A will in Turkey (vasiyetname) is governed by the Turkish Civil Code (Türk Medeni Kanunu), which recognises three forms, official, handwritten and oral, and limits what any of them can do: a will cannot override the reserved shares of the testator's descendants, parents and spouse, and a disposition that does so is cut back by the court on the heirs' application. This article explains who can make a will and which law governs a foreign national's estate, how each form is executed and where each fails, how the reserved shares are calculated and what lifetime alternatives exist, how a will is revoked, what happens after the death, from the opening of the will before the civil court of peace to the certificate of inheritance, inheritance tax and the transfer of assets, and who challenges a will, on which grounds and within which time limits, with the points that matter to foreigners who own property in Turkey or inherit from someone who did.
- Anyone of fifteen with the capacity to judge can make a will; a foreign testator's capacity is judged by their national law.
- Descendants keep half of their legal share, each parent a quarter, the spouse the whole of it when sharing with descendants or parents and three quarters otherwise; the rest is free.
- A foreign national's estate is governed by their national law, except real estate in Turkey, which follows Turkish law including the reserved shares.
- Where there is a will or a foreign heir, the certificate of inheritance comes from the civil court of peace, not a notary.
- Inheritance tax is declared within four to eight months, paid over three years, and cleared before the land registry transfers the property.
Who can make a will and which law governs a foreign national's estate
A person may make a will from the age of fifteen, provided they have the capacity to judge (ayırt etme gücü), the ability to understand what the document does and to act on that understanding; the age and the capacity are tested at the moment of execution, so a will made during a lucid period by a person with a fluctuating condition stands, and a will made under acute impairment by an otherwise healthy person does not. In our practice, where a later challenge to capacity is foreseeable, the will is executed in the official form before a notary, a medical report on capacity is obtained within days of the execution, and the witnesses are chosen for their ability to describe the testator's state later.
For a foreign national the first question is which law governs. Under the Turkish Code on Private International Law, succession is governed by the national law of the deceased, except that immovable property in Turkey is governed by Turkish law; the estate of a foreigner is therefore split, with the bank accounts, shares and movables following the home law and the flat in Istanbul following the Civil Code, including its reserved shares. Capacity to make a will follows the testator's national law at the time of the disposition, and the form of a will is valid if it complies with the law of the place where it was made, the testator's national law or the law governing the substance of the succession; Turkey is also a party to the Hague Convention on the form of testamentary dispositions, which adds the law of the testator's domicile or habitual residence. A will validly made at home is therefore almost always valid in form in Turkey; what it cannot do is dispose of Turkish real estate in breach of the Turkish reserved shares.
Two further rules affect foreigners specifically. A foreign national may inherit real estate in Turkey only within the limits that apply to foreign acquisition under the Land Registry Law: an heir who is a national of a country whose citizens cannot acquire property in Turkey, or who inherits property in a military or special security zone, does not take the property itself but its value, the property being sold and the proceeds paid out. And a will that chooses the law to apply to the succession has no effect in Turkey, because the Turkish conflict rules do not allow a choice of law for succession, unlike the European Succession Regulation that many of our clients know from home. Our practice page on inheritance law in Turkey covers the intestate rules; this article covers the will.
The three forms: official, handwritten and oral wills
The official will (resmî vasiyetname) is drawn up by a notary, a civil court of peace judge or another official authorised by law, in the presence of two witnesses. The testator states their wishes to the official, the official writes or has them written and gives the text to the testator to read, the testator reads it, signs it and declares before the witnesses that they have read it and that it contains their last wishes, and the witnesses confirm on the document that the declaration was made in their presence and that the testator appeared capable; a testator who cannot read or sign has the text read out by the official in the presence of the witnesses, who then confirm the content as well. The witnesses and the official cannot be persons without capacity, persons deprived of public rights, illiterate persons, the testator's spouse, relatives in the direct line, siblings or their spouses, and nothing in the will may benefit them or their close relatives. The notary keeps the original, the existence of the will is recorded in the population registry, and the court is notified of it when the death is registered, so an official will cannot be lost or suppressed; this is the form we use for foreign testators.
The handwritten will (el yazılı vasiyetname) must be written from beginning to end in the testator's own hand, dated by year, month and day, and signed; nothing else is required, and it may be deposited with a notary or a court for safekeeping. The form is unforgiving: a typed text with a handwritten signature is not a will, a text written by another person at the testator's dictation is not a will, and a missing or incomplete date has been treated by the Court of Cassation as a defect that invalidates the will unless the full date can be established from the document itself. The language is free, so a foreign testator may write in English, but the will is translated by a sworn translator when it is opened and every ambiguity in the translation becomes a dispute between the heirs.
The oral will (sözlü vasiyet) is available only where the testator cannot use the other two forms because of extraordinary circumstances such as imminent death, interruption of communications, epidemic or war: the testator declares their wishes to two witnesses, one of whom writes them down with the place and date, both sign, and they deliver the document without delay to a civil court of peace or civil court of first instance judge, or declare the will to the judge orally; a soldier on active service may use an officer, and a traveller on a ship the captain, instead of the judge. The oral will lapses one month after the testator regains the possibility of making a will in another form, so it is a stopgap, not an estate plan, and in the cases we see it is challenged on whether the emergency existed at all. Our practice page on the Turkish inheritance lawyers covers drafting in each form.
Reserved shares: what a will cannot take away
The Civil Code reserves a part of the estate for the closest heirs regardless of the will. The reserved share (saklı pay) is a fraction of the heir's legal share: for a descendant, one half of the legal share; for each parent, one quarter; for the surviving spouse, the whole of the legal share where the spouse inherits together with descendants or with the parents, and three quarters of it in other cases. Siblings had a reserved share until 2007 and no longer have one. The legal share of the spouse is one quarter when there are descendants, one half when there are parents or their descendants and no children, three quarters when there are only grandparents or their descendants, and the whole estate otherwise; a child's legal share is the estate, less the spouse's share, divided equally among the children.
The disposable portion (tasarruf edilebilir kısım) is what remains after the reserved shares are deducted from the net estate, and the net estate is valued at the date of death after deducting the debts, the funeral and the costs of sealing and inventory, with lifetime gifts that are subject to reduction added back. A will that exceeds the disposable portion is not void; the heir whose reserved share is infringed brings a reduction action (tenkis davası) before the civil court of first instance within one year of learning of the infringement and in any case within ten years of the opening of the will, and the court cuts the dispositions back in the order the Code sets, testamentary dispositions first and then lifetime gifts, the most recent first.
Disinheritance (mirasçılıktan çıkarma) is the only way to defeat a reserved share by will, and it is available on two grounds only: the heir has committed a serious offence against the testator or a person close to the testator, or has seriously breached the family law duties owed to the testator or the testator's family; the will must state the ground, and the person who benefits from the disinheritance must prove it when the disinherited heir challenges it. Estrangement, a disapproved marriage or a dispute over money do not qualify, so in our practice a testator who wants to depart from the reserved shares does it with the heir's consent during their lifetime, through a renunciation of inheritance contract (mirastan feragat sözleşmesi) made in the official will form, usually against a payment, which binds the renouncing heir and, unless agreed otherwise, their descendants. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Revocation, later wills and the inheritance contract
A will can be revoked at any time by a testator who still has capacity. Revocation is made in any of the three forms, by a later will that expressly revokes the earlier one or that is incompatible with it, in which case the earlier will stands for whatever is not contradicted; or by destroying the document, deliberately, by the testator or at their direction, since accidental destruction or loss revokes nothing and the content of a lost will can be proved by other evidence. A later will that does not mention the earlier one and can stand beside it supplements rather than replaces it, which is why a new will drafted by us revokes all earlier dispositions in terms and the earlier official will is withdrawn from the notary. A disposition in favour of a spouse lapses on divorce unless the will shows that the testator intended otherwise.
The inheritance contract (miras sözleşmesi) is the second instrument of estate planning, and unlike a will it binds the testator: the testator either appoints the other party or a third person as heir or legatee, or the other party renounces their inheritance. It is made in the official will form, with both parties present and signing before the official and the witnesses, and it is dissolved only by agreement in writing, by the beneficiary's serious misconduct of the kind that justifies disinheritance, or, where the renunciation was for consideration, by the failure of the consideration. In our practice the inheritance contract is used where a foreign owner wants certainty that a Turkish property passes to a named person, or where a child is to be bought out of the Turkish estate in exchange for assets at home.
A will or contract that is kept abroad raises a practical problem at the death: the Turkish court opens only the document it has, and a foreign will is produced to it with an apostille and a sworn translation, together with any home probate or grant. Where a foreign testator holds Turkish real estate, the cleanest structure is a separate Turkish will in the official form limited to the Turkish assets, which the home will expressly leaves untouched, so that neither revokes the other. Our note on challenging a will in Turkey covers what happens when the forms were not respected.
After the death: opening the will and the certificate of inheritance
Whoever holds a will must deliver it to the civil court of peace (Sulh Hukuk Mahkemesi) of the deceased's last residence as soon as they learn of the death, whether or not they think it valid; the notary who holds an official will delivers it to the court when the death comes to its knowledge, which the population registry reports. The judge opens the will within one month of receiving it, at a hearing to which the known heirs are summoned, reads it into the record and serves a copy of the relevant parts on every heir and legatee, including those who take under the intestate rules and are displaced by the will. The opening establishes the existence and content of the will; it decides nothing about its validity, and the heirs' one-year period for an annulment or reduction action runs from their knowledge of the will and of the ground, which in practice runs from the service of the opened will.
The certificate of inheritance (mirasçılık belgesi, still called veraset ilamı) is the document that banks, the land registry and the trade registry act on; it names the heirs and their shares and creates a presumption of heirship that stands until the contrary is proved. Since 2011 a notary may issue it in simple cases from the population records, but a notary may not issue it where the deceased left a will, where the applicant or the deceased is a foreign national or the records are insufficient, and in those cases, which cover almost every file we handle, the application is made to the civil court of peace, which issues the certificate on the basis of the population records, the opened will and, for a foreign deceased, the documents proving the heirs under the national law. A legatee, who receives a specific asset rather than a share, obtains a separate certificate from the court if no heir objects within a month of being notified of the disposition, and then claims the asset from the heirs.
Heirs abroad act through a Turkish lawyer under a power of attorney issued at a Turkish consulate or before a foreign notary with an apostille and a sworn translation; the power of attorney must cover inheritance matters, the tax declaration and the land registry expressly, because a general power is refused at the registry. The documents proving the family relationship, where the deceased was foreign, are the foreign civil status records with apostille and translation. Until the certificate is issued the heirs hold the estate jointly (elbirliği mülkiyeti) and can dispose of nothing without unanimity, a position described in our note on shared title deeds in Turkey.
Inheritance tax and the transfer of assets to the heirs
Inheritance and gift tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi) is paid by each heir on the value of what they receive, not by the estate. A Turkish national's heirs are taxed on the worldwide estate, with a credit for inheritance tax paid abroad on foreign assets; the heirs of a foreign national are taxed only on the assets in Turkey. The declaration is filed with the tax office of the deceased's last residence in Turkey, or of the place where the assets are for a non-resident deceased, within four months of the death where the death occurred in Turkey, six months where the death occurred abroad or the heirs live abroad, and eight months where the death occurred in one foreign country and the heirs live in another. Each descendant and the spouse have an exemption revalued every year, which in 2026 stands at a little under three million lira per heir and roughly double for a spouse with no descendants, and the rates above the exemption are progressive, from one percent on the first bracket to ten percent on the amount above the top threshold.
The values are set by the law, not by the market: real estate is declared at the property tax value held by the municipality, bank deposits at the balance on the date of death, vehicles at their insurance value and securities at their market or nominal value, with the tax office entitled to reassess; the declared value of real estate is therefore usually well below the price it would fetch. The tax is paid in six equal instalments over three years, in May and November of each year, without any application. Where a Turkish income tax treaty exists with the heir's home country it does not cover inheritance tax, so relief against a home-country death duty comes from that country's own rules on foreign taxes.
The transfer of the assets follows the tax. The land registry records the heirs as joint owners on production of the certificate of inheritance, but it will not transfer the property to a buyer or to one heir, or register a mortgage, until the tax office confirms that the inheritance tax on that property has been paid, through the clearance letter the heirs obtain after the last instalment or after paying in advance; banks release the deposits against the certificate and the same clearance. Shares in a Turkish company pass to the heirs with the certificate and are entered in the share ledger and, for a limited company, the trade registry. Our practice page on the tax lawyer in Turkey covers the declaration and the valuation disputes.
Executors, challenges and the time limits
A testator may appoint one or more executors (vasiyeti yerine getirme görevlisi) in the will; the civil court of peace notifies the appointee, who has fifteen days to decline, and silence is acceptance. The executor administers the estate under the supervision of the judge, draws up the inventory, pays the debts and the legacies, carries out the partition the will provides for and accounts to the heirs, with the liability of an agent for any loss caused by a breach of duty; the heirs cannot dispose of the estate while the executor is in office except with their consent. A foreign executor works through a Turkish lawyer under a power of attorney.
A will is challenged by an annulment action before the civil court of first instance on four grounds: lack of capacity, a defect of consent, that is mistake, fraud, deception or duress, an unlawful or immoral content or condition, and a defect of form; the action is brought within one year of the claimant learning of the will, the ground and their own entitlement, and in any case within ten years of the opening of the will against defendants in good faith and twenty years against others. Where the testator had a reserved-share heir whose share is infringed, the reduction action runs beside the annulment action and is decided on the same facts. A will that is annulled leaves the estate to pass under the intestate rules unless an earlier valid will stands.
Mandatory mediation does not apply to inheritance disputes of these kinds, and the actions are heard with a hearing, witness evidence on capacity and form, and expert reports from the Council of Forensic Medicine on the testator's medical records and from handwriting experts on a disputed handwritten will. Judgments are appealed to the regional court of appeal and, above the threshold, to the Court of Cassation. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a foreigner make a will in Turkey, and in English? Yes. A foreigner may make an official will before a Turkish notary, through a sworn interpreter where they do not speak Turkish, or a handwritten will in any language; capacity follows the testator's national law and the form is valid if it meets Turkish law, the law of the place of execution or the national law.
- Does my will made at home cover my flat in Turkey? In form, yes, if it is valid where it was made. In substance, Turkish law governs real estate in Turkey, so the Turkish reserved shares of your children, parents and spouse apply to the flat whatever the home will says, and a choice of your home law in the will has no effect in Turkey.
- How much of my estate can I leave to whomever I choose? What remains after the reserved shares: half of each descendant's legal share, a quarter of each parent's, the spouse's full legal share where there are descendants or parents and three quarters of it otherwise. With a spouse and two children the free portion is three eighths of the net estate.
- Can I disinherit a child? Only for a serious offence against you or a person close to you, or a serious breach of family duties, stated in the will and proved by the person who benefits. Otherwise the child keeps the reserved share and the surplus disposition is reduced; a renunciation contract signed with the child during your lifetime is the reliable alternative.
- Who issues the certificate of inheritance when there is a will or a foreign heir? The civil court of peace. A notary may issue the certificate only in simple cases from the population records and cannot do so where a will exists, where a foreign national is involved or where the records are insufficient.
- When is inheritance tax declared and paid? Within four months of a death in Turkey, six months where the death or the heirs are abroad, eight months where both are abroad in different countries; it is paid in six instalments over three years in May and November, and the land registry will not transfer the property until the tax on it is cleared.
- How long do heirs have to challenge a will? One year from learning of the will and the ground for annulment or reduction, and in any case ten years from the opening of the will, extended to twenty years for an annulment action against a defendant who was not in good faith.
Author: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu, Managing Partner, ER&GUN&ER Law Firm, Istanbul Bar No. 67874. He advises foreign testators and heirs on wills and inheritance contracts for Turkish assets, the opening of foreign and Turkish wills, certificates of inheritance, reserved-share and annulment actions, inheritance tax and the transfer of property to heirs. Education: Istanbul University Faculty of Law (2018); Galatasaray University, LL.M. (2022).
Profile: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu. LinkedIn: Profile. Istanbul Bar Association: Official website. Related practice page: Turkish real estate lawyer.