Green Passport... Your Turkish passport and how to obtain it?

Many foreign investors have been able in recent years to obtain Turkish citizenship and passport.

These include businessmen who founded companies in Turkey, and are now seeking a "green passport" instead of their regular Turkish passport.

A green passport is a special type of Turkish passport, which is granted to only a limited number of Turkish citizens and provides them with a significant privilege to enter some 160 countries without a visa. It is a regrettable fact that the ordinary Turkish passport is not among the most powerful in the world. It gives the holder the right to enter the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, China and most Arab States only on a visa.

However, most of those States, including those of the European Union, China and the United Arab Emirates, have access to green passports thanks to international agreements concluded between the Turkish Government and its counterparts in those States. It should be noted that the United Kingdom and the United States do not grant visa-free access to their lands even to green passport holders.

Some categories of Turkish civil servants and lawyers are entitled to a green passport, but for the sake of Al Jazeera's audience who may only be foreign investors in Turkey, we should go beyond these categories and focus on the question of how can foreign investors already holding Turkish nationality obtain a green passport?

The only way is to be an exporter

With amendments to the rules on green passport in 2017, it is now possible for representatives of Turkish export companies to obtain a green passport, and it does not matter whether goods or services are exported.

exporter.This opportunity is subject to some strict legal requirements, and is not granted to all export companies registered in Turkey.

First of all, let's confirm that as long as the requirements listed below are met, it doesn't matter if applicants for a green passport are native or naturalized Turkish citizens.

Partners, managers or any selected Turkish export company employee are entitled to a green passport, but export companies must have average annual exports of more than US $ 500 thousand 3 "calendar years", prior to the year in which the application was made. This means that companies must have total exports of at least US $1.5 million over the past three years.

If the average annual export is more than US $ 500 thousand, but less than US $ 10 million, then only one representative chosen by exporting companies can be granted a green passport.

If annual exports average more than US $10 million, but less than US $25 million, two representatives are entitled to the same right.