The exemption on residential rental income earned in Turkey during 2026 is 58,000 TL. If your total residential rent for the year stays below that figure, you file nothing. Above it, the return is due in March 2027. Commercial rent works through a completely different mechanism. There the tenant deducts the tax and pays it over, at 20% of the gross rent.
Pay attention to which year the 58,000 TL figure belongs to. The income declared this past March was earned in 2025, and the exemption for that year was 47,000 TL. A good number of the online calculators floating around mix these two years up.
Then there is stamp duty (damga vergisi). Looking at what people search for, I see plenty of residential tenants chasing a calculation they never needed, because a lease signed by an individual for a dwelling is exempt from it. Below I set out where each figure comes from, with the official instrument behind it.
Residential rental income: 58,000 TL exemption for 2026
The dwelling exemption in Article 21 of Income Tax Law No. 193 is revalued every year. Income Tax General Communiqué Series No. 332, published in the Official Gazette on 31 December 2025, set the figure at 58,000 TL for the 2026 calendar year.
| Year income was earned | Residential exemption | Filing window |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 47,000 TL | 1-31 March 2026 (closed) |
| 2026 | 58,000 TL | 1-31 March 2027 |
Source: Income Tax General Communiqué Series No. 332 and the guidance of the Turkish Revenue Administration (Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı).
How the exemption is applied
If you own more than one home, the exemption does not run separately for each property. It is applied once to the combined rental income. Shared ownership reverses this; each co-owner claims the exemption separately against their own share of the income.
Who cannot use it
- Anyone required to file an annual return because of commercial, agricultural or professional earnings.
- Anyone whose gross salary, investment income, rental income and other earnings together exceed the amount stated in the third bracket of the tariff for salary income. For 2026 that threshold is 1,500,000 TL.
- Anyone who files rental income late or understates it. This clause matters a great deal; the moment you miss the filing window, the exemption goes with it.
Commercial rent: the tenant deducts 20%
Under Article 94/5-a of Income Tax Law No. 193, payments of commercial rent are subject to withholding (stopaj) at 20% of the gross rent. The rate was temporarily cut to 10% during the pandemic and has been back at 20% since the 2022 taxation period.
Two conditions must be met together
- The property must be leased for business use.
- The tenant must be one of the parties listed as responsible for withholding in Article 94. Companies, associations and foundations, self-employed professionals and traders taxed under the real regime are all in that group.
If your tenant is a tradesman taxed under the simplified regime (basit usul), no withholding arises. The income then counts as rental income not subject to withholding, and the filing threshold for 2026 income drops to 22,000 TL. I often see owners skip the return on the assumption that the tenant must be deducting something, without knowing this distinction.
Gross basis, and the trap in net leases
Withholding is always calculated on the gross rent. If the lease says the monthly rent is 40,000 TL net and the tax belongs to the tenant, the figure has to be grossed up. For illustration only: 40,000 TL net divided by 0.80 gives a gross of 50,000 TL, so the withholding is 10,000 TL. The tenant reports the 50,000 TL figure on their withholding tax return.
Filing threshold and credit
If your gross commercial rent subject to withholding does not exceed 400,000 TL for 2026, you file no annual return and the tax deducted stands as final. Above the threshold you declare the full income and credit the withholding already paid during the year against the tax calculated. When testing that threshold, remember to add in the part of your residential rent that exceeds the exemption.
Stamp duty on leases: none for homes, 0.189% for commercial
This is the part that gets misunderstood. Item IV/31 of Table 2 attached to Stamp Duty Law No. 488 exempts lease agreements for immovable property rented by individuals as a dwelling and not included in a commercial enterprise. Law No. 6728 extended that exemption to guarantee endorsements and securities added to such agreements.
So a standard residential tenancy generates no stamp duty at all. The same table also exempts leases of premises taken by tradesmen exempt from income tax and by taxpayers under the simplified regime.
How the calculation works for commercial leases
Where stamp duty does apply to a lease, the rate is 0.189% (1.89 per thousand). Stamp Duty Law General Communiqué Series No. 71, published in the Official Gazette on 31 December 2025, raised the fixed amounts by 18.95% and left the proportional rates untouched. The base is not the monthly rent but the total rent payable over the full term of the agreement.
For illustration only: a one year commercial lease at 40,000 TL per month gives a base of 480,000 TL. At 0.189% the stamp duty comes to 907.20 TL.
Who pays and when it is reported
Under Article 24 of the law, the taxpayers are the parties who sign the document. The parties may agree in the lease that the tenant bears the stamp duty; that agreement holds between them but does not remove either side's liability towards the administration. Those without standing stamp duty registration must report and pay within 15 days of the date the document was drawn up. I covered the drafting side separately in my article on the clauses that protect a landlord in a lease agreement. The cleanest route is to have the stamp duty filing handled by your certified accountant.
Lump sum expenses or actual expenses?
An owner who files a return picks one of two expense methods. The choice moves the tax directly, so there is no reason to rush it.
Lump sum method
The exemption is deducted from gross income first, then 15% is deducted from the remainder as a lump sum expense. No documents are required. However, a taxpayer who picks this method cannot switch back to actual expenses for two years. Those leasing rights, and those whose rental income exceeds the amount in the second bracket of the tariff (400,000 TL for 2026), cannot use the lump sum method.
Illustrative calculation: take an owner with 120,000 TL of gross residential rent in 2026. Deducting the 58,000 TL exemption leaves 62,000 TL. A 15% lump sum expense of 9,300 TL brings the base down to 52,700 TL. Since the first bracket of the tariff is 15%, the tax calculated is 7,905 TL. These figures are illustrative only; other items may come into play in your own case.
Actual expense method
Mortgage interest, insurance premiums, maintenance and repair costs on the let property, depreciation, and 5% of the acquisition cost for five years from the date of purchase can all be deducted. On a recently purchased property bought with financing, the actual expense method usually produces a better result than the lump sum. Choose it and you must keep the supporting documents for five years. If you are wondering how long the property takes to pay for itself, my article on the payback period in real estate covers that calculation.
Which method serves you better depends entirely on your own expense items. Ask your certified accountant to run both and compare them; because of the two year lock-in, this is not a decision for a single year.
Filing and payment: 1-31 March, two instalments
Rental income is declared between 1 and 31 March of the following year. For income earned in 2026 the window is 1-31 March 2027.
You can file through the Revenue Administration's Hazır Beyan Sistemi (Pre-Filled Tax Return System). Access is through dijital.gib.gov.tr or with your e-Devlet credentials. The system pulls data from land registry, banking and withholding records, prepares a draft return and puts it in front of you; you check it and fill in what is missing.
The income tax assessed is paid in two instalments. The first is due by the end of the filing month and the second by the end of July. Payment can be made from the digital tax office by bank or credit card, through contracted banks, or by transfer.
What happens if I do not file?
There are three scenarios here, and which one you are in changes the amount you pay substantially.
| Situation | Tax loss penalty | Additional charge |
|---|---|---|
| Voluntary disclosure by you (TPL Art. 371) | None | 3.70% monthly surcharge |
| Invitation to explain received (TPL Art. 370) | 20% | Late payment interest |
| Referred to audit or assessment (TPL Art. 344) | 1 times the tax | Late payment interest |
The late payment surcharge, late payment interest and voluntary disclosure surcharge were set at 3.70% per month by a Presidential Decision published in the Official Gazette on 13 November 2025 (previous rate 4.50%).
Timing is the critical point. Voluntary disclosure (pişmanlık) works when you come forward before the administration has made any finding. The moment a letter inviting you to explain arrives, that door closes. From then on a tax loss penalty is assessed, even if only at 20%. I walked through how this mechanism plays out on a concrete example in my article on understating the price in a title deed transfer.
One more warning: a notice delivered to the electronic notification system starts the clock running whether or not you open it. Missing a response deadline because nobody was watching the digital tax office notifications is a common mistake.
There is a second loss on residential rent. Where the income is not declared on time, the 58,000 TL exemption falls away and the base is calculated on the full amount. Where the rent was never collected at all, a separate assessment is needed; I dealt with the legal side of collection problems in my article on evicting a tenant who does not pay rent.
The conditions and timing of a voluntary disclosure petition are technical. Do not take this step alone; work through it with your certified accountant.
For those with a tradesman tenant: the simplified regime threshold
If you have let commercial premises to a tradesman taxed under the simplified regime, whether your tenant stays in that category concerns you too, because a change of status switches the withholding mechanism on.
Communiqué Series No. 332 set the annual rent ceiling among the general conditions for the simplified regime, for the 2026 calendar year, at 99,000 TL within metropolitan municipality boundaries and 60,000 TL elsewhere. A tradesman whose annual rent exceeds that figure moves to the real taxation regime from the following calendar year. From that point the tenant becomes responsible for withholding and must deduct 20% from your rent payments.
It is worth revisiting this ceiling when you renew the lease. Assess the effect of any change in your tenant's status on your own filing obligation together with your certified accountant.
Rental income is the line that determines an owner's return on investment. Getting the tax side structured correctly determines how much of that return stays with you. If you would like to go through the lease structure, the tenant profile and the yield calculation before you let your property, you can reach me here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the residential rental income exemption in Turkey for 2026?
What is the withholding tax rate on commercial rent in Turkey and who deducts it?
Is stamp duty payable on a residential lease agreement in Turkey?
What happens if I do not declare rental income in Turkey?
Sources
- Income Tax General Communiqué Series No. 332, Official Gazette 31.12.2025 / 33124 (5th repeating issue): residential rent exemption 58,000 TL, simplified regime rent ceilings 99,000 and 60,000 TL, filing threshold 22,000 TL, 2026 income tax tariff.
- Stamp Duty Law General Communiqué Series No. 71, Official Gazette 31.12.2025 / 33124 (5th repeating issue): retention of the 0.189% rate on lease agreements.
- Stamp Duty Law No. 488, Articles 22 and 24 and item IV/31 of Table 2: residential lease exemption, liability and the 15 day filing period.
- Income Tax Law No. 193, Articles 21, 74, 86 and 94: dwelling exemption, expense methods, filing thresholds and withholding.
- Tax Procedure Law No. 213, Articles 344, 370 and 371: tax loss penalty, invitation to explain and voluntary disclosure.
- Presidential Decision No. 10556, Official Gazette 13.11.2025 / 33075: late payment surcharge, late payment interest and voluntary disclosure surcharge at 3.70% per month.
- Turkish Revenue Administration guidance on the Pre-Filled Tax Return System and its publication on the invitation to explain procedure.