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@N.maria hello Maria

İ had the same case for more than one year. Since you have your residence and nüfus you can head to Küveyt türk headquarters in şişli İstanbul and you can open an account with 5000tl as deposit they will give you a credit card. You can also open in Ziraat bank but a debit card and doesn't have Tamas (touch payment) you will pay someone 2000TL as a commission because he will be the one to assist you after that you provide them with bills water, electric and gas if they are under your name. The last bank is Finance Bank you will need to also pay around 2000tl as a commission and also make a deposit of 2500Tl with which you will have a credit card. These are the banks where you can open a bank account there is also Albaraka bank same thing but for me Ziraat is the best one because it is a public bank not a private one so if you are getting paid or recurving money from outside you will not have a cut or even if if there is it will be lower than other banks

Just keep trying HSBC, Garanti, QNB, and Ziratt; there appears to be a discrepancy in the specifics from banks, but by the sounds of it, you have a family residence permit and are eligible to create a bank account regardless of whether you live in Turkey or not.

Try to avoid banking in tourist zones. They're bored of foreigners in general and often waste 1-2 hours opening an account. In some areas and banks, they don't know how to open an account for an expat.

• Address proof
• Passport
• Valid residence permit
• Tax number

That's about it

This is usual case in Turkey, Go get Tax ID and then go to goverment bank like Ziraat of Vakif and they should open you an account with Tax ID.

Hello Maria,

Since you mentioned that you have a valid "ikamet card" you should be able to register yourself to your Turkish spouse's address. Hence you register the address, you will need to download the document called "yerlesim yeri belgesi" from turkiye.gov.tr or get a physical document from your Chief of the neighborhood (muhtarlık in Turkish).

After that, you should be able to open a bank account in most of the banks. If a bank doesn't want to open an account for you with that document, try another branch.

Unfortunately, most bank branches no longer offer to opening an account without address registration since foreigners have been using their accounts without any transaction, which is a workload for them.

Good luck

For me personally it was very easy to open account, both for me and my wife, Ikamet, utility bill (electricity on my name, water for my wife). It helps to have the TAPU registered in both names and also a support of a local helps.

By the way I am with Garanti and quite happy with their service. (Mahmutlar/Alanya).

Admittedly opening a year ago, but if you bring something you get something.

@Expat Solutions I have yerlesim yeri belgesi. I also have an old tax ID that is still valid that I received back in 2015. Even my husband's cousin who is an assistant manager at AK Bank at one of the Istanbul branches was unable to open a bank account for me. The last banker I spoke to in Corlu (where I live) was really hung up on the work permit saying I absolutely cannot open a bank account without one.

@N.maria I can only repeat, I do not understand the problem, do you have no assets, no utility bill? Ikamet, passport, TAPU, all should be sufficient. If you bring eg EUR 10 or EUR 20 K in assets they should (and in my view) should be interested.

AK Bank was never on my radar, with Garanti everything was fine, might be that things have changed, but I doubt it.

Good luck, but I really do not understand.

The government should also be supportive as you are likely to convert FCY into TRY.