Turkey Makes the Secure Payment System Mandatory for Property Sales From 1 October

From 1 October 2026 every property sale in Turkey in which any part of the price is paid in cash, by wire transfer or by electronic funds transfer must route that money through the Güvenli Ödeme Sistemi, the Secure Payment System, under an amendment to the Regulation on Trade in Immovable Property published in Official Gazette No. 33238 on 29 April 2026. Title deed offices will not complete a transfer where the payment has not passed through the system.

What it means for a foreign buyer

If you are closing on a Turkish property in the next few weeks, the settlement mechanics change on Thursday. You can no longer wire the balance straight to the seller on the day of registration, and you cannot settle part of the price in cash across the desk at the tapu office. The price goes into a blocked account at an authorised bank first. The title deed office then registers the transfer, and the system releases the money to the seller automatically once registration is officially complete. If the sale collapses before registration, the funds return to you instead of sitting with a seller you would otherwise have to pursue through a Turkish court. That closes the most exposed moment of a Turkish purchase, the gap between paying and being registered as owner.

The trade-off is that the price you declare and the price you pay now have to be the same number. Under-declaring the sale price to reduce the title deed fee and future capital gains tax has been common practice, and buyers are often the ones talked into it by the other side of the table. Once the money moves through a monitored account tied to the registration, that gap becomes visible, and the exposure for getting it wrong sits with you as much as with the seller. The second thing to plan for is timing. If your funds are held outside Turkey, add days rather than hours before your tapu appointment, because the appointment cannot complete until the money is confirmed in the secure account.

Anyone holding a tapu appointment in the first half of October should confirm with their bank this week that the account is in place.

What changed

Until now, payment in a Turkish property sale was a private matter between the parties. Cash, a direct transfer or a bank cheque handed over at the land registry were all normal, and nothing tied the amount paid to the amount on the deed.

From 1 October, where all or part of the sale price is paid in cash, by wire transfer, by electronic funds transfer or by any other method the Ministry of Trade designates, that payment must pass through the Secure Payment System. The money is held in a secure account at an authorised bank until the title transfer is formally completed, at which point the system releases it to the seller. A cancelled transaction returns the funds to the buyer. Non-compliance is enforced at the point of registration: the title deed transfer is refused.