Tourism rental permit or apart hotel? Legal routes for flats in Türkiye

A flat rented to travelers for up to 100 days in Türkiye needs a tourism-purpose rental permit (izin belgesi) under Law No. 7464, obtained before the contract. It requires the unanimous consent of the building's flat owners, and one lessor may hold permits for at most 25 percent of units in buildings with more than three.

You own four flats in one building and a fifth in the next street. A lawyer's page tells you to get a permit for a flat. It does not tell you that the building's owners must agree unanimously, that your fifth flat changes the file, or that at some point the permit stops being the right instrument at all. This article sets the routes side by side: the tourism rental permit in Türkiye under Law No. 7464, and certification as an apart hotel or a pansiyon. After reading, you will know which numbers decide your route, and what to settle before you spend money.

What does Law 7464 cover, and what falls outside it?#

Law No. 7464 covers renting a home to users for at most 100 days. A single rental of more than 100 days in one go is outside the law, but repeating those long contracts on the same home carries its own fine.

The law was published on 2 November 2023 in the Resmî Gazete (No. 32357), and its first six articles have applied since 1 January 2024, according to the consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab). It sets the procedure for renting homes to natural and legal persons for tourism purposes. A "home" (konut) is any independent unit registered as a home in the land registry, or carrying residential construction servitude (kat irtifakı) or condominium ownership (kat mülkiyeti), under Article 2(1)(e).

Tourism-purpose rental means renting a home to users for at most 100 days, for any purpose, Article 2(1)(g). The permit is the document that allows the lessor to do it, Article 2(1)(c). The lessor is the owner, or the holder of a usufruct or superficies right over the home, Article 2(1)(d). A management company is not the lessor unless it holds one of those positions, which matters later when you decide who runs the flat.

The long-stay route is closed. Renting the same home more than four times within a year of the first contract, each contract longer than 100 days, draws a fine of TRY 1,000,000 as written in Article 4(1)(g). The law regulates the home, not the platform. A platform's own duty is to remove unpermitted listings after a Ministry warning, Article 4(1)(e).

What does the tourism rental permit ask of an owner?#

The permit is applied for before any contract is signed, through e-Devlet, and it rests on three things: the building's consent, a cap on how many units one lessor may hold, and a workplace licence once that number passes five.

A permit must be obtained before the tourism-purpose rental contract is made, and a plaque with features set by the Ministry is hung at the home's entrance, Article 3(1). The Ministry of Culture and Tourism grants permits, may do so through the governorships, and sets the permit and plaque fees, Article 3(2).

The application must include a decision approving tourism-purpose rental taken unanimously by all flat owners of the building. In a housing estate with several buildings this applies only to the building concerned, and a copy of the permit goes to the estate management, Article 3(3). This is the condition that stops most applications before they start: one objecting owner closes the file.

In buildings with more than three independent units, the same lessor may get permits for at most 25 percent of the units, Article 3(4). For example, four units in a building of twenty is inside the cap; four in a building of twelve is not. If the same lessor's permitted units in one building would pass five, the application must also include a workplace opening and operating licence, and in a housing estate a unanimous decision of all flat owners, Article 3(4).

Applications go through e-Devlet only, and paper files are returned without assessment. The file is concluded within sixty days, and the home is checked on site within thirty days of the permit, under Articles 5(1), 6(1) and 6(2) of the implementing regulation (opens in a new tab) of 28 December 2023. The home needs at least a bed, a toilet-bathroom, a living area and a kitchen arrangement, a chemical fire extinguisher, and a smoke detector in every separated room except the bathroom-toilet. Capacity is two people per bedroom plus at most two more, never more than twelve, with children under three not counted (Regulation, Article 9(1)).

The rezidans shortcut, and when it applies#

High-quality residences (rezidans) can be permitted without the unanimity and 25 percent conditions, Article 3(10). Two conditions must hold: the building's management plan under the Condominium Law must allow short-term rental, and the building must carry reception, security and daily cleaning service spaces. Where a residence operator runs the rentals, the permit is issued in the name of the company running it. If your building qualifies, the whole consent arithmetic in this article falls away.

Which duties come with the permit?#

The permit turns a flat into a small business with reporting duties: identity notification, the tourism share, advertising rules and periodic inspection.

The Identity Notification Law No. 1774 applies to permitted homes, and the permit holder is the person responsible for the notifications, Article 3(8). That is a duty of the owner, not of a housekeeper who meets the guest. If you want the mechanics of the notification itself, see KBS explained: guest identity notification for hotels in Türkiye.

Places holding a tourism-purpose rental permit pay the tourism share at 0.5 percent of the net sales and rental income earned from that activity, under Article 6 of Law No. 7183, the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency Law (mevzuat.gov.tr, consolidated text (opens in a new tab)). Under the Tourism Share Return General Communiqué (Serial No. 1), corporate taxpayers file monthly and others quarterly, filing and paying by 23:59 on the last day of the month after the period. The share paid is deductible when computing income or corporate tax. The details of the return are covered in tourism share (turizm payı) in Türkiye: what lodging businesses pay and report.

Every promotion must show the permit number legibly, Regulation Article 9(2)(a). That includes the listing text, the photos and any page you run yourself. Rooms of a permitted home may not be let separately to different people, Regulation Article 10(2): one permit covers one unit, not a set of rooms inside it.

Permitted homes are inspected at least every two years, starting with the documents behind the permit. Where documents are missing, unsuitable or changed, the regulation gives the permit holder a period to put them right, after which the permit can be cancelled, Regulation Article 12(4). Fines on permit holders are written in Article 4(2) as TRY 50,000 for late information or an unreported change of lessor, TRY 100,000 for misleading promotion or a missing plaque, TRY 200,000 for not refunding after a non-delivery fine, and TRY 500,000 if the plaque is still missing after fifteen days.

Who may rent the flat out?#

Only the lessor on the permit may run the rental. Anyone else has to work through a Group A travel agency, and a tenant may not let the flat for tourism at all.

Obtaining the permit is the lessor's duty, Article 3(5). The name on the permit is the person the law holds responsible for the notifications and the file. Anyone other than the lessor may carry out tourism-purpose rentals only through Group A travel agencies certified under Law No. 1618, Article 3(5). This is the legal route for an owner who wants a manager to run the flat, and for a manager who wants to run several owners' flats.

Users may not sublet the home to third parties on their own account, Article 3(7). A guest who books for a week cannot re-let it for three nights. A tenant who rents a home to live in may not let it for tourism either, Article 3(7): renting a flat long-term and listing it short-term is not a workaround. A company letting its own staff use a home it rented for tourism sits outside that ban.

Intermediating rentals of unpermitted homes draws a fine of TRY 100,000 per contract as written in Article 4(1)(d). That is the risk a management company carries when it takes on a flat whose owner never applied.

When does a building outgrow the permit?#

When one owner's units in a building pass the permit's limits, or when the property is run as one serviced operation rather than a set of flats, the route changes from a permit per flat to a Ministry-certified accommodation facility.

An apart hotel is a certified accommodation type under the Ministry's regulation on the qualifications of tourism facilities. The qualification requirements, minimum unit counts and staffing belong to that regulation and to the Ministry's practice, so confirm them with the Ministry and your adviser rather than from a summary. A pansiyon is a separate certified type with its own qualification file, and a new property has more than one certificate option to weigh before it builds; see certified accommodation in Türkiye: İşletme, Yatırım and Basit.

What changes in practice: the building's flat-owner vote gives way to certification, the 25 percent and five-unit lines stop being the controlling rule, staffing becomes part of the standard, and the documents move from a permit file to a certification file. The permit route keeps the unit a home in the land registry. Certification changes what the property is, which is why it is not a step you take halfway through a season.

Do not read the permit as an automatic stepping stone. Each route has its own application, its own inspection and its own file, and the permit does not convert into a certificate. Certified facilities are not all hotels: an apart hotel and a pansiyon are their own types, and the statistics that count certified accommodation count them separately. If you are building from scratch, the sequence of permits matters as much as the type, which is covered in opening a hotel in Türkiye legally: which permits come in which order.

Tourism rental permit, apart hotel or pansiyon: how do the routes compare?#

The three routes differ on who must consent, how many units one operator may hold, what licence and staff are needed, and what a buyer of the business actually acquires.

Read the table by row, not by column. Most owners are stopped by one row, usually consent or the unit cap, and the rest of the comparison never comes into play.

The permit is issued for one independent unit and one lessor. A change of lessor must be reported to the Ministry within thirty days, and not reporting it is a fined omission under Article 4(2). The tourism share applies on all three routes at 0.5 percent, so it does not decide the choice. The decisive difference is usually the exit: a flat with a permit is sold as a flat, while a certified property is sold as a business whose certificate has to be dealt with. Whichever route you take, the file is checked by a person at the Ministry, and the answers in it are the ones you will be inspected against two years later.

What should you settle before choosing a route?#

Settle five things before you spend money: the building's consent arithmetic, your unit count, who signs and runs, the reporting load, and how you would exit.

Count the independent units in each building and your own units in it. The 25 percent cap and the five-unit line are arithmetic, and they decide whether your file is simple, needs a workplace licence, or needs a different route. Ask the estate management for the management plan: if the building is a rezidans whose plan allows short-term rental, the unanimity and cap conditions fall away, and that changes the whole calculation.

Decide who is the lessor on the permit, and whether a Group A travel agency will run the operation. A manager who is not the lessor cannot simply take over the listing. Budget the reporting, not just the furnishing: identity notifications, a monthly or quarterly tourism share return, the permit number in every advertisement, and an inspection every two years. Check the current fine figures with an accountant or legal adviser: the amounts written in the law are raised every January by the revaluation rate, so an old blog post will be wrong.

What to do next#

Take the two numbers that decide almost everything, the independent units in the building and the units you would hold there, to a lawyer or an accountant, and ask for the current fine amounts at the same time. If both numbers sit comfortably inside the permit's limits, the permit route is the shorter file. If they do not, the question is no longer how to get a permit but whether the property should be certified as an apart hotel or a pansiyon, and that decision is worth taking before the next flat is bought rather than after.