The 1% Inheritance & Gift Tax for New Residents

A 1% rate, not the standard schedule

Türkiye's headline 2026 reform is the 20-year foreign income exemption, but Law No. 7582 — published in the Official Gazette on 4 June 2026 — carries a quieter companion benefit that can matter just as much to relocating families: a preferential 1% inheritance and gift tax rate for eligible new residents during the exemption period. Where the ordinary regime applies a progressive schedule that climbs to around 10%, qualifying new residents are taxed on inheritances and lifetime gifts at a flat 1%.

It is a deliberate pairing. The income-tax exemption removes the drag of annual taxation on foreign wealth; the 1% transfer rate lowers the cost of holding and passing on that wealth while resident. Together they answer the two questions a high-net-worth family asks before relocating — what happens to my income, and what happens to my estate.

1% versus a schedule rising to ~10%

The saving is easiest to see on a large transfer of wealth. The table sets out the contrast in headline terms.

On a modest gift the difference is real but small. On the intergenerational transfer of a substantial estate it can be transformative: a large reduction in the marginal rate, applied to a large base, is the kind of figure that changes where a family chooses to establish itself. The benefit applies to both inheritances and lifetime gifts, so it is relevant to planned succession as well as to events no one chooses.

Who benefits most

This benefit is aimed squarely at families relocating significant wealth. If your reason for moving to Türkiye is not only to shelter foreign income but to hold, pass on or gift a meaningful estate during your years of residence, the 1% rate is a core part of the calculation — arguably as important as the income-tax exemption itself.

For a high-net-worth household planning succession, the combined effect of a 0% income shelter and a 1% transfer rate is a genuinely distinctive offer, and one that few competing residence regimes match. The larger and more concentrated the wealth being moved, the more the transfer rate — rather than the income rate — tends to drive the decision. Families whose main concern is passing assets to the next generation efficiently are precisely the group this measure is built for.

How it pairs with the income-tax exemption

The two benefits are designed to work together and rest on the same foundation: eligible new-resident status. The preferential rate applies during the exemption period, so the same individuals who qualify for the 20-year foreign income exemption are the ones positioned to use the 1% inheritance and gift rate. That makes the underlying eligibility test — becoming a Turkish tax resident from 1 January 2026 with no Turkish domicile or tax liability in the three preceding calendar years — the single gateway to both benefits. Get that test right and you unlock the pair; miss it and you lose both. For families combining the move with an investment or citizenship route, see our note on citizenship by investment and the exemption.