Expat banking

2049POSTS

2 months ago

I could not resist, I copied pasted something I posted on another Turkish form.

My wife and I are Dutch nationals and live permanently in 罢眉谤办颈测别, where we own our home. From a risk鈥憁anagement perspective, we try to keep bank balances relatively limited: local deposit insurance is lower than in Western Europe, and bank ratings here are largely constrained by sovereign risk rather than by the individual institutions themselves.

For historical reasons, I still maintain my primary bank account with Rabobank in the Netherlands, under Dutch law. As far as I understand, holding at least one bank account in the EU (and the UK) as a passport holder is generally possible. However, in practice I've found that Rabobank does not allow me to open any new products as a non鈥憆esident鈥攏ot even a simple savings account or term deposit.

This leads to a somewhat frustrating situation: funds sitting in a current account generate no return, while inflation remains a real consideration. I therefore see three broad options:

Open an additional EUR account with a Dutch bank (for example bunq), where deposits would fall under the Dutch deposit鈥慻uarantee scheme.

Open EUR term deposits in 罢眉谤办颈测别, potentially spreading balances across more than one local bank to stay within insurance limits.

Use TRY term deposits, where鈥攅ven after withholding tax鈥攖he interest rate may still exceed local inflation, albeit with obvious currency risk.

At the moment, my inclination is toward opening one or more EUR accounts with a Dutch bank such as bunq, but I'm also evaluating whether the Turkish options might be reasonable as part of a diversified approach.

I'd be interested to hear about others' experiences and views on managing savings in a similar cross鈥慴order setup, particularly around risk, practicality, and peace of mind.

The 罢眉谤办颈测别 expat guide

Comprehensive and free

Read it now

kzein Member

17POSTS

2 months ago

Hi.

To understand your situation, you need to understand what interest rate on deposits your bank offers outside of Turkey.

cdw057 ViP

2049POSTS

2 months ago

@kzein

Taxation is one of the main factors and also inconvenience and being scrutinized by compliance or even authorities, apologies, I do not understand your point.

1 member reacted to this post

kzein Member

17POSTS

last week

- @cdw057

Unfortunately, I also didn't understand what you were trying to say with your answer. Could you please describe in detail what concerns you and where you see the problem? If you're referring to taxation of deposit income, then in Turkey the bank does this automatically. There's no need to recalculate anything or file tax returns.

You previously wrote about the option of depositing money in banks in an amount not exceeding the security deposit. Believe me, no one will check the origin of such money in Turkey. The main thing is that when transferred, it comes from an account in the Netherlands. Any other questions? Let's try to figure this out together. Maybe I'm missing something that you know.

cdw057 ViP

2049POSTS

5 days ago

Just a practical caution: if someone is tax resident in 罢眉谤办颈测别, the general rule is that residents are taxable on their worldwide income, while non-residents are taxed only on Turkish-source income.

So foreign pensions and other income from abroad are not something people should casually assume sits outside the Turkish tax net. The exact result depends on treaty protection and personal circumstances, and from 2026 there is also a new exemption regime for certain qualifying new tax residents 鈥� but that is not the same thing as saying foreign income is simply irrelevant.

In my view, a lot of expats rely more on habit, hearsay and non-enforcement than on actual compliance. That may feel comfortable for years, until it suddenly stops being comfortable.

The same applies, in my opinion, to deposit income. If you hold significant deposits in 罢眉谤办颈测别鈥� whether in TRY or EUR 鈥� and especially if you are also receiving funds from abroad, it seems unwise to assume that this will remain forever invisible just because nobody has asked questions so far.

You may not be at pension stage yet, but for older or long-term residents this is not an abstract point.