UK–Turkey Double Taxation Agreement

Not once HMRC accepts you as non-UK resident. Article 18 of the UK-Turkey treaty assigns pensions and social security payments exclusively to your country of residence, so the State Pension becomes taxable in Turkey instead of the UK. File form P85 when you leave, and if UK tax is still being deducted, submit form DT-Individual with a Turkish tax residency certificate to get it stopped.

It still goes up. This is a common point of confusion, but GOV.UK's official published list of countries where the State Pension is increased annually includes Turkey, alongside the EEA, Switzerland, and a handful of other social-security-agreement countries such as the USA, Israel, and the Philippines — this rests on a reciprocal UK-Turkey social security arrangement dating back to 1961. Pensioners in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Asia and Africa are the ones whose pensions are frozen at the rate first paid — Turkey is not on that frozen list.

You can keep an existing ISA open as a non-UK resident, but you cannot make new contributions while non-resident. The ISA's tax-free status is a UK domestic concept — the UK-Turkey DTA doesn't recognise the wrapper. In principle, income and gains inside your ISA can be taxable in Turkey if you are Turkish tax resident, even though the same amounts stay UK tax-free. This is rarely enforced for modest balances in practice, but it's a real legal exposure for larger portfolios worth getting specific advice on.

Apply the Statutory Residence Test for each tax year and keep detailed records of every day spent in the UK (travel bookings, boarding passes, a day-count diary). If you were UK resident in any of the 3 previous tax years, spending fewer than 16 UK days in a tax year makes you automatically non-resident; if you weren't UK resident in any of those 3 years, the threshold is fewer than 46 days. File form P85 when you permanently leave UK employment and the country, and complete the SA109 non-residence pages on your final UK Self Assessment return.

Generally no. Unlike the United States, the UK does not operate withholding tax on ordinary company dividends paid to non-resident shareholders — dividends are usually paid gross regardless of where you live (real estate investment trust distributions are a narrow exception, withheld at 20%). As a Turkish tax resident you still generally need to declare UK dividend income to the Turkish tax authorities, but there is typically no UK tax to credit against it.

It stays taxable in the UK. As a non-resident landlord, your letting agent or tenant must withhold basic-rate tax (20%) from the rent unless HMRC has approved you for gross payment via form NRL1. You then file an annual UK Self Assessment return declaring the rental income. If you are also Turkish tax resident, you generally need to declare the same income in Turkey too, with a credit for the UK tax already paid so you are not taxed twice.

Yes, if the property is UK residential property — non-residents pay UK non-resident CGT at 18% or 24% depending on the size of the gain and your other UK income, and you must report the sale to HMRC and pay any tax due within 60 days of completion, even if no tax is ultimately owed. Gains on most other UK assets (listed shares, funds) are generally outside UK CGT once you are genuinely non-resident, subject to the 5-year temporary non-residence rule if you return to the UK.

This is one of the most commonly confused points. The ordinary State Pension falls under Article 18 (pensions and social security payments), which assigns taxing rights exclusively to your country of residence — Turkey, once you're non-UK resident. A UK civil-service, NHS, teacher, or armed forces pension falls under the separate Article 19 (Government Service) instead, which keeps it taxable exclusively in the UK regardless of where you live, unless you are both resident in and a national of Turkey. Mixing the two up leads to people either under- or over-declaring in one country.

Yes, if you are a British citizen — nationality alone entitles you to the Personal Allowance (£12,570 for 2025/26 and 2026/27, frozen at that level) regardless of where you live, separately from the general list of DTA countries whose nationals can also claim it (which happens to include Turkey). You claim it by filing a UK Self Assessment return or form R43 for any UK-source income that remains taxable in the UK — for example rental income or a government pension.

No. The 1988 UK-Turkey DTA covers income tax and capital gains tax — it does not cover inheritance or gift tax, and there is no separate UK-Turkey estate tax treaty (the UK only has these with a short list of countries such as France, Italy, India, and the USA). This matters more since 6 April 2025, when UK inheritance tax moved to a residence-based system: if you were UK resident for 10 or more of the previous 20 tax years, you can remain liable for UK IHT on your worldwide estate for 3 to 10 years after you leave, and UK-situated assets are always in scope. Any Turkish inheritance tax (veraset ve intikal vergisi) on the same estate is addressed only through unilateral relief, not a treaty credit — get separate cross-border estate planning advice if you hold significant assets in both countries.

DT-Individual is the HMRC form non-UK residents use to claim relief at source under a double taxation agreement on UK pensions, purchased annuities, interest, and royalties, and/or to reclaim UK tax already deducted. Submitted with a Turkish tax residency certificate, it results in HMRC issuing your pension provider or payer an 'NT' (no tax) code, so future payments are made gross instead of you having to claim a refund later.

Apply through the Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı (GİB), most easily via e-Devlet: log in with your Turkish ID credentials, search "Mukimlik belgesi başvuru dilekçesi", and state the purpose (claiming DTA relief on UK-source income). It is typically issued within days, in both Turkish and English, and UK payers or HMRC usually expect it renewed roughly annually.

The current agreement was signed on 19 February 1986 and entered into force on 26 October 1988, taking effect in the UK from 1 April 1989 for corporation tax and 6 April 1989 for income tax and capital gains tax. The official text is published on GOV.UK as the 1988 UK-Turkey Double Taxation Agreement (also enacted domestically as the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Turkey) Order 1988), and by Turkey's Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı on gib.gov.tr. Always check the current published text rather than relying solely on summaries — treaty commentary, including this page, simplifies for clarity.

Possibly. Article 19 of the treaty normally reserves UK government-service pensions exclusively for the UK, but it carries an exception: if you are both resident in and a national of Turkey, the taxing right can shift to Turkey instead. Dual nationals in this position should get specific advice rather than assume the general Article 19 rule applies unchanged.

If you are Turkish tax resident (183+ days in Turkey, or a registered domicile there) and your UK pension is taxable in Turkey under Article 18 — which applies to the State Pension and private/occupational pensions once you are non-UK resident — then yes, it generally needs declaring on a Turkish annual income tax return. A UK government-service pension, by contrast, stays exclusively UK-taxable under Article 19 and is not normally declared in Turkey.