Türkiye Tech Visa for founders: what the programme actually gives you

Türkiye opened a Tech Visa track for foreign technology founders and specialists. Most of what is written about it in English comes from law firms explaining the statute and from relocation agencies selling a service. Neither tells you the thing a founder actually wants to know: what you get, what the government has not published, and whether Istanbul is worth the move at all.

We have run events in Istanbul since 2023, which is where Unicorn Embassy started. This is the programme read from that side of the table.

What the programme gives you

The startup track is documented on the government portal at turkiyetechvisa.gov.tr. Five things are stated plainly.

A three-year work permit. Not a one-year renewal cycle, which is the part that matters if you have ever spent a Turkish winter assembling documents for an ikamet renewal. The permit also lets you bring staff in under special employment exceptions.

Technopark access. Nearly 101 technoparks across the country are open to programme participants for office setup.

Tax exemptions. Value-added tax, corporate tax and customs tax, plus income tax eliminated on employee premiums for staff inside the technopark regime.

A dedicated fund. The Türkiye Tech Visa Fund provides financing to participating startups, alongside government grants for project financing, branding and promotion into foreign markets.

Free consultancy and healthcare. Company establishment, tax guidance, finding office space, mentor introductions and navigating government programmes are covered. Staff get state health coverage at no cost.

What the government has not published

The startup page lists benefits in detail and says almost nothing about who qualifies. There are no published thresholds: no minimum traction, no revenue floor, no named list of accepted sectors, no scoring rubric. What secondary sources consistently describe is the shape of the requirement rather than its bar: either a confirmed job offer from a Turkish technology company, or a viable business plan if you are founding your own.

Treat that as a live risk, not a detail. A programme that publishes its benefits and not its criteria is a programme where the decision sits with a committee you cannot model in advance. Plan for a decision you cannot predict, and do not put your relocation timeline on the critical path of an approval.

The application route itself is ordinary: a work visa at a Turkish embassy or consulate first, then a work permit through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The Tech Visa designation changes what you get and how fast, not the counters you stand at.

The numbers so far

The Ministry of Industry and Technology reported in its 2025 activity summary, carried by Anadolu Agency on 3 March 2026, that 22 foreign startups had been approved to relocate through the programme, and that 667 companies had earned the Tech Startup Badge by the end of 2025.

Twenty-two is a small number, and it is the honest one. This is an early programme, not a well-worn path. Being early cuts both ways: less competition for attention, and less precedent for anyone to tell you how your case will go.

Whether Istanbul is worth it independent of the visa

The visa is an instrument. The city is the actual decision. Startup Genome ranks Istanbul #2 among emerging startup ecosystems, with an ecosystem value of $19 billion for H2 2023 to 2025, up 658% against H2 2018 to 2020. Total VC funding reached $6.3 billion across 2021 to 2025, and 2025 alone saw $589 million raised across 306 deals. Exits over the same five years came to $9 billion across 125 companies.

Those numbers describe a market that has depth and is being noticed. They do not describe a market that is easy for a foreigner to enter, which is a different problem and the one you will actually spend your first year on.

Who this fits

It fits you if you are building something technical, you want a base with a real domestic market rather than a nomad stopover, and a three-year permit solves a problem you currently re-solve every twelve months. It fits especially well if you already have a reason to be in the region and Istanbul is a plausible centre of gravity.

It fits badly if you are optimising for the cheapest possible tax setup, if your business has no reason to touch Türkiye, or if you need certainty about approval before you can plan. For the tax-first case, local sole-proprietor regimes in Georgia, Armenia and Serbia are simpler and more predictable.

The part the paperwork will not do for you

A permit puts you in the country. It does not put you in the room. The founders we see settle fastest in Istanbul are the ones who show up to things in the first month, before their Turkish is any good and before they have anything to show. The ones who arrive, set up a company, work from an apartment for six months and then start looking for people have a much harder time, because by then the cost of introducing yourself has gone up in your own head.

Istanbul is where Unicorn Embassy started, in 2023, with mastermind evenings in Kadıköy where everyone pitched and everyone gave feedback. That format is still what we run, in nine cities across seven countries now, and Istanbul is still one of them.

If Türkiye is on your list, the cheapest first move is not a lawyer. It is showing up to one evening and finding out whether these are your people. The Istanbul chat is here - events get posted there, and you can ask the people who already did the paperwork what it cost them.