Turkey's short-term rental (STR) market changed overnight on 1 January 2024. A single piece of legislation, Law No. 7464, rewrote the rules for anyone renting a property to tourists for 100 days or less. Two years on, the consequences have become impossible to ignore - and they fall very unevenly across the country.
If you are an international buyer weighing an Istanbul apartment against a property on the Mediterranean coast, the regulatory gap between the two is now one of the most important factors in your investment decision. In 2026, buying an Istanbul apartment to run on Airbnb is a fundamentally different - and riskier - proposition than buying a property in Alanya for the same purpose.
This article breaks down exactly what Law 7464 requires, why Istanbul has become a regulatory minefield for STR investors, and why Alanya's coastal property market remains structurally easier to operate in.
What Law 7464 Actually Changed
Enacted in October 2023 and in force from 1 January 2024, Law 7464 ("Law on the Renting of Residences for Tourism Purposes") created a single, unified licensing regime for short-term rentals across Turkey. The headline rule is simple: any rental of a residential property for 100 days or fewer to the same tenant now requires a tourism permit issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, or MTA).
Before this law, hosts operated in a grey zone with no national licensing system and patchy enforcement. Law 7464 ended that. It introduced:
- A mandatory MTA permit certificate for every qualifying STR unit.
- A door plaque requirement, so inspectors can identify licensed units on sight.
- Integration with the GİYKİMBİL guest-registration system and e-archive invoicing, allowing the state to cross-check who is staying where and whether income is being declared.
- A penalty ladder with fines that escalate fast for unlicensed operators.
A transition period ran through 31 December 2024 to let existing hosts come into compliance. That window has closed. Full enforcement - including surprise inspections - is the reality of the 2026 market.
The law applies everywhere in Turkey. But one of its requirements lands very differently depending on what kind of property you own, and that single distinction is why location now matters more than most buyers realise.
Istanbul's Nightmare: The Unanimous Consent Requirement
Here is the rule that has effectively frozen large parts of Istanbul's STR market: to obtain an MTA permit for an apartment inside a multi-owner building, you must secure unanimous, notarised consent from every single co-owner (kat maliki) in that building.
Not a majority. Not the management board. Every owner.
In a typical Istanbul apartment block with dozens of separate owners, this is close to impossible. One neighbour who dislikes the idea of tourists in the building - even one who simply will not respond, or who wants to be paid off - can block your permit indefinitely. There is no override, no appeal to a majority vote. A single dissenting signature missing means no permit, which means no legal short-term rental.
The practical effect is that an enormous share of Istanbul's apartment stock can never be legally licensed for STR, because the owner cannot realistically assemble unanimous consent. Buyers who purchased Istanbul apartments specifically for Airbnb income in 2022-2023 have, in many cases, found themselves holding a unit they cannot legally operate.
This is why, in 2026, buying an Istanbul apartment for short-term rental is a high-risk strategy. You are betting that you can get unanimous notarised sign-off from people you have never met - before you see a single night of revenue.
The 100-Day Cap and What It Means for Revenue
The second structural constraint is the 100-day cap. A permitted residential STR unit may be rented for a maximum of 100 days per year on a short-term basis.
Crucially, this cap is cumulative across all platforms. It is not 100 days on Airbnb plus another 100 on Booking.com plus direct bookings. It is 100 days total, across every channel combined, in a calendar year. Exceeding the cap triggers reclassification of the unit as an apart-hotel - a commercial category with far heavier licensing, fire-safety, and operational requirements that a single apartment owner is rarely equipped to meet.
For revenue modelling this matters enormously. If you were assuming 200+ rentable nights a year on a city apartment, the cap cuts your legal short-term inventory roughly in half. Anyone projecting STR returns in Turkey must build their numbers around 100 short-term nights, not a theoretical full calendar.
This is also where Alanya's market profile becomes an advantage rather than a liability, as we will see in the revenue example below.
The Penalty Ladder: Real Financial Risk
Operating without a permit is not a slap on the wrist. Law 7464 sets out an escalating penalty structure, and the figures are serious:
- First offence (operating without a permit): a fine of 100,000 to 300,000 TRY.
- After a formal cure notice, if the violation continues: 500,000 TRY.
- For persistent, repeated unlicensed operation: 1,000,000 TRY.
- Exceeding the 100-day cap specifically: a 300,000 TRY fine.
These penalties are enforced through the GİYKİMBİL guest-registration data, e-archive invoice cross-checks, and physical surprise inspections. The state no longer has to catch you in the act - mismatches between declared income, guest registrations, and platform listings are enough to trigger action.
For an investor, the lesson is that the cost of non-compliance is not a hypothetical. A single enforcement event can wipe out a year or more of net rental income. In Istanbul, where the unanimous-consent rule makes compliance structurally hard, this risk is acute: many owners cannot get licensed, yet operating unlicensed exposes them to the full penalty ladder.
On top of the penalties, STR income carries standing tax obligations - 20% VAT, a 2% accommodation tax, and a 0.5% monthly tourism contribution. (A December 2024 Danıştay ruling suspended a separate move to reclassify hosts as commercial enterprises; that case is still in the courts.) Build these into any return projection.
Platform Enforcement: Airbnb's May 2024 Delisting
Regulation only bites when platforms cooperate - and they now do. From May 2024, Airbnb began delisting unlicensed Turkish properties, removing listings that could not show a valid MTA permit number.
The scale of the cleanup is telling. As of July 2025, only around half of Istanbul's roughly 21,877 Airbnb listings held valid licenses. In other words, a large portion of the city's STR inventory is now either delisted, operating illegally, or in regulatory limbo.
For a buyer, this changes the calculus completely. You can no longer assume that an Istanbul apartment will simply "go on Airbnb." Without a permit - which, again, requires unanimous neighbour consent - the listing may never appear, or may be pulled. The platform is now an extension of the regulator.
Alanya's Structural Advantage
This is where coastal property fundamentally diverges from city apartments. The single most punishing element of Law 7464 - the unanimous co-owner consent requirement - applies to multi-owner buildings. Detached properties have no co-owners.
That distinction is decisive on the coast:
- Villas in Alanya, Bodrum, and Antalya are frequently detached or semi-detached. A standalone villa has no kat malikleri to obtain consent from, so the single biggest Istanbul barrier simply does not exist.
- New Alanya developments are increasingly designed with STR in mind. Many modern apartment complexes pre-include short-term rental rights directly in their management charter (yönetim planı), meaning the building's collective consent is effectively granted at the development stage rather than negotiated unit by unit afterwards.
- Coastal resort classification makes compliance structurally easier. These are tourism regions where short-term holiday rental is an expected, accepted use - not an intrusion into a residential community.
The result is that Alanya offers a path to legal, permitted short-term rental that is open and predictable, while Istanbul offers one that is, for most apartment buyers, effectively closed. For a deeper look at what those compliant Alanya units actually earn, see our analysis of short-term rental yields in Alanya.
Istanbul vs Alanya: STR Regulation at a Glance
| Factor | Istanbul apartment | Alanya coastal property |
|---|---|---|
| Governing law | Law 7464 (MTA permit) | Law 7464 (MTA permit) |
| Unanimous neighbour consent | Required from ALL co-owners | Not required for detached villas; pre-included in many new complexes |
| Single dissenting neighbour | Blocks the permit entirely | No co-owners (villa) or consent pre-granted in charter |
| 100-day annual cap | Applies | Applies |
| New-build STR rights | Rarely pre-arranged | Frequently written into the management charter |
| Resort/tourism classification | Residential city zoning | Established coastal tourism region |
| Practical likelihood of getting licensed | Low for most apartments | High for villas and STR-ready complexes |
| Airbnb listing viability (2026) | At risk - ~50% of city listings licensed | Strong when property is permit-ready |
How to Get an STR Permit for an Alanya Property
Assuming your Alanya property is permit-eligible - a detached villa, or an apartment in a complex whose charter allows short-term rental - the process runs primarily through Turkey's e-Devlet (e-Government) portal. In outline:
- Confirm eligibility. For an apartment, verify that the building's management charter (yönetim planı) permits short-term rental, or that you can obtain the required co-owner consent. For a detached villa, this step is not a barrier.
- Apply via e-Devlet. The MTA permit application is submitted online through the e-Devlet portal. There is no separate in-person filing for the core application.
- Wait for processing and inspection. Approval typically takes 7 to 30 business days, during which the property may be checked against the law's requirements.
- Pay the fees. Based on 2024 rates, budget roughly 10,000 TRY for the permit certificate and around 5,000 TRY for the mandatory door plaque.
- Display your plaque and register guests. Once licensed, mount the official door plaque and register every guest through the GİYKİMBİL system, issuing e-archive invoices so your declared income reconciles with platform and registration data.
The key takeaway is that the Alanya process is administrative and predictable. You are filling in a form and paying a fee - not chasing dozens of signatures from strangers.
Revenue Math: A 1-Bedroom Alanya Apartment Under the Cap
Because the 100-day cap is the binding constraint everywhere in Turkey, the smart approach is to model your numbers around 100 high-value nights rather than a packed calendar. Coastal demand concentrates in the warm season, which works in Alanya's favour: you can fill your legal 100 nights with peak-season bookings at premium rates.
Here is an illustrative, conservative example for a permit-ready 1-bedroom Alanya apartment. These figures are for modelling purposes only; actual rates vary by location, season, and finish.
| Line item | Assumption | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Average nightly rate (peak-weighted) | EUR 55/night | EUR 55 |
| Legal short-term nights per year | 100-day cap | 100 |
| Gross annual STR revenue | 100 x EUR 55 | EUR 5,500 |
| Occupancy of the legal 100 nights | ~90% (90 nights booked) | EUR 4,950 |
In this conservative scenario, the apartment grosses roughly EUR 4,950-5,500 from short-term lets alone, using only the legally permitted 100 nights and concentrating them in the high-demand summer window. Because the cap forces you to be selective, the strategy naturally favours peak-rate nights over low-season fillers.
The remainder of the year, the same unit can be placed on a mid-term or long-term lease - stays over 100 days to the same tenant fall outside the STR permit regime entirely - adding a second income stream on top of the capped short-term revenue. For detailed, location-specific yield breakdowns, see our Alanya short-term rental yields guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really need unanimous neighbour consent for an Istanbul apartment?
Yes. To license an apartment in a multi-owner Istanbul building for short-term rental under Law 7464, you must obtain notarised consent from every co-owner (kat maliki) in the building. A single owner who refuses or fails to sign blocks the permit, with no majority-vote override. This is the single biggest reason STR licensing in Istanbul apartments so often fails.
Does the 100-day cap apply per platform or in total?
In total. The 100-day limit is a cumulative annual cap across every channel combined - Airbnb, Booking.com, and direct bookings all count toward the same 100 days. Exceeding it can reclassify your unit as an apart-hotel, with much heavier commercial requirements, and carries a 300,000 TRY fine.
Why is getting an STR permit easier in Alanya than in Istanbul?
The hardest part of Law 7464 - unanimous co-owner consent - applies to multi-owner buildings. Many Alanya properties are detached villas with no co-owners, and many new Alanya apartment complexes pre-include short-term rental rights in their management charter. Combined with the coast's established tourism classification, this makes the path to a legal permit far more predictable than in Istanbul.
What happens if I operate without a permit?
You face an escalating penalty ladder: 100,000-300,000 TRY for a first offence, 500,000 TRY if you continue after a cure notice, and up to 1,000,000 TRY for persistent unlicensed operation. Enforcement uses GİYKİMBİL guest data, e-archive invoice cross-checks, and surprise inspections, with full enforcement active in 2026. Platforms enforce too: Airbnb has delisted unlicensed Turkish listings since May 2024.
Conclusion: Two Different Risk Categories
Law 7464 applies to all of Turkey, but it does not affect all of Turkey equally. In Istanbul, the unanimous-consent requirement turns short-term rental licensing into a near-impossible task for most apartment owners, while the penalty ladder and Airbnb's delisting make unlicensed operation genuinely dangerous. The result is a market where roughly half of Airbnb listings lack valid licenses and many owners are stuck with units they cannot legally operate.
Alanya sits in a different risk category entirely. Detached villas escape the consent barrier outright, new complexes increasingly bake STR rights into their charters, and the coast's tourism classification makes the whole process administrative rather than adversarial. The same 100-day cap applies - but concentrating those 100 nights in peak season, then leasing long-term for the rest of the year, builds a compliant and resilient income model.
For an international buyer in 2026, the message is clear: if short-term rental income is part of your plan, location is the difference between a permit you can actually obtain and one you almost certainly cannot. For STR-focused investment, Alanya is not just the more pleasant choice - it is the lower-risk one.
Ready to explore permit-ready coastal property? Start with our complete Alanya property guide.