Tax number in Turkey for foreign nationals

• Under article 2 of Law no. 4358, parties to specified transactions who have no tax identification number must obtain one before the transaction is completed.
• The same law amended the Notary Law, the Land Registry Law, the Highway Traffic Law, the Banking Law, the Postal Law and the Passport Law so that the number is required — which is why these institutions ask for it.
• For foreign nationals who hold a foreign identity number, that number is used as the tax identification number; the rule is set out in the Tax Identification Number General Communiqué (Series no. 4).
• Those without a foreign identity number can apply online for a potential tax identification number through the Revenue Administration's Digital Tax Office.
• The online form asks for given name, surname, gender, foreign identity number, place of birth, mother's name, father's name, country, passport number, telephone and address.
• Because the form asks for the mother's name, the father's name and the place of birth, these details must match your passport and the translations of documents you will later file with institutions.
• Once you have the number, the law requires you to state it correctly and to present the supporting document when needed.

This page is compiled from the law, the communiqué and the Revenue Administration's own application page. Application screens and required fields change, so rely on the current form in the Digital Tax Office and the guidance of the relevant tax office before you proceed.

The tax number is the key that ties all of your official dealings in Turkey together: your land registry record, your bank account, your notarial power of attorney and your utility contracts must all match on the same identity data. A name written in Cyrillic can be rendered into Latin letters in several ways, so the same person may appear differently across documents. The only measure that counts in the application is the spelling on the identity page of your passport, and the translations you file later must use the same spelling. The parent name fields deserve particular care: where those details are not in the passport they are taken from the birth certificate, so the spelling in the certificate's translation and in the form must agree. In countries that use a patronymic it is also common to confuse which field takes the given name and which the patronymic. If a representative will act under a power of attorney, the identity details in that deed must match the tax record too, or the transaction will stall in their hands.