Tough New Penalties for Overstaying Your Tourist Visa

A word of warning before you decide to overstay your tourist visa;

The Turkish immigration authorities are getting tough on people who over stay their tourist visa.

The new immigration rules only apply to people who stay longer than their tourist visa allows (known as an over stay). They are as follows:

Over staying between 1 and 15 days - There is no restriction on re-entering Turkey but s/he will have to pay the appropriate visa fines and will need to obtain his/her new visa from a Turkish Consulate. In the case of people staying in Fethiye the nearest would be on the Greek Island of Rhodes.

Over staying 16 days or more – Not only will a person have to pay the fines for over staying but they would also need to leave Turkey and would be refused entry to Turkey for 3 months

Over staying 3 months - In addition to the fines the person would have to leave Turkey and would be refused entry to Turkey for 6 months.

For greater periods as above with fines but double the refusal of entry times – 6 months over staying, refused entry to Turkey for 12 months etc.

We think the penalties are extremely tough as those people who just make a minor date error and inadvertently stay an extra few days will now have to take a special trip to renew their visa outside of Turkey.

So it pays to renew your visa a little bit earlier to allow for any errors or mishaps.