Who needs a visa for Turkey?

Are you going on a holiday or business trip to Turkey in 2024 or 2025? All tourist and business travellers must apply for a Turkey visa in advance, unless they are travelling with a European passport or a European identity card. The visa requirement does not apply to travellers with either British or Irish nationality.

On the other hand, travellers with certain nationalities still need a visa. If you are an Armenian, Dominican Rublican, Jamaican, Mexican, United States or South African national, you can easily apply for the visa for Turkey on this website. Some other travellers can only apply for the visa under specific circumstances, or only on the official Turkish government website. Underaged travellers that are not exempted from the visa requirement also need their own visa.

What is an e-visa Turkey?

The e-visa is an official travel authorisation from the Turkish government to enter the country via land, sea or air. When this website mentions the visa for Turkey, it always refers to the electronic variant known as the "e-visa Turkey". You can apply for this travel permit entirely online. After the visa has been granted, it will be sent to you by e-mail (example e-visa). You can submit an application for yourself, for somebody else or for an entire travel party at once.

Turkey visa requirements

To make use of the e-visa Turkey you have to meet a number of requirements. The most important requirements are summed up below; more information can be found on the page about the requirements for the Turkey visa.

• You need a visa for a short stay in Turkey, and you do not need a paper visa
• Your trip has a tourist or business-related purpose.
• You are travelling with a travel document eligible for a trip to Turkey.
• If travelling with a passport, it has to be valid for at least six more months after your arrival in Turkey.
• You cannot enter into employment with a Turkish employer during your stay.
• You cannot study at a Turkish educational institution during your stay.

Exceptions for the visa

Are you arriving in Turkey by cruise ship? Then you only need to apply for a Turkey visa if you plan on staying ashore for longer than 72 hours. You can also change flights and transit at a Turkish airport without a Turkey visa, but you are not allowed to leave the airport during the layover period.

Are you a truck driver, an archaeologist, or are you filming a documentary? In these cases you do not qualify for the e-visa; you have to file for a sticker visa at the Turkish embassy.

If you do not meet the Turkey e-visa requirements, but you do need a visa for your trip, you cannot do your application online, and you will have to make an appointment at the embassy. This applies if you do not have a valid passport or ID-card, but want to travel with your residence document. However, some travellers may be able to apply for a single entry e-visa with a maximum stay of 30 days through the Turkish government website. This applies to some people who hold a valid visa or residence permit from a country in the Schengen area, from Ireland, the United Kingdom or the United States.

Validity period and maximum length of stay

If you comply with the rules and avoid fines, deportation or an entry ban, you can travel to Turkey with the Turkey visa over the course of 180 days. This validity period starts on the date of arrival, as indicated in the online application form. During these 180 days, you are allowed to stay in Turkey for a maximum of 90 days. However, nationals of certain countries are only allowed to stay for a maximum of 30 days in Turkey.

Your stay in Turkey with the e-visa may be continuous, or it may be cut up into parts if you want to make several separate trips within the validity period. However, this does not apply to all travellers with the e-visa, regardless of whether the maximum length of stay for them is 90 days or 30 days. Some travellers who can apply for the e-visa through this website are only eligible for a single-entry visa. More information on the validity, extensions, renewing and expiry of the visa can be found on the page about the validity period of the visa for Turkey.

Example for the visa with a 90 day validity period: you fill in the application form for the e-visa Turkey on 1 February. You indicate in this form that the visa has to be valid starting 1 March. The visa will consequently be valid for 180 days starting on that date, until 28 August. Between 1 March and 28 August, you can stay in Turkey for a maximum of 90 days. This can be one stay of 90 consecutive days if you have a single-entry e-visa. With the multiple-entry e-visa you may instead make three separate trips to Turkey following which you may stay in the country for 30 days each time. The multiple entry visa allows you to make an unlimited number of trips to Turkey, as long as the total amount of days does not exceed the permitted amount of 180 days.

The same principle is applicable to the multiple-entry e-visa with the shorter permitted length of stay of 30 days. The single-entry visa, however, only permits travellers to make a single trip to Turkey. If you are using the single-entry visa, you will not be allowed to use this same visa to return to Turkey after your first departure, even if the maximum duration of stay was not met. You can, however, always apply for a new single-entry e-visa.

Turkey visa: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

You can apply for the Turkey visa 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The application process is entirely online. You can apply for the visa by filling in the online application form on this website. This will take about five minutes. Afterwards, you pay the visa cost of £54.95 per traveller. This can be done through your preferred payment method, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Trustly, Google Pay, Apple Pay and PayPal. All these payment methods come with no delays, meaning that the application will be processed as soon as the payment has been made.

Regular delivery or urgent application

The Turkey visa is usually delivered within 3 days. If you leave for Turkey today or tomorrow, it may be prudent to submit an urgent application. Urgent applications are processed immediately by the immigration service and are on average granted within 45 minutes. This means that with an urgent application, you can already expect the e-mail containing your e-visa 45 minutes after making the payment. You can print out the visa and take it with you on your trip to Turkey. If you do not have a printer, you can present a digital version of your Turkey visa on your phone or tablet.

You can apply for the e-visa Turkey right away. If you have any questions, you can consult the page with frequently asked questions. If your question about the visa is not listed there, you can contact e-Visa.co.uk.