Presidency of Migration Management (Göç İdaresi)

Residence permits in Türkiye — short-term, family, student, long-term and humanitarian — are granted by this authority. If you are living here as a foreigner, it is the institution whose rules shape most of your paperwork.

⭐ The certification level it asks for

Its own published requirements ask for documents to be translated into Turkish by a sworn translator and certified by a notary. A translator’s stamp alone does not meet that standard.

This matters because the ministry handling work permits accepts a lighter level. People who have been through one file frequently carry its rule into the other and either overpay or arrive with an insufficient document — see Ministry of Labour.

⚠ Take the document list from the authority

Lists differ by permit purpose and by nationality, and they are revised. We do not reproduce them here, and neither should any other website — a list copied last year sends people to collect the wrong papers.

The authority publishes current lists itself. That is the source to work from.

What it does not do

It does not apostille foreign documents. No Turkish institution can, and its offices are not an exception — see why Türkiye cannot apostille a foreign document.

Which of your documents it reads as Turkish

Address registration, Turkish rental contracts, Turkish insurance policies, Turkish bank documents and student certificates from Turkish universities are all Turkish documents and are submitted as issued.

Only documents issued abroad need translation. Splitting your list into those two groups before ordering anything removes the most common unnecessary cost in a permit file.

Appointments and timing

Applications run to appointments, and short-lived documents age while you wait for one. Fix the appointment first, then obtain income, insurance and criminal record documents against that date.

Decisions belong to it

Whether a permit is granted is its decision on your circumstances. We do not predict outcomes and no translation office can influence them; what we can do is make sure the documents are complete, accurate and certified at the level asked for.

Where to go next

Permit-by-permit detail is under procedures, and the document-by-document view under documents.

Working with its offices

Provincial directorates handle applications locally, and practice at a counter can be more particular than a published list suggests — over the order documents are presented in, or over whether a copy is accepted alongside an original.

Where a directorate tells you something that differs from what you expected, that instruction governs your file. Ask for it clearly, write it down, and prepare to it rather than arguing from a website.