Turkey New Governmental Regulations

[Onur103]

Hello All

I am an Airbnb host since 2018 in Turkey. Me and my wife has our own properties in İstanbul , Antalya , Bodrum and İzmir. 

as all of you have heard of it ; now Turkish government is preparing a new regulation for the Airbnb units in Turkey. 

as they are preparing this regulation; they didnt get feedback from any of us as far as I hear from the gossips; they only cooperate with hotel owners.

I would like to prepare a community on this topic for future to act all together. 

I will be glad for all members to come and give comments on this topic to have a future community. I am so much happy to pay tax and give information to police and related parties. But some strange rules are being discussed like to get approval from neighbours. 

lets come together and discuss.

[Alice514]

I am writing from Izmir. I have been researching this issue for weeks. I went to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism. No, they never give documents. If you are a tenant, you do not have such a chance anyway.Today, on the airbnb home page, there is a message stating that I must register by May 1st. It is impossible to register this, naturally I have to close my house in May.We see that Airbnb doesn't care much anymore, as it only works with hotels and villas.He doesn't do any work on this issue, I guess we don't care anymore

[Amr7]

I am closing in May as well. too little time to fix this. specially that I am living abroad . 

[Helen3]

Good to see such a well thought out response @JulideandAlper

All too often hosts go into political rants or blame the hotel industry rather than focussing on the proposed regulations and identifying areas that need to be changed . 

Are Turkish hosts banding together to lobby for the amendments you would like to see? 

[Baris38]

You don't seem to be knowledgable about the new regulation and its background. The whole thing IS political and it IS about the hotel industry. Expecting airBnB hosts to "solve" the issue is wishful thinking and simply not realistic. Posts like this encouraging AirBnB & Co to apply pressure on Turkish government is one of the few things us hosts can do.

[Onur103]

Alper / Julide 

great approach on the topic. So as far as I didnt miss understood you already joined some idea sharing meetings with the ministry?  If so thats great. 

for the points of regulations;

As Airbnb is not a eay of hosting too many people in one building with too many small rooms may need a fire escape plan. But I see too many boutique hotels in Urla region which is already approved by the ministry and doesnt seems that they have a fire escape. General building regulation in Turkey ; less then 5 floors and less then 21.5 meters long buildings are not necessarily to have a fire espace plan. What differs in a home if you rent daily / or if you rent it yearly. Same number of people leave in the same house.

for the point of getting approval from the other persons in the building. There is two matters here. One if I directly own the house (not rented house - owned property) do I ask when renting my own house to my neighbours ? No . So why are we needed to get approval from our neighbours. It doesnt matter a house is rented daily or monthly, same home rules apply for all guests. 

but if you rent a house and then create an Airbnb house; then it might needed to get approval of the house owner. Neighbour approval is totally coming me so strange argument. 
In the world as far as I remember in any other country ; they dont have an approval from neighbours. 
ıf the neighbour approval needs for One Day Rents for the guests use the houses for escort services , then you can ask only 1-2 day hosts to get approvals.

there is too much clever actions on this.

Rest of the details I respect. We should pay the tax, we should invest on security on details (fire safety, thief safety, standarts of rental business) ; we should already have owned these.

To be honest I am also supportive for the STR; but a cleverly and worked on STR with getting the hosts ideas. I dont have any contact on the government side but if I am invited I can be really add too many comments to create a healty regulation on this rental business (not as only supporting hosts also real celeverly created STR).

Its a big unknown issue at the moment. Hope that our thoughts will be listened to create a real healty STR.

Otherwise we will be questioning this regulations which make other small boutique hotel owners why are not being in the same regulations.

[Onur103]

Law in place . See below 

https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2023/11/20231102-16.htm

[Bahadir5]

i have just read about this article on cumhuriyet newspaper and if this is all true people can't do airbnb anymore. They ask for Fire ladders? They r preparing this for the big whales so small hosts like us can not do it anymore, plus we have to by a certificate, make a register at the state and pay more taxes and also pay another tax from the income. After all it may not worth to do it. im not sure what to do...

https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/gunluk-kiralik-evlere-yasal-duzenlemenin-ayrintilari-ortaya-ci...

[Ahmad-Seyar0]

Hello and good afternoon do you know exactly what date this new regulations starts

[William2215]

January 1, 2024. But they make law and no one even in the government will know how to enforce it... it will be chaos.

[Nihat0]

Hello friends, nothing will be solved by talking here. We established an association as Türkiye Airbnb Hosts. Let's be one, let's be together.

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[William2215]

Of course Turkey should have some regulation, but it should be intelligent. 100 percent approval from neighbors is not intelligent, and its not reasonable. Maybe majority agrees, for example, or even 2/3. but if you live in a big building, you let one person dictate everything? What if the building was 100 apartments, then one person can stop 99? in my building it is 22. It will be very difficult or impossible. 

Another of the alarming proposals is that a short term is 100 days or under. In Barcelona short term is 99 days. It means you couldn't rent your apartment to someone for 3 months without going through all these steps? That's ridiculous. People who stay more than 30 days are not short-term renters. They are mid-term. 

How do airbnb hosts lobby the government? Is Airbnb doing any lobbying to mitigate the worst parts of the new law? 

[Ferit3]

The discussion here is only from the perspective of the hosts, but unfortunately these changes will also have an impact on the guests.

My partner and I often come to Turkey and always stay in holiday apartments, mostly from AirBNB. Not because it's cheaper, but because we value individual freedom and would rather cook our own food than eat junk food.

We also like to travel to Italy, France, Slovenia and Croatia and we also use AirBNB or other vacation rental providers to book in these countries.

If it is now hardly possible to rent holiday apartments in Türkiye, we will prefer to travel to Sardinia or Sicily.

I tend to spend money on holiday, it's a shame that as a citizens of Türkiye I'll only come to Türkiye to visit my relatives and as a guest I'll never have to touch my wallet.

We have always had wonderful holidays in Türkiye and It was also nice to know that I could spend a little money back home, but we hate hotel holidays and have to choose the holiday destinations according to our preferences.

[Callum83]

Has anyone had any joy yet with obtaining a permit? My friends and I have booked an AirbnB for May and at the moment the host has let us know he will leave the booking as pending until he receives his authorisation - we are grateful for the transparency. We are also worried about how slow the process might be and at what point we need to reconsider our accommodation options. I've not been able to find anything definitive about the timeframes for documentation processing. Anyone know anything?

[Burak61]

Hello, I applied for the permits and i think they will consider it within 3 months. 

[David11514]

Do any of the Turkish hosts have any idea when this might be resolved?

We have return flights booked to Antalya October/November this year (24) and if there is no clear picture within the next few months will have to amend these flights and go elsewhere whilst the cost of flights is still low.

Whilst there is an obvious disappointment on our part I can only sympathise for the many hosts who  appear to have had their livelihoods potentially ruined. Part of the beauty of airbnb is it makes places more affordable - surely the Turkish govt can't fail to see that these people (the guests) will simply stop going to Turkey, spend their money elsewhere and the long term economic effects this will have on the country as a whole.