduction of the deceased’s debts based on valid documents and of tax debts, provided they are shown in the return. Funeral and burial costs are also listed.

Unpaid utility bills shown to belong to the deceased and legally valid can therefore be considered for the debt deduction. The following cannot automatically be deducted:

• new consumption after the death;
• debts on someone else’s subscription;
• undocumented family expenses;
• the same debt deducted more than once.

GİB lists documents for debts and expenses among the attachments to the return, so keep bills, utility statements of account, payment receipts and contracts.

How much tax in 2026? Worked examples

The examples apply the 2026 exemptions and the general inheritance scale. They assume the value given is the legal valuation of the flat, there are no other assets and no deductible debts. In a real case, other assets and accepted debts change the result.

Example 1: a 5,000,000 TL flat left to one child

The tax is 20,928.64 TL. Only 1% applies, because the base stays below the first 3,000,000 TL bracket.

Example 2: an 8,000,000 TL flat left to a spouse and two children

With statutory shares of 1/4 for the spouse and 3/8 for each child:

The unused part of the spouse’s exemption is not transferred to the children: each share is assessed separately.

Example 3: no descendants, and the whole 8,000,000 TL goes to the spouse

Here the spouse is assumed to really be the only heir.

The tax is 21,821.55 TL. But since the absence of descendants does not by itself make the spouse the only heir, the shares must be determined correctly first.

Example 4: a 5,000,000 TL share goes to a brother

If the brother is legally the heir to this share, the descendant and spouse exemption does not apply. Assuming no other special exemption:

• first 3,000,000 TL × 1% = 30,000 TL;
• remaining 2,000,000 TL × 3% = 60,000 TL;
• total tax = 90,000 TL.

The child and the brother pay different amounts for the same value not because of a different rate, but because of the descendant and spouse exemption.

Do you need to file a return if no tax is due?

Yes. The GİB 2026 brochure states clearly that an inheritance and transfer tax return must be filed even when the inherited assets are below the exemption. If a child inherits a share worth only 2,000,000 TL, no tax may be calculated, but the obligation to file remains. The return should also not focus only on the flat: other assets, rights and receivables subject to the tax, and the debts to be deducted, must be considered too.

How many months do you have to file?

Four, six or eight months. The deadline depends not on citizenship but on where the death occurred and where the heir is:

These periods are set out in the GİB 2026 brochure. For a declaration of absence (gaiplik), there is a special one-month period after the decision is entered in the death register. For example, if the death occurred in Germany and the heir is in Türkiye, the general period is six months; if the heir is in another foreign country, it can be eight months.

Is the tax paid all at once?

No: in six equal instalments over three years. Under the general payment schedule, inheritance and transfer tax is paid within three years of assessment, in May and November each year, in six equal instalments. The filing deadline and the payment schedule are different things: filing on time does not mean the whole tax must be paid the same day.

Must the whole tax be paid before the title deed is transferred?

Registering the inheritance in the heirs’ names at the land registry and later selling the flat are separate steps. Article 19 of Law No. 7338 allows inherited real estate to be registered without waiting for the tax assessment. It does, however, restrict subsequent transfers and the creation of rights in rem until the inheritance tax on the property is fully paid, and it provides a legal guarantee mechanism.

So “the flat cannot be put in the heirs’ names until the whole tax is paid” is not correct. But for an heir who wants to sell later, clearing the tax matters.

How are the certificate of inheritance and foreign documents used?

A foreign certificate usually has to go through a Turkish court. The certificate of inheritance (mirasçılık belgesi, also known as veraset ilamı) shows the heirs and their shares. The Civil Code generally provides for it to be issued by a civil court of peace or a notary, but in cases with foreign heirs, special rules on the acceptance of foreign documents and on property transfers apply.

According to TKGM, transfers for foreign individuals are made on the basis of certificates of inheritance:

• issued by courts of the Republic of Türkiye; or
• issued by competent foreign authorities and approved by Turkish courts as compliant with Turkish inheritance procedure.

So it should not be assumed that a certificate obtained abroad can always be used at the land registry just by translating it. Whether a court procedure in Türkiye is needed must be determined. More on the procedure: our guide to the certificate of inheritance (Veraset İlamı) in Türkiye.

Which documents should you prepare?

The GİB 2026 brochure lists among the attachments to the return: the certificate of inheritance, the will if there is one, documents for debts and expenses, the municipal document showing the property tax value, and documents for other assets. For an inheritance with a foreign element, a working file can be organised like this:

This list combines the official tax document categories with the basic headings needed to establish the estate; it does not mean every institution will ask for the same documents.

Is the inheritance tax the whole cost?

No. The examples above show only inheritance and transfer tax. Obtaining the certificate of inheritance, making foreign documents usable in Türkiye, representation and subscription procedures are separate processes. A result such as “20,928.64 TL inheritance tax” does not mean the whole file will cost exactly that.

“Inheritance tax”, “land registry fees” and “subscription deposit” are also different payments, assessed by each institution and type of transaction. Without the details of a specific case, a single total cost for all foreign heirs cannot be given reliably.

In what order should the file be handled?

To avoid losing time, follow the legal and tax calendars together instead of waiting for one step to finish before starting the next:

1. Establish the family structure, the ownership of the flat and whether there is a will.
2. Identify the debts as well as the flat; consider the general three-month period for refusing the inheritance separately.
3. Obtain a certificate of inheritance valid in Türkiye.
4. Get the tax value from the municipality and open debts and subscription details from service providers.
5. File the inheritance and transfer tax return within the relevant four, six or eight months.
6. Handle the title deed transfer and the closing or transfer of subscriptions separately.
7. If the flat is to be sold, check in advance that the tax is cleared and whether any restrictions on foreigners keeping property apply.

The figures that determine the exact tax are the legal tax value of the flat, the deceased’s share in the title deed, the identity and shares of the heirs, other assets, documented debts and whether a special tax regime applies. Citizenship alone is not enough to calculate either the shares or the tax.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the law of the owner’s country governs the flat in Türkiye.
• Assuming foreigners are exempt from inheritance tax, or that every foreigner pays a flat 1%.
• Calculating the tax on the market price instead of the property tax value.
• Not filing a return because no tax is due.
• Waiting for the tax deadline and missing the three-month period to refuse an inheritance with large debts.
• Taking a foreign certificate of inheritance to the land registry with only a translation.

Related articles on TRBW

• Inheritance and Transfer Tax in Türkiye
• Inheritance Certificate (Veraset İlamı) in Türkiye
• International inheritance law and foreign investors’ assets in Türkiye
• Türkiye’s 20-year tax exemption on foreign income for new residents

FAQ

Does a foreigner pay inheritance tax on a flat in Türkiye?

Yes. Transfers of assets located in Türkiye are subject to inheritance and transfer tax, and being a foreigner is not in itself a reason for exemption.

What are the inheritance tax rates in Türkiye in 2026?

From 1% to 10%, progressively: 1% on the first 3,000,000 TL, then 3%, 5%, 7% and 10% above 55,000,000 TL, after exemptions.

How much is tax-free for a child in 2026?

2,907,136 TL per child, and the same for a spouse when there are children. A spouse without descendants gets 5,817,845 TL.

Who pays the deceased’s unpaid utility bills?

The heirs, who are jointly liable for the debts of the estate, unless they refuse the inheritance. New consumption after the death is assessed separately.

How long do heirs have to refuse an inheritance?

Three months as a general rule (Civil Code article 606). This is shorter than the tax return deadline.

When is the inheritance tax return due?

Within 4, 6 or 8 months of the death, depending on where the death occurred and where the heir lives. It is due even if no tax is payable.

Can the flat be registered in the heirs’ names before the tax is paid?

Yes. Registration can be made without waiting for the tax assessment, but later sale and other transfers are restricted until the tax on the property is fully paid.

Sources

• Law No. 5718 on Private International Law and Procedure (MÖHUK)
• Turkish Civil Code No. 4721
• Inheritance and Transfer Tax Law No. 7338
• GİB: Inheritance and Transfer Tax General Communiqué No. 57
• GİB: 2026 Inheritance and Transfer Tax brochure
• TKGM: Your Key Türkiye, frequently asked questions for foreigners
• İSKİ: subscription cancellation
• İSKİ: subscription application

This article is for information purposes only and is not legal or tax advice. It is based on official sources available on 18 October 2026. Each case depends on citizenship, family structure, the date of death and the legal status of the property; consult a lawyer or tax adviser before acting.