The condition is capacity to support, not wealth

Last updated 18 August 2026Legal review Bayraktar Attorneys2 min readThe statutory test

No threshold is published, because none exists in the statute. What is assessed is whether you and your dependants can be maintained from income that is real, lawful and visible on paper.

What is actually being measured

Two things: sufficiency and reliability. Sufficiency is judged against the household — an applicant supporting a spouse and three children needs more than a single person, and the comparison point in practice is the ability to live without recourse to public support. Reliability is about durability: a stable salary of moderate size reads better than an irregular income that was large last quarter.

Because no figure is published, the sensible approach is not to aim at a number but to make the picture unarguable — regular income, properly declared, over a period long enough to look like a pattern.

Which sources qualify

• Employment — the cleanest, especially with continuous social security registration. See work permits for employees.
• Your own company — accepted where the company genuinely trades; substance matters, and the way it was established is visible.
• Freelance or professional practice — with tax registration and declarations.
• Pension — Turkish or foreign, with documentation and evidence of transfer.
• Rental income — declared for tax, supported by title and contracts.
• Savings — supportive rather than sufficient on their own in most files.

The documents that actually carry the condition

Payroll slips and an employer letter; social security service records; income and corporate tax declarations; bank statements over a meaningful period rather than a single balance; the tax registration certificate; and for rental income, deeds and lease agreements. The firm's note on income statements covers the same ground for permit applications and the expectations are similar.

Why genuine income fails the test

Three patterns recur. Income earned abroad and never brought into the Turkish system: real, but invisible where it counts, and unhelpful for intent to settle as well. Cash income without declarations: undeclared work engages the moral character condition as much as the income one. And income routed through a company that exists on paper only — the most dangerous of the three, because it turns an income question into a fraud question.

The last of these is worth naming plainly. Employment recorded for permit purposes without real work behind it is a recognised abuse, actively investigated, and treated as fraud rather than as a documentary shortfall. Structuring work over the five years deals with doing this properly.