Full rate, half rate, and no rate at all

Last updated 18 August 2026Legal review Bayraktar Attorneys2 min readThe qualifying period

The single most expensive misunderstanding on this route is that five years with a residence card equals five qualifying years. Status determines the rate, and the rate determines the date you can file.

The rates, by permit type

Treat the table as the starting position rather than a guarantee. Provincial practice varies at the margins, particularly on short-term permits, and the safest plan is one that qualifies even on the less generous reading.

Why student time is treated differently

Study is regarded as a temporary purpose. The permit is granted for a defined educational period, it is tied to enrolment, and it ends when the enrolment does — so the administration has long credited it at half rate rather than treating it as settled residence. This is not a penalty; it reflects what the permit is for.

The practical consequence for graduates is significant. Someone who arrived at eighteen, studied for four years and then took a work permit has two credited years at the moment they start work, not four. The student permit guide covers the status itself; the citizenship arithmetic is the point here.

Mixed histories: adding statuses together

Most real histories are mixed — a student permit, a gap, a work permit, a change of employer, a family permit after marriage. Each segment is credited at its own rate, and the segments are added. What cannot be added is any period during which no valid permit existed, and any segment after continuity was broken by excessive absence.

Note what the gap did. Four months without a permit contributed nothing and, depending on the facts, may have broken continuity altogether — in which case the two segments before it are lost, not merely uncredited. Managing the transition between permits is the entry that prevents this.

What does not count, however long it lasted

Presence under a visa or visa-free regime, however regular; time while a permit application was pending after the previous permit expired; time on a permit later cancelled with retroactive effect; and time in Türkiye without status at all. None of it accrues, and the last two can actively damage a file by engaging the moral character condition.

If the aim is settled status rather than nationality, the long-term residence permit rewards eight years of uninterrupted residence with indefinite status and is sometimes the better target — particularly where a nationality of origin cannot be given up or where the Turkish is not yet there.