There are no restrictions on foreign portfolio investors trading in the Turkish capital markets. Decree No. 32 passed in August 1989, removes all restrictions on overseas institutional and individual investment in securities.

Real persons and legal entities residing abroad (including investment trusts and investment funds abroad) can freely purchase and sell all sorts of securities and other capital market instruments.

A foreign institutional or individual investor should use a Turkish intermediary institution for securities activities. (Such as, buying and selling securities, repo, reverse repo, portfolio management, investment consultancy, underwriting, margin trading, securities lending etc.)

Also a foreign investor can hedge currency risk by trading at ISE Derivative Market.

Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency has announced that bitcoin is not considered as electronic money thus there is no current regulation regarding tax payments. However, bitcoin transactions with its tradable features and provide income for its users should be subject to tax.

Sources

• How will Turkey regulate the digital currencies?, KPMG
• Securities, Capital Market Boards of Turkey