As reported by Open4business, foreign citizens in April 2026 purchased 1.516 thousand residential properties in Turkey, which is 1.1% less than in the same month last year, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute TurkStat.
The share of foreign buyers in the total volume of housing sales in Turkey was 1.2%. Meanwhile, the country’s overall housing market grew in April, with 126,808,000 houses and flats sold in Turkey, up 2.6 per cent on April 2025, according to TÜIK data. For January-April 2026, total housing sales totalled 476.204 thousand properties, up 0.5 per cent year-on-year.
Against this backdrop, foreign demand remains weaker than the domestic market. In the first four months of 2026, foreigners bought 5,681,000 properties in Turkey, 11.6% less than in January-April 2025. The largest foreign buyers of Turkish housing in April remained citizens of Russia. They purchased 263 objects, which is almost 15% more than in March. However, in annual terms their demand is still lower: in April 2025 citizens of the Russian Federation purchased 276 objects.
The second place among foreign buyers in April was taken by citizens of China with 110 transactions, the third – citizens of Iran with 100 transactions. These three countries were among the official top three largest buyers according to TÜIK data.
The structure of demand shows the change in the foreign segment. Russian buyers retain the first place, but their activity is already well below the peaks of 2022-2023, when demand was fuelled by relocation, sanctions, currency risks and interest in residence permits through property.
At the same time, buyers from Asia, primarily China, are becoming more prominent in the statistics, which may reflect broader investment interest in the Turkish market.
Ukrainian citizens were not among the top three largest foreign buyers in April 2026, so their individual numbers are not shown in the TÜIK summary release. For comparison, in April 2025, Ukrainians were the third largest foreign buyers and purchased 120 residential properties in Turkey.
In 2025, Ukrainians in general remained one of the notable groups of foreign buyers of Turkish property. At the end of the year, citizens of Russia, Iran and Ukraine were named among the three largest groups of home buyers in Turkey.
For Ukrainian buyers, Turkey remains important as a property market for residence, relocation, rental and investment. However, the decline in foreigners’ activity in general shows that the factors of previous years – Residence Permit, citizenship for investment, currency protection of capital and relocation demand – are no longer having the same effect.
In Turkey’s domestic market, activity in April was fuelled primarily by local buyers. Sales of new housing increased by 9.6% to 40,306 thousand objects, while sales of secondary housing slightly decreased – by 0.3% to 86,502 thousand.
Thus, the Turkish property market in April showed two different trends: domestic sales are growing, while foreign demand continues to decline. Russians are still the largest group of foreign buyers, but their activity does not look frantic. Ukrainians, who used to be among the leaders, were not in the top 3 in April 2026, which may indicate more cautious buyer behaviour or a redistribution of demand to other markets.