This guide reads Articles 1 to 5 of Law No. 7464 with the 2023 Regulation, explains who actually votes, and separates the two appeal routes.
Letting a home in Türkiye for one hundred days or less has required a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism since 1 January 2024, and the application will not be accepted without a decision taken unanimously by the flat owners of the building. A clause in the building’s management plan allowing short-term letting does not stand in for that decision: the only exemption in the legislation, Article 3/10 of Law No. 7464 on the Tourism-Purpose Rental of Residences, is written cumulatively and reaches a narrow class of serviced high-quality residences. This guide reads Articles 1 to 5 of that Law together with the Regulation published in the Official Gazette of 28 December 2023 (No. 32413), and states the position as at September 2026.
What Law No. 7464 covers, and what falls outside it
The Law is defined by duration, not by the guest. Article 2/1(g) defines tourism-purpose rental as the letting of a home to users for any purpose whatsoever for at most one hundred days, so a corporate relocation or a medical stay is inside the scope just as a holiday is. Article 1/3 then places rentals of more than one hundred days at a time outside the Law altogether — the boundary between this regime and the ordinary residential tenancy rules examined in our guide to Türkiye’s residential tenancy framework.
Two definitions do most of the work in practice. A home under Article 2/1(e) is any independent unit recorded as residential in the land register, or over which residential construction servitude or condominium ownership exists. The lessor under Article 2/1(d) is the owner, or a person holding the unit through a usufruct or a right of superficies — which is why the Regulation directs the application to the right holder rather than the bare owner where such a right exists. Where the register shows neither residential condominium ownership nor a residential construction servitude, Article 5/2(c) of the Regulation accepts instead a building registration certificate issued for a dwelling — the point at which this regime meets the position set out in our guide on buying a Turkish apartment without an occupancy permit.
Article 3/1 fixes the moment: the permit must be obtained before the tourism-purpose rental contract is made. It is not a document that can be regularised once bookings have started. The same paragraph requires a plaque of Ministry-set specification at the entrance of the home, and Article 4/2 attaches a separate fine and a fifteen-day cure period to failing to display it.
The unanimity requirement: who actually votes
Article 3/3 is the provision that blocks most applications:
The submission of a decision taken unanimously by all flat owners of the building in which the independent unit subject to the permit is located, to the effect that carrying on tourism-purpose rental activity is approved, is mandatory in permit applications.
Three points follow, and two of them narrow the rule rather than widen it.
First, the second sentence of the same paragraph limits the geography. In residential sites made up of several multi-unit buildings, the paragraph applies only to the building in which the let home is situated; a copy of the permit is then delivered to the site management. Owners in the neighbouring blocks of a large compound do not vote.
Second, the Regulation narrows the electorate again. Article 5/2(d)(1) calls for the decision of the flat owners of all residential-class independent units in the building, and requires it as a notary-certified copy. Owners of shops or offices in the same block are therefore outside the vote — a material difference in a mixed-use building with commercial units at street level.
Third, unanimity means what it says. There is no qualified-majority alternative, no deemed consent from silence, and no judicial substitute for a withheld vote in the text of the Law. Article 28 of Condominium Law No. 634 treats the management plan as a contract binding on all flat owners and requires the votes of four-fifths of them to change it — but changing the plan does not produce the Article 3/3 decision, which is a separate document tied to the specific unit.
Where the management plan stops
The management plan matters at exactly one point in the Law. Article 3/10 allows a permit to issue without the conditions in Articles 3/3 and 3/4 for high-quality residences that satisfy, together: a management-plan clause drawn under Article 28 of Law No. 634 permitting short-term letting; reception, security and daily-cleaning service premises; the capacity to provide services such as health services, dry cleaning, laundry, transport, catering and shopping along with facilities such as a gym and a swimming pool; and more than one independent unit. The Regulation, as amended on 30 May 2024, reads that service list as requiring at least two of them.
The Regulation is stricter still about the way in. Article 5/3 requires a high-quality residence application to carry, on top of the ordinary documents, an official document showing that the building was erected in one of the locations specified in Article 19 of the Zoned Areas Development Regulation and the management plan annotated on the land register; Article 6/7 sends those files to the Ministry rather than to the provincial directorate. Transitional Article 1 relaxes only the location condition, and only for residences already let on a short-term basis under their management plan before 31 December 2024 in which the listed services were actually being provided.
The same paragraph adds a commercial consequence. Letting in such a residence may be carried on through a residence operator, in which case the permit is issued in the operating company’s name — and that activity is expressly taken outside the sub-letting prohibition in Article 3/7.
Two further exemptions sit in the Regulation rather than the Law. Article 5/4 provides that neither the unanimity decision under Article 5/2(d) nor the 25 per cent cap in Article 3/4 is required for high-quality residences, for homes over which timeshare rights have been established, and for detached houses. An owner of a standalone villa is therefore not caught by a consent requirement that presupposes neighbours in the same block.
| Property | Unanimity decision | 25% cap | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat in a multi-unit building | Required — owners of the residential units in that building, notarised | Applies where the building has more than three units | Law Art. 3/3 and 3/4; Reg. Art. 5/2(d)(1) |
| Flat in a residential site of several buildings | Required for that building only; permit copy sent to site management | Applies | Law Art. 3/3, second sentence |
| More than five units in the same building for the same lessor | Required, plus a site-wide unanimous decision where the building sits in a site | Applies, and a workplace opening and operating licence is added | Law Art. 3/4(a)–(b) |
| High-quality residence meeting all Article 3/10 conditions | Not required | Not required | Law Art. 3/10; Reg. Art. 5/4 |
| Detached house | Not required | Not required | Reg. Art. 5/4 |
| Home subject to timeshare rights | Not required — but a notarised decision of the flat owners' board (or of the co-owners) authorising the letting and the management company is; the permit issues in that company's name | Not required | Reg. Art. 5/2(d)(3), 5/4 and 5/5 |
The numerical limits deserve a line of their own. Article 3/4 provides that in buildings of more than three independent units, a permit may be issued to the same lessor for at most twenty-five per cent of them. Where the number of units permitted to that lessor in the same building exceeds five, the application must additionally carry a workplace opening and operating licence and, if the building lies within a residential site, the unanimous decision of all flat owners. That licence requirement dovetails with Article 2(c) of Law No. 3572, amended by Law No. 7464 with effect from 1 January 2024: homes holding a tourism-purpose rental permit are outside the workplace-licence regime except those on whom Law No. 7464 imposes the licence obligation.
The sanctions ladder, and the two appeal routes
Article 4/1 escalates. A fine falls for each home let without a permit, with fifteen days to obtain one; a higher fine follows for continuing after those fifteen days, with one further fifteen-day period; and the top tier applies to activity that continues despite both. Separate tiers reach a user who re-lets on their own account, a residential tenant who lets for tourism purposes, and anyone acting as an intermediary for an unpermitted home. Article 4/1(e) adds the platform rule, and it is the provision that catches the listing sites themselves: an intermediary service provider under E-Commerce Law No. 6563 — the category into which short-let platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com fall when they carry a Turkish listing — that fails to remove the content within twenty-four hours of a Ministry warning is fined per home, and a content-removal or access-blocking decision is issued and sent to the Access Providers Association, with recourse to the criminal judgeship of peace.
Amounts are deliberately not reproduced here. The figures in the Law are its 2023 nominal values, and under Article 17/7 of Misdemeanours Law No. 5326 fixed administrative fines are increased at the start of each calendar year by the revaluation rate announced under the Tax Procedure Law. The current amount is the one published for the year in which the act was committed.
The remedies split, and the split is where files are lost. Under Article 27/1 of Law No. 5326 an administrative fine is challenged before the criminal judgeship of peace within fifteen days of notification, and the decision becomes final if that window closes. Article 17/6 allows payment within the period with a twenty-five per cent reduction and states in terms that paying does not affect the right to pursue the remedy. But a refusal or cancellation of the permit is an administrative act: it is challenged by an action for annulment in the administrative court, within the sixty-day period in Article 7 of Law No. 2577 running from written notification. Article 27/8 of Law No. 5326 then brings the two together in one place where both a fine and an administrative-jurisdiction decision have been taken about the same person in the same transaction: the challenge to the fine is heard in the administrative court alongside the annulment claim. Article 11 of Law No. 2577 also allows an application to the authority for withdrawal or amendment of the act within the time limit, which suspends the running of that limit — useful where a refusal rests on a curable documentary gap.
After the permit issues: what the file must keep proving
The permit is a starting point, not a settled state. Under Article 6/1 of the Regulation the provincial directorate must conclude the application within sixty days and must state reasons when it refuses; under Article 6/2 an on-site inspection follows within thirty days of issue. Article 9 sets the standards that inspection tests: a bedroom, bathroom, living area and kitchen arrangement; hot and cold water and linen per person; chemical fire extinguishers, smoke detectors in every partitioned section other than the bathroom and lavatory, and an escape-route plan behind the doors. Capacity is calculated at two persons per bedroom with at most two more added, and is capped at twelve persons in any event, excluding children under three. Article 10/2 forbids letting the rooms of a permitted home separately to different people, and Article 6/6 refuses a permit for one or several rooms of a home the lessor is living in.
Three continuing obligations then run alongside. Article 3/8 of the Law applies Identity Notification Law No. 1774 and makes the permit holder the responsible person for notification; Article 2 of that Law requires identity and arrival-departure records to be kept day by day and held ready for inspection by the general law-enforcement authorities. The tourism share under Article 6 of Law No. 7183 is charged at five per thousand of net sales and rental income for places holding a permit, declared by the twenty-fourth and paid by the twenty-sixth day of the month following the VAT period. And since 26 July 2024, online intermediaries have reported monthly to the Ministry — by the tenth of the following month — the address of each advertised home, the identity and contact details of the person served, and the permit number, which is what makes an unpermitted listing visible from the administration’s side.
Article 5 of the Law then lists when the permit is cancelled, including where the home is reported by the competent authorities as used contrary to public order, public security or public morals, and where the defects found on inspection are not cured. In each case Article 5/2 preserves the position of guests already booked: the rights of users continue until the end of their contract. The same protection appears in Article 3/6, where the permit lapses because the holder died and the heirs did not apply within three months, or the legal person ceased to exist.
Two smaller duties outlast the file itself. Article 12/4 of the Regulation has permitted homes inspected at least once every two years from the date of issue, and treats a home that no longer meets the minimum standards under Article 4 or Article 5 of the Law. Article 9/2(a) requires a legible copy of the permit to be published in every medium in which the home is advertised, alongside its location, capacity, equipment and the rules laid down by the site or building management. And Article 4/2(b) of the Law attaches a fine where the lessor changes by a legal transaction other than inheritance and the change is not notified within thirty days of its registration in the land register — the item most easily missed when a permitted home is sold.
Practical consequences for a non-resident owner
For an owner buying with letting income in mind, the sequence matters more than the paperwork. The consent of the neighbours is the item that cannot be bought later, and it should be verified before exchange rather than after — a due-diligence point that sits naturally alongside the checks described in our guide to buying property in Türkiye as a foreigner and in our real estate practice. Where an existing owner in the block objects after the event, the route is not the Ministry: Article 33 of Law No. 634 lets an owner harmed by another owner’s — or their tenant’s — failure to observe the obligations under that Law or the management plan ask the magistrates’ court for judicial intervention, and Article 18 makes those obligations binding on tenants and continuing occupants jointly with the owner. How those disputes are run inside a block or a managed site — the assembly, the management plan and the manager’s accounts — is covered on our condominium and site management law page.
Finally, the identity of the operator is regulated. Article 3/5 places the duty to obtain the permit on the lessor and provides that where the rental activity is carried on by anyone other than the lessor, it may be done only through a group (A) travel agency certified under Law No. 1618. An overseas management company without that certification cannot lawfully run the activity in its own name, and the Regulation’s rules on residence operators and marketing operators apply only within the high-quality residence category. That single sentence is where a good many cross-border arrangements come apart, and it is worth reading before a management contract is signed rather than after a fine has been served.
