Turkish Bureaucracy is a living hell, and not for the reasons it must be.
People hate bureaucracy because it consists of never ending layers of walking from one desk/building to the other in an accumulation of acceptances until you reach the master who approves your stuff. On the road, you encounter clerks who care nothing about the health or logic of the system but only check one word in one sentence and approve your paper with holy rights if it is indeed there. It is kind of a bad analogy to a religious cast society.
In Turkey tough, things are a bit different. Here in Turkey, no one exactly knows where to go or what to bring or what to sign even. There is an application process which may end up with you being kicked out of the country, still no one who are supposed to be in the bureaucracy link of this application process fully know what should be done.
On 2013 Turkish Government passed a bunch of bills that said "Issuing and renewal of residency permits will no longer be done by Security Department, but by Immigration Department"; which basically means we are no longer to go to Police Station for the residency permits but to the Local Government (Valilik) offices in our cities.
So we set out on a journey to apply for renewal of my wives permit. After 2 Police Stations, 1 Valilik and 1 Kaymakamlık office and around 180 km we finally met a woman in the City Main Police Station who said "I will take the applications and here are a list of documents that I want".
First confusion was, we should have applied to the Local Government, why do we have to go to police again. Her answer was "Because Local Government clerks are foreign to the application process, the application still goes on through Police Stations. Police gathers the documents for your application and sends them to Immigration office in Ankara".
Then she started counting a list of documents which made no sense. When I said we gave those documents 3 years ago when we first made the permit she said "You are wrong, these documents were not asked for before". As if I don't remember the trouble I have gone through to get all those papers many years ago. Still tough, at least she seemed to be the final stop. She gave us the list of documents.
So in case you are gonna apply for renewal of permit in 2014, here is your top 10 list.
1. Insurance proof of foreigner (Sigorta belgesi)
2. Salary proof of Turkish ct. (Maaş yazısı / dekont)
3. Adress registration of Turkish ct. (Adres Kaydı)
4. Detailed ID document of Turkish ct. (Vukuatlı Nüfus Kayıt Örneği)
5. 4 pics of foreigner
6. 2 pics of Turkish ct.
7. ID photocopy of Turkish ct.
8. Passport photocopy of foreigner
9. The old residence permit booklet.
10. You will go to Local Governor Accountant Office and pay 50 TL fee for book keeping expenses and get a receipt.
11. You will go to Tax Office and get a Tax number for foreign (Vergi No)
12. You will open a Tax record from the tax office and pay 80$ / year in TL and get a receipt
After you have these 12 documents go back to Police Station / Foreigners Department as you did last year. Give them the documents and write and sign a petition which you will then take to the archives to be stamped.
After that they will receive your application.
Now, different from last year, You will not get your new permit in a few days. Your papers will go to Ankara, be checked, your new permit will arrive by mail. You know how we trust the mail service carry our private documents.
This process may take up to 3 months. If you don't want to live without a permit for 3 months, tell the Foreigners Department that you need a proof of paper that you applied and are waiting for renewal papers.
They will tell you to come back 1 week later. By then they will have finished writing a piece of paper that says your application is valid and you have temporary permit until your renewed residency arrives. Then you wait for mail.
If mail doesn't come in 3 months go back to the Foreigners Department to ask about it.
This is pretty much all for 2014. After 2015 we will have to go to Local Government office. But hopefully they will ask the same documents.
