Position dated 4 September 2026. Status: In force. Instrument: the communiqué amending the Communiqué on Remote Identification Methods to be Used by Brokerage Houses, Portfolio Management Companies and Crypto-Asset Service Providers and on the Establishment of Contractual Relations in Electronic Media (III-42.1), numbered III-42.1.b, published in the Resmî Gazete of 3 September 2026, issue 33359. Under its article 4 it entered into force on the day of publication.
Anyone who has tried to open a Turkish brokerage or crypto-exchange account from abroad has met the same wall, and it was never a prohibition. In the 2022 original, the defined term "identity document" meant only the Republic of Türkiye identity card, and verification ran through the Identity Sharing System. The word "passport" does not appear anywhere in that text. The door was shut by a definition, not by a ban. On 3 September the definition changed.
What the text says
Article 2 of the amending communiqué inserts a new article 8/A, titled "remote identification of natural persons who are not Turkish nationals". Brokerage houses, portfolio management companies and crypto-asset service providers may identify such a person remotely, at the date the permanent business relationship is established, using a passport that complies with ICAO standard 9303 and carries near-field communication.
The conditions in paragraph 1 are short and unforgiving.
Chip reading is mandatory. Sub-paragraph (a) requires that the identity data on the passport chip be confirmed as matching the data printed on the document, and that this be done using near-field communication only. If that verification cannot be performed for any reason, no business relationship may be established through the remote route. There is no fallback for a passport without a readable chip. Under sub-paragraph (d) the process runs through a video call conducted by personnel specifically trained in passport-based remote identification, in addition to the requirements of article 6; artificial-intelligence liveness and photograph-comparison tools that meet article 14/A(1) remain permitted alongside it.
Address is a second gate.
Sub-paragraph (c) requires the address to be collected and verified — through a residence certificate, an electricity, water or gas bill issued in the person's name within the three months before the transaction, a document from any public authority, or the publicly accessible databases of the relevant country — on a risk-based approach and within three months at the latest. The same sub-paragraph states that no transfer of money or crypto-assets, and no transfer of capital-market instruments, may take place before the address is confirmed. The account opens; it does not work yet.
| Subject | Article | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted document | 8/A-1 | ICAO 9303 passport with near-field communication |
| Chip unreadable | 8/A-1 (a) | No remote business relationship; no alternative |
| Address check | 8/A-1 (c) | Within three months; no transfers until confirmed |
| Risk class | 8/A-3 | Passport-identified persons monitored as high risk |
| Money in | 8/A-4 | Only from the person's own account at a bank abroad, by SWIFT only |
| Money out | 8/A-4 | Only to that same person's own bank account |
| Reporting | 8/A-6 | Notified to MASAK in the last month of each quarter |
Paragraph 4 is where plans go wrong. Money may reach the account only from an account opened in the person's own name at a bank abroad, and money may leave it only to that same person's own bank account. Transfers run through SWIFT alone, and the distinguishing data in the SWIFT message is checked against the information obtained during identification. The text requires that this be completed before any other transaction takes place in the account. A remittance from a third party, a joint account or a corporate account does not fit through this door.
Article 3 adds a new article 9/A for legal persons registered in the trade registry. Authority to represent is verified against MERSİS (the central registry system) and the Trade Registry Gazette; a copy of the signature circular is captured as an image and compared with the specimen signature on the identity document or in MERSİS; the notarisation is confirmed using its date and journal number. If the beneficial owner cannot be established, or the information does not match, the process is terminated.
What the text does not say
The communiqué does not say where this route will actually be available. Article 8/A grants a power — institutions "may" identify this way — and imposes no duty to build the flow. Which brokerages, portfolio managers or crypto platforms have switched it on is something we cannot show from any written source today.
The second gap concerns foreigners already resident in Türkiye. A person living in Türkiye who holds a foreign identity number is not separately addressed: article 8/A keys on nationality ("not a Turkish national"), not on residence. Read that way, a foreign resident also falls under the paragraph 4 restriction to an account held abroad, which sits oddly with a person whose banking life is in Türkiye. If we see a different practice applied, we will update this page with a dated note.
Our reading
Treat this as a conditional gate rather than a convenience. The account you open remotely behaves like a pipe welded to one bank account of yours abroad: one way in, one way out, SWIFT in between. If your plan involves funding from a company account, from a relative, or from an existing Turkish account, the remote route does not fit you — face-to-face identification carries none of these restrictions.
Sequence matters, because sub-paragraphs (a) and (c) each hold the other up. Since the account cannot transact until the address is confirmed, having the residence certificate or a utility bill no older than three months ready before you apply is cheaper than chasing it afterwards. Test the near-field chip in your passport first; if it does not read, the remote route is closed from the outset. For corporate applicants, an illegible notarial date and journal number on the signature circular, and a stale MERSİS record, are the first two places article 9/A stops the process. We keep the wider licensing and compliance picture on our Türkiye fintech and crypto page.
What did not change
This communiqué governs how identity is established, not who may become a customer. The licensing regime for crypto-asset service providers under Capital Markets Law No. 6362 is untouched. Face-to-face identification remains open and carries none of the passport route's funding limits. For Turkish nationals and holders of a Republic of Türkiye identity card, article 8 of the original communiqué continues to apply as before. Tax and reporting duties are unaffected: article 8/A speaks to how an account is opened, not to how gains are taxed.
How to verify
The text sits in the Resmî Gazete of 3 September 2026, issue 33359: resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2026/09/20260903-3.htm. Look for the heading "Türk uyruklu olmayan gerçek kişilerin uzaktan kimlik tespiti"; for the funding limit, find the phrase "yurt dışındaki bir bankada kendi adına açılmış hesabından" in paragraph 4 of the same article. To see the position before this change, open the original communiqué in issue 31744 of 8 February 2022: resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2022/02/20220208-3.htm, where the definition of "identity document" points only to the Turkish identity card and no passport is mentioned.
Before choosing an institution, ask two questions: whether it has actually implemented the passport flow, and whether the SWIFT details of your account abroad match the name in your passport exactly. Those are the two points where the process most often stalls. We will follow this file as it develops under Legal Updates.
