Moving to Ankara with your family: the documents to bring

You are moving to Ankara with a spouse and children, and Turkish offices ask for your family documents in Turkish. Start with the originals from your home country, add an apostille where one is available, and order a notarised Turkish translation. This page lists the papers families usually gather and the order in which to prepare them. The full overview is on our page about residence permit and citizenship documents.

Moving to Ankara with your family: the document checklist

The Göç İdaresi (Presidency of Migration Management) sets the document list for each type of residence permit and publishes it on its website. The list changes, so check the current one on e-İkamet, the online appointment system, before you order anything. Families usually gather:

• the marriage certificate, issued abroad;
• a birth certificate for each child;
• custody decisions, death certificates, absence decisions or single-parent documents, where they apply to your family;
• a parental consent letter from a parent who stays abroad, when the applicant is under 18;
• the sponsor's criminal record, where the family permit list asks for it, from the sponsor's own country if they have not lived in Türkiye recently;
• proof of accommodation;
• passports: a copy, plus the original at the appointment.

Provincial migration directorates may also ask for extra documents, so keep spare originals to hand.

Translating and legalising your family documents

A document obtained abroad needs two things: an apostille on the original and a notarised Turkish translation. A notarised translation means the notary completes the translation act with an endorsement that identifies the sworn translator. The family list repeats this rule for marriage certificates and for children's documents.

If the issuing country is not a party to the Apostille Convention, or the document has no apostille, the route is longer. The document needs the issuing country's approval, then its consulate or embassy, then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or an authorised Turkish authority, plus the notarised translation. Check the status of the issuing country before you begin.

Two points save families time. A CIEC multilingual civil-status extract is taken into civil-registry processing without legalisation. Whether your permit list accepts it is a separate question for the migration directorate. And documents issued by Turkish authorities need no translation; they must be e-signed, or signed and stamped.

A practical order for a family file:

1. Open the current list on e-İkamet and mark which documents come from abroad.
2. Ask each family member or relative abroad to send the original, not a scan.
3. Arrange the apostille on each original in the issuing country, or start the consular chain.
4. Order the notarised Turkish translations together, so that names are spelled the same in every translation.
5. Keep the originals, the apostilled pages and the translations in one folder for the appointment.

For a child's application, the same rule appears in the short-term and student lists as well as the family list. That helps if different family members apply under different permit types.

Proof of accommodation for a family in Ankara

The family permit list accepts a notarised copy of your rental contract or a notarised undertaking from the person you stay with. Both are made at a Turkish notary, so they call for a notary visit, not a translation. If you do not speak Turkish, a sworn interpreter must be with you at the notary.

After the move: the next documents your family may need

Your first application has its own checklist, which you can read as a first residence permit checklist. If a family member later prepares a citizenship file, citizenship documents from abroad explains which documents are translated and how names must match. We prepare translations; the application itself is yours and goes through the Göç İdaresi.

Common mistakes when moving to Ankara with your family

• Bringing copies. A Turkish notary cannot certify a foreign authority’s document as a true copy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs authentication FAQ), so the original is needed.
• Translating before the apostille. The apostille goes on the original in the issuing country; the notarised translation is made in Türkiye.
• Using a document from an honorary consulate. Turkish civil registries do not act on those.
• Spelling names differently. Names in Latin script go in letter for letter, with accents. Names in other scripts are transliterated letter by letter, and if documents differ, those of the person's state of nationality prevail.
• Paying a third party for an appointment. Göç İdaresi warns applicants to ignore third parties who ask for money to arrange appointments on e-İkamet.