As of 7 October 2026. Status: In force. Instrument: Regulation Amending the Regulation on Measures for the Prevention of Laundering of Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism (Suç Gelirlerinin Aklanmasının ve Terörün Finansmanının Önlenmesine Dair Tedbirler Hakkında Yönetmelikte Değişiklik Yapılmasına Dair Yönetmelik), Presidential Decision No. 11845, Official Gazette (Resmî Gazete) of 7 October 2026, No. 33393. Under its Article 6 it took effect on the day of publication, which is today.
Foreign buyers and residents ask us some version of the same thing: why does a Turkish bank want my passport, my address abroad and the origin of the money when I only sent a modest amount? The Measures Regulation does set amounts below which the full routine is not required by law, and this morning those amounts doubled. Most people asking, though, already hold an account at the bank, and for them less has moved than the headline figure suggests.
What the text says
Article 5 of the Measures Regulation lists the situations in which banks, payment institutions, exchange offices, crypto-asset service providers and the other obliged parties in Article 4 must identify a customer. Article 1 of today's amendment changes two of those situations. Under point (b), the threshold for a single transaction, or several linked transactions taken together, goes from 185,000 lira to 370,000 lira, and for crypto-asset service providers from 15,000 lira to 30,000 lira. Under point (c), electronic transfers and crypto-asset transfers are now caught at 30,000 lira instead of 15,000 lira.
The same figure now governs what a transfer message must carry. Article 24 requires every domestic and cross-border wire of 30,000 lira or more to state the sender's name, account number and at least one identifier, such as the address, place and date of birth or passport number, and requires that information to be verified. Below that amount the name and account number are enough and verification is not compulsory. Article 24/A does the same for crypto-asset transfer messages, also at 30,000 lira.
| Provision | Until 7 October 2026 | From 7 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 5(1)(b) one-off transaction | 185,000 lira | 370,000 lira |
| Art. 5(1)(b) crypto-asset service providers | 15,000 lira | 30,000 lira |
| Art. 5(1)(c) wire and crypto transfers | 15,000 lira | 30,000 lira |
| Art. 24 and 24/A verified sender data in the message | 15,000 lira | 30,000 lira |
Two smaller changes sit beside the figures. Article 2 adds sentences to Article 16: for an existing customer whose identity was established earlier, a financial institution may dispense with the specimen signature when it verifies the customer through internet or mobile banking, or through a one-time code sent by SMS to a mobile number already registered and verified with it. The check must fit the risk of the transaction and guard against someone acting in the customer's name without authority. Article 5 of the amendment adds a paragraph to Article 38 so that obliged parties outside the financial sector receive a single audit report instead of two.
What the text leaves open
The amendment does not define when transactions are "linked". Splitting a 370,000 lira payment into three parts on the same day does not take it below the threshold, because point (b) adds them up; over what period the rule looks back is not stated.
The SMS option was inserted into the paragraph of Article 16 that governs subsequent transactions carried out face to face. One reading is that a branch may now accept a one-time code at the counter instead of a signature; another confines it to remote channels. The wording leans towards the first. We have not yet seen how banks will apply it.
Nor does anything in the text stop a bank asking for more below the threshold. The regulation sets a legal minimum. Whether any bank changes its own policy from today, we cannot show.
Our reading
If you already bank in Türkiye, the identification side of today's change says little to you. Opening an account is a "permanent business relationship" under Article 5(1)(a), where identification applies at any amount, and that point is untouched. What changes in practice is narrower: wires under 30,000 lira no longer need verified identifiers in the message, and, if your bank adopts it, an SMS code may replace your signature at the branch.
Without an account the picture differs. A one-off currency exchange at an exchange office, a gold purchase from a jeweller or a payment to a real estate firm now requires identification at 370,000 lira and above. Property prices usually exceed that figure, so we do not expect a practical change at the land registry. If you trade through a Turkish crypto-asset platform, the threshold is 30,000 lira; the separate rules on opening such an account remotely with a passport sit in a different communiqué and did not change today. We went through them article by article in our piece on remote onboarding by passport.
What did not change
Identification still applies at any amount when an account is opened, when a suspicious transaction report is required and when earlier identity data is in doubt (Art. 5(1)(a), (d) and (e)), and it must be completed before the transaction (Art. 5(2)). For a foreign national the documents remain a passport, a residence permit or another document the Ministry accepts (Art. 6(2)(b)). Card transfers that carry the card number stay outside Article 24(1).
One figure is often confused with these. The 185,000 lira limit on Turkish lira cash taken out of the country without a declaration comes from Article 3 of Communiqué 2008-32/34 under Decree No. 32 on exchange control. Today's regulation does not touch it. That both rules have read 185,000 lira since March 2025 is a coincidence, and our guide to opening a bank account in Türkiye as a foreigner explains the cash rule.
How to verify
The amendment is on page 2 of resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2026/10/20261007-9.pdf. The consolidated regulation is on the state legislation database under number 2007/13012; search Article 5 for "üçyüzyetmişbin TL" and Article 16 for "SMS OTP". The previous figure came from Presidential Decision No. 6702, Official Gazette No. 32073 of 14 January 2023.
If you run or are setting up a crypto platform, payment institution or exchange office and want your compliance map redrawn around these figures, contact us through our Türkiye fintech and crypto page. If MASAK, the Financial Crimes Investigation Board, issues guidance on the change, the update will appear in our Legal Updates section.
