View Larger Map “A” marks the spot. It’s hard to miss actually, it’s on the left just after you enter Aydin from the motorway, on the D550 through town, and it’s a salmon pink and pale brown colour. They tend to close early for lunch and open late so getting there before 11.00am is the best idea as they will be closed between 11.45 and 13.30. Once inside you turn left and go to the Yabanci Subesi on the ground floor – the Alien’s Department. Here a pressed upon young man, all alone amongst 8 desks, surrounded by a massive pile of paperwork and hovering over a drawer full of official stamps, will guide you through the process. He doesn't speak English but it's pretty obvious what you are there for. He will give you a form to fill in to apply for the Residents Permit. You can download a form beforehand from various places online but they tend to prefer that you fill in the form in front of them for some reason so it’s often not worth it. The form is in English and Turkish. Once completed you hand him the form along with your paperwork and he looks it over. If all is okay with the paperwork he fills out a payment request which you will take to the tax office where you will pay for the permit. The price will be in US$ but you will pay in TL at the daily exchange rate. Now you have to find the tax office, the Vergi Dairesi, sometimes called the Maliye. You can get a Number 7 dolmus opposite the police station or you can get a taxi or you can walk. Here’s another of those helpful Google Map things to help you decide if you want to hoof it or not - Maliye Tax Office Aydin
View Larger Map Essentially, if you look at a map of Aydin, the Police Station is bottom left and the Tax O

Getting your Residents Permit in Aydin

Nick wandered off to Aydin for his Resident’s Permit this week, I couldn’t go as I was on a writing deadline and had to get four new chapters to my Agent by Thursday (love to Agent, she is so nice!) and so he went alone with copious instructions and maps and descriptions of the buildings he had to go to.

Getting your Resident’s Permit is Aydin is relatively painless compared to some areas where they have raised the criteria for residence to fiendishly complex heights and haven’t so much moved the goal posts as hidden them. I’ve heard all sorts from other areas lately, from demands for translated birth certificates to notarised rental agreements to the hand of your first born daughter in marriage (kidding about last one, please don’t write to me about it!).

Every jurisdiction within Turkey will be slightly different and you will need to research your own area for current requirements, they do change according to fashion and the bosses of the Yabanci department’s mood, so be as prepared as you can be. In the south I know they like solid proof of income whilst here they’ll take a number written on the back of a fag packet. Some areas also like letters from your Muhtar (headman) showing you are on the Nufus (registered on the local population count) and some sneer at a rental contract that doesn’t have the official Belediye address on it, which is of course different from the postal address and the tapu address.

The best bet is to speak to someone in your area who has done it recently but here is a run down of getting you resident’s permit in Aydin, right now.

You will need:-

5 passport sized photographs – available for about 8-10tl for 6 in town, most photographic shops do them, very quick, it only takes a couple of minutes and they will make you look like Morph.

Rental Agreement / Tapu – if you have a tapu all well and good if you are renting you will need a rental agreement. All the stationary shops in town stock them in blank form, you just fill it in and make sure the agreement is for in excess of the duration of your residents permit.

Photocopy of Passport – Information Page

Photocopy of Passport – Page of last entry visa stamp

Original of Passport.

Your Turkish Tax number

Proof of income or savings

Nick had only just got round to opening a bank account here and it had nothing in it yet and he doesn’t have a tapu which often meets the savings requirement so he waved his pension forecasts at them and they were quite happy! Not exactly stringent on that score.

For your first Resident’s Permit in this area you go to Aydin, renewals can be done in Kusadasi but the first one comes from the county town. In Aydin you will need to go first to the Aydın Emniyet Müdürlüğü, the main police station.

Here is a helpful link to it on Google Maps – Aydin Police Station


View Larger Map

“A” marks the spot.

It’s hard to miss actually, it’s on the left just after you enter Aydin from the motorway, on the D550 through town, and it’s a salmon pink and pale brown colour. They tend to close early for lunch and open late so getting there before 11.00am is the best idea as they will be closed between 11.45 and 13.30.

Once inside you turn left and go to the Yabanci Subesi on the ground floor – the Alien’s Department. Here a pressed upon young man, all alone amongst 8 desks, surrounded by a massive pile of paperwork and hovering over a drawer full of official stamps, will guide you through the process. He doesn’t speak English but it’s pretty obvious what you are there for.

He will give you a form to fill in to apply for the Residents Permit. You can download a form beforehand from various places online but they tend to prefer that you fill in the form in front of them for some reason so it’s often not worth it. The form is in English and Turkish.

Once completed you hand him the form along with your paperwork and he looks it over. If all is okay with the paperwork he fills out a payment request which you will take to the tax office where you will pay for the permit. The price will be in US$ but you will pay in TL at the daily exchange rate.

Now you have to find the tax office, the Vergi Dairesi, sometimes called the Maliye. You can get a Number 7 dolmus opposite the police station or you can get a taxi or you can walk. Here’s another of those helpful Google Map things to help you decide if you want to hoof it or not – Maliye Tax Office Aydin


View Larger Map

Essentially, if you look at a map of Aydin, the Police Station is bottom left and the Tax Office is top right!

At the Maliye you go in through the main entrance, up the steps in front of you, turn left and you enter a room full of clerks, the Security Guard here will direct you to the right cubicle.

You give the clerk your Turkish tax number and the paper from the police station, she works out the amount due in Lira and you pay the cashier next to her. A receipt is issued and you take this back to the police station.

Back at the police station, having finished a lengthy lunch, the put upon young man grunts over your receipt and starts to process your Residents Permit application. Please ensure he can read your writing and that your name is spelt very clearly, I’ve known problems arise where the permit issued has spelling mistakes on it.

At this point you hand over a further 149tl for your resident’s permit book. It used to be dark blue, it’s currently a sort of bluey grey.

Now comes the best bit as put upon young man proves his worth by stamping the rear of your residents permit form many, many, many times. Nick stopped counting at 40! Lot’s of different stamps, lots of squiggled signatures.

Copies of this along with your paperwork, your photos and your new permit book now form a bundle that goes for final processing. Your part in the process is complete and you are dismissed and instructed to come back next week to pick up the permit. In the mean time you will have a receipt to show it is all happening as it should.

It is a long and tedious day to be honest, it involves a fair bit of traipsing around but it could be worse, and indeed is in other areas. Aydin, because of the number of permits they process, tend to be fairly laid back about the whole thing. They are helpful if you are nice to them, it helps if you dress smartly and take it all seriously, it helps if you are polite. There is no point getting arsy with them if the rules have changed or the paperwork you provide isn’t good enough, a smile and asking for help works wonders.

Nick did it all with bare minimum Turkish and no helper so it isn’t impossible and it shouldn’t be stressful. He enjoyed a nice lunch in Aydin, had a wander around and marvelled at the bargains to be had as the market was on, all in all he had a pleasant day.

I’ll do the easy bit with him on Monday and go back to pick up the completed permit and have a little snoop around the shops at Forum Aydin, which is as nice as the Bornova one in Izmir and rather less crowded.

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