Closed neighborhoods for foreigners Turkey 2026 (list + checker)

In 2026, many districts and neighborhoods in Türkiye are closed to new foreign short-term residence permit and address registration applications. If your rental address is on the closed list, that application path usually fails — check before you sign.

Check any province or district against the current list with our free closed district checker (map + status for ikamet and address registration).

"Closed areas" / "closed addresses" means: for tourist (short-term) applicants, you cannot use an address in those places for residence permit or address registration. Student, work, and family permits are exempt from the closed-area rule (see exceptions below).

Göç İdaresi announced closures in June and October 2022 to rebalance foreigner density in Istanbul and many other provinces. The national mahalle list still sits on the official neighborhood closure announcement; Istanbul also has whole-district first-application closures described in Göç statements.

Areas closed to foreigners in Istanbul

To understand closed areas in Istanbul, we need to understand two situations. The first is that 10 districts are fully closed, and the second is that some neighborhoods in open districts are also closed.

Fully closed districts

Avcılar, Bahçelievler, Bağcılar, Başakşehir, Esenler, Esenyurt, Fatih, Küçükçekmece, Sultangazi and Zeytinburnu are fully closed to foreigners in Istanbul for short-term / tourist first applications. No neighborhood in these districts is open for that path.

The districts listed above are closed for short-term residence permit and address registration. Student, work, and family permits are different (see exceptions below).

Districts with only some neighborhoods closed in Istanbul

The second thing we need to pay attention to from this point is that some neighborhoods in certain districts are closed. When renting a property from districts other than the closed districts listed above, we also need to watch out for these closed neighborhoods.

Closed neighborhoods in open districts in Istanbul for foreigners

This list shows the specific neighborhoods that have been closed to foreigners' residence registration in districts that are otherwise open for residence in Istanbul.

What are the exceptions to the closed areas?

In the situations listed below, foreigners can register an address in closed areas:

• There is no closed area rule for student residence permit holders.
• There is no closed area rule for work permit holders.
• There is no closed area rule for family residence permit holders.
• There is no closed area rule for investment-based citizenship j-clause residence applications.

If you are not sure whether your permit type is exempt, check your district in the closed district checker and choose your permit type there.

If your target district is closed and you are weighing whether to handle the workaround yourself or bring in help, our DIY vs lawyer vs concierge comparison covers what each path costs and where each falls short.

How were the areas closed to residence registration determined?

The neighborhood list in question has been compiled in accordance with official data shared with the public by the Directorate of Migration Management under the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Turkey. There are two main regulations underlying this process:

• 30 June 2022: With the first announcement published by the Directorate of Migration Management, specific neighborhoods were closed to foreigners' residence registration. First announcement.
• 19 October 2022: With a second announcement published subsequently, the scope of closed areas was expanded and the list took its current form. Second announcement.

Therefore, these restrictions are based on administrative decisions announced directly through the agency's official website.

Put this map on your own website

If you run an agency, law firm, or relocation website, you can add this closed-district map to your own pages for free. Pick a city your clients care about (or all of Türkiye), copy one snippet from the embed builder, and paste it into any HTML block. When the official lists change and we update our data, the map on your site updates with it.