e-Devlet for Foreigners: Getting Your Password and What You Can Do With It

e-Devlet (turkiye.gov.tr) is Türkiye's single portal for government services. Once you live here, it is where you look things up, get documents and do official errands without queuing. Several of the other guides in this Handbook send you to it.

This guide is practical information; service availability for foreigners can change.

Who can use it

You need a foreign identity number (yabancı kimlik numarası, YKN) issued by the Turkish authorities — a number starting with 98 or 99. Residence permit holders have one, printed on their residence permit card. If you're visiting on a passport alone, you won't have one, and you can't get an e-Devlet password.

Not sure of your number? You can look it up on the population registry's identity number site (tckimlik.nvi.gov.tr) with your residence permit details.

Getting your password

Foreigners get their password at a PTT branch (Türksat cable offices also issue them). Bring one valid document, for example:

• your residence permit — on its own, that is enough;

• or a work permit or work-permit exemption document, together with your passport;

• protection status holders bring their own identity document.

You sign for the password and receive it in an envelope. There is a small fee. Someone else can collect it for you only with a notarised power of attorney that explicitly authorises getting an e-Devlet password.

e-Devlet also accepts an e-signature, a mobile signature (mobil imza, arranged through your mobile operator) or login through a supported bank's internet banking instead of a password.

If you forget your password: foreign users can't use e-Devlet's standard online reset. If you can log in another way — e-signature, mobile signature or supported internet banking — you can set a new password free of charge under "Şifremi Değiştir". Otherwise, go back to PTT with your documents.

Turn on two-step verification. Foreign users can enable it once their phone number is identity-verified — you can do that at a PTT branch with your ID, or with an e-signature or mobile signature. It's under "Şifre ve Güvenlik Ayarlarım" → "İki Aşamalı Giriş İşlemleri".

What it's useful for

Services vary, and not every one is open to foreign users, but these are the ones this Handbook sends you to:

• Registering a phone brought from abroad (IMEI registration) — see our SIM and internet guide.

• Finding your earthquake assembly area and checking the earthquake hazard map for an address — see our earthquake preparedness guide.

• Health services such as MHRS hospital appointments and e-Nabız, your health record, which sign in with e-Devlet.

Once you're logged in, use the search box at the top of the portal — typing what you need is usually the quickest way to find a service.

Stay safe

• Only log in at turkiye.gov.tr or the official e-Devlet app. Lookalike sites and messages asking you to "verify your e-Devlet account" are scams.

• Never give your e-Devlet password to anyone — including agents offering to "handle it for you". Anyone with it can act in your name across government services.