Turkey is no longer 30% cheaper than the US, like the old headlines tell you. It’s not even just 40% cheaper. It’s 67% cheaper on average — and that’s not a typo.
A home that costs you $1,800 a month in the US, will cost you around $600 in Turkey. I went to Turkey and saw this with my own eyes, because numbers like that usually come with a catch.
Here’s what I actually found: many Turkish cities deliver something that, in the US, maybe only California can. A genuinely healthy, Mediterranean lifestyle, with sun, sea, fresh food, slower mornings.
But unlike California, you don’t pay crushing taxes. And unlike California, you don’t live with the constant background hum of car break-ins, police sirens, and property crime.
Turkey doesn’t force you to choose between beautiful and functional. Many cities give you world-class affordable private healthcare and Mediterranean beaches in the same twenty-minute radius.
So I ranked the ten best cities for retirement in Turkey. And don’t worry if you are more like a mountain person than a beach person — there is also an option for you.
But I also must be honest: if you make the wrong choices in Turkey, you will spend your first year fixing a decision you could have gotten right from the start. So let’s begin with…
The Criteria
I weighed six things for every city on this list: cost and property prices, climate, the size of the foreign community, private healthcare, infrastructure, and the one lazy rankings always skip — whether the place still functions in January.
A town that’s magical in July and boarded up in February isn’t a home, but just a resort.
But in 2026, one factor outranks all six: residency. A property-based residence permit requires just $200,000 declared on the tapu — the title deed.
The low prices attracted huge numbers of foreigners. Then you add the ease of obtaining a visa, and you understand why so many expats bought Turkish properties.
Even buying too much in some markets — now, 1,169 neighborhoods across Turkey are closed to new foreign registrations because their foreign ownership share is too high.
If visas and residence rules are what worry you most, grab a copy of Residence & Citizenship in Europe here.
The biggest reason Turkey became so, so cheap for expat retirees is the crash of their currency, which lost most of its value in a very short period. I will not cover the specificity of that currency devaluation here — to know more about it, I wrote about 8 countries that became very cheap after their currencies crashed.
One more thing before we count down. The tax incentives got even better. A law passed in May 2026 lets new tax residents keep foreign income out of the Turkish tax base for twenty years. Twenty years.
So time to start our ranking!
#10 — Marmaris
We start with the city that has the warmest winter days on the Turkish mainland. January afternoons reach 15°C — 59 Fahrenheit. At such mild temperatures, the good local wines might be enough to warm you.
So why last place? Winter months regularly dump over 200 millimeters of rain. This happens because Marmaris is in a bowl of pine-covered mountains facing southwest, straight into the winter storm track.
So winter temperatures are mild, but the rain cuts many of your outdoor plans.
Then there’s the cost of living. Muğla — the province holding Marmaris, Bodrum, and Fethiye — is Turkey’s most expensive by the square meter, around $1,815, more than Istanbul itself. There you’re paying for pine forests, world-class beaches, and postcard bays.
And despite the high prices, infrastructure has a hole in it: no accredited hospital, and serious care means four hours or more on the road.
Also during winter, the place is kind of… empty. The Dalaman airport region keeps just 21.6% of its annual traffic from January to May — half of the expected volume — and İçmeler, the resort next door, shuts almost entirely.
In one thing Marmaris is better than almost any other: for a boat-centered lifestyle. The region is famous for its harbours and plenty of repair providers and other services your boat might need.
So in summary, Marmaris is a summer pretty city that empties during winter.
#9 — Bodrum
Bodrum is the Turkey you’ve seen on Instagram. That’s exactly the problem.
It’s the most expensive market on our list — average sale price around $373,000, at about $3,000 per square meter. One-bedrooms start near $150,000, villas at half a million, sea-view villas past $1.4 million.
For Turkey this might be considered expensive, but let’s put it into perspective: $3,000 per square meter is the equivalent to $280 per square foot — so still half the price of Miami.
The climate is another pro. The mildest winter nights of all ten — around 11°C, 52 Fahrenheit, and a drier January than Marmaris at about 130 millimeters of rain.
Healthcare is not bad: Acıbadem, Turkey’s largest private hospital network, operates in the province.
On the negative side, Bodrum is the most seasonal city in our list — the local airport has just 20.8% of annual traffic from January to May.
Bodrum town keeps a winter pulse, but the permanent expat community is quite small. The crowd filling the beach in July — including the wealthy Turkish second-home wave that arrives in June — is gone by October.
Who is Bodrum for? People with $400,000-plus in savings, who want sailing, dining, nice beaches during summer and a quiet winter.
This is how an expat who lives there described the city to us:
“I live in Bodrum for 5 years now. I definitely recommend it because it has polite people, good environment, sea, beaches. Only downside is it is becoming expensive!”
#8 — Kaş
This is one of the sunniest cities in the Mediterranean region. Around 300 days of sunshine a year, a swimming season of nine months, mild January afternoons. Maybe the mildest winter on the Turkish coast.
So why just number eight? Well, Kaş is a town of just over 7,000 people, in a district of 53-to-58 thousand spread across 48 villages. Out of season it contracts to village scale.
For some of you, that’s the dream. For others it’s a fishbowl — charming for a month, tight by March.
The costs are a two-sided coin: living is cheap, but property is priced by scarcity, and this scarcity might demand a premium.
There is another issue too: Kaş has a small state hospital and a medical center. Serious care means Antalya — about three hours by a winding mountain coastal road that is not great for night driving in winter.
If you’re managing a condition that could put you in a hospital at short notice, that road is a risk you must price in.
So, for active people aged 50 to 65 who genuinely want small-settlement life? For them Kaş is great. But not for someone with a chronic condition.
#7 — Didim
Didim is the cheapest coastal base in Turkey where there is an active expat community. Entry apartments cost around €85,000, or US$96,000 — so yes, similar to the price of a Ford F150 Raptor.
The Didim–Altınkum area has around 35,000 permanent residents, including around 5,000 foreigners, many of them British and German — a year-round community where English is widely spoken in shops and services.
Winters are quiet, not dead; those 5,000 keep a core of commerce alive even as the big all-inclusive hotels on the edge of town shutter from November to April.
Location inside town matters enormously. Central parts can be way more affordable than beachfront properties. The Altınkum seafront strip has prices targeting a British clientele, so it is more expensive, and it gets emptier during winter.
The climate is Aegean rather than Mediterranean: January around 13°C (55F), and the meltemi — the summer wind — keeps the heat bearable.
The downside is healthcare: virtually all the city has is the Didim State Hospital. No private hospital group operates in the district at all, and serious care means İzmir, about two hours away.
Under 65 and healthy, that’s a manageable bet. Above 70, or with a chronic condition, no monthly savings offset it. In Didim you save money every single month — until the month you need a cardiologist.
And talking about this, I wanted to share a quick warning. Choosing the wrong place to move to during your retirement is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. But what if you didn’t have to guess?
Our Expat Compass Diagnostic is a 40-question, data-driven algorithm that factors in your budget, taxes, healthcare and other essential aspects to tell you which of 30 global regions is your perfect mathematical fit — and which ones to avoid. It’s inside our Patreon for $5 a month, together with a personal analysis of your results and our 74-page guide to affordable European cities.
And if you are still at the stage of choosing a country rather than a city, our full guide on where to move abroad walks you through that first decision.
#6 — Bursa
Remember when I promised the mountain people an option? Bursa is not Mediterranean Turkey, but Mountain Turkey.
January tops out around 9°C — 48 Fahrenheit — nights flirt with freezing, and it snows most winters, because the city sits at the foot of Uludağ, Turkey’s main ski massif. Winter isn’t the off-season there; it’s the peak.
Keep reading, because the next numbers are interesting. Costs are about 50% below Istanbul, with a modest couple’s budget around $1,600 a month.
One cold-weather warning: gas heating for a 3-bedroom home can be expensive — the biggest unbudgeted seasonal expense we found. But the rest is quite cheap.
But unlike Didim or other smaller cities we saw so far, cheap does not mean bad infrastructure: Bursa is one of the 3 best cities in our ranking in terms of healthcare. And Istanbul’s entire medical infrastructure as backup is just two hours up the road.
In Bursa, there’s even a thermal spa quarter, Çekirge, whose mineral springs have run since Roman times — worth knowing if arthritis is part of your life.
A local described the city in very interesting terms:
“I lived there for 11 years. What makes Bursa unique is the variety in terms of facilities and lifestyle. You can find pretty much everything there. You have a major ski resort, and the food is excellent as well. It is a big city, but because it’s geographically large and spread out, it doesn’t feel as crowded as Istanbul.”
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Now the downsides: Bursa has 51,566 foreign residents — more than double İzmir — but mostly they’re workers, students, and families. The English-speaking retiree community is very small, so it is highly recommended to learn some Turkish.
The airport is functionally domestic, so international flying means a road transfer to Istanbul. And the city sits on a branch of the North Anatolian fault — buy construction built under the 2018 seismic code and verify the iskan, the occupancy permit, before signing.
The next city brings back the Mediterranean sea…
#5 — Kuşadası
This town solves the small-town problems the clever way: it doesn’t own big-city amenities, but borrows them.
Here’s what I mean by that: İzmir’s full infrastructure — including Acıbadem’s Kent Hospital — is 90 minutes up the road, and residents treat a professor-level specialist consultation in İzmir as a routine day trip, around $100 a visit.
İzmir’s airport is just 45 to 60 minutes away — the best airport access of any small town in this ranking, and it’s a year-round, 12.7-million-passenger hub.
Locally, Özel Kuşadası Hastanesi, a private hospital, appears on the US Embassy’s own list of facilities used by American citizens.
Kuşadası has a similar size and climate to Didim, which we mentioned previously. But the difference between them in terms of healthcare access is considerable.
Of course that also comes at a slightly higher price: good apartments are $120,000 to $200,000 — pricier than Didim, far below Bodrum.
The community is the largest foreign concentration in Aydın province, British-led, and organized enough to run a Foreign Citizens Advice Centre — a free helpline for foreigners.
Kuşadası is still seasonal at heart — it is a way more lively city during summer. It’s a major cruise port — 227 ship calls a year — and the seafront strip empties sharply in January and February.
Who’s it for? Health-conscious value hunters. Who isn’t it for? Those who might be bored or lonely during winter, when things are calmer.
Now, time for number 4, and we go way down south.
#4 — Fethiye
Fethiye might be the best pick for English-speaking expats on the Turkish coast — as long as you pick the right half of it.
Let’s talk about costs first, because you might think that a city this beautiful probably is expensive. Modern apartments will cost you as low as $110,000, villas from $180,000, and long-term rentals from about $600 a month.
All in, a couple lives there on around $1,200 a month — the lowest cost among genuinely serviced Turquoise Coast towns, and less than tiny Kalkan charges an hour east.
This is also one of the most linguistically accessible places in this ranking: about 5,200 British residents in the wider region, about one in twenty locals is foreign — with English-speaking professionals and trades, and a social life that doesn’t hibernate.
But… Fethiye is two towns wearing one name. Down at sea level, it is a bustling city of 183,000 people with a permanent economy that lives straight through winter.
Up the hill sit Hisarönü and Ovacık — purpose-built, heavily British, and largely shut from November. Two addresses fifteen minutes apart, two completely different winters.
Staying year-round? Live in the lower city. Not the hillside.
There is plenty of sunny weather. January afternoons are around 14°C — 57 Fahrenheit, and seven to eight hours of daily sunshine even in January.
One downside is that Fethiye has no accredited major hospital. Routine care is cheap and fine — a private GP visit is £25 to £40 — but complex care means a 4-hour road journey to Antalya, or a quick flight.
If you’re managing a serious condition, it’s the reason Fethiye is placed number four and not in the podium of this ranking.
Dalaman airport is under an hour away with 23 airlines at summer peak — but in winter the international schedule is very reduced, though flights to Istanbul remain.
Now our top 3, which are all very famous cities among expats (but not Istanbul).
#3 — İzmir
And that is the sunniest of all the top 3 — about 3,049 hours of sunshine a year, beating even Antalya’s 2,882. But surprisingly, it is not the hottest!
Because sunshine and winter warmth are different things, and people constantly confuse them. Antalya or Alanya in January are warmer — but much wetter. İzmir has relatively dry winters on the other hand.
İzmir in January is 6 to 12°C — 43 to 54 Fahrenheit. You’ll wear a coat, but you’ll also see the sun.
And İzmir wins on one of the metrics that are most important for us: it is very lively also during winter. From January to May the local airport keeps 34.4% of its annual air traffic, so almost no seasonality at all. İzmir is a metropolis of 4.5 million, so it doesn’t have a low season.
Real housing prices fell 4.34% last year — the steepest real decline among Turkey’s three biggest cities — with one-bedrooms with prices as low as $70,000.
Karşıyaka-Mavişehir and Bayraklı-Mansuroğlu are modern districts open for foreign registration; Alsancak and Bostanlı are the walkable heart; Urla and Seferihisar offer village character within an hour of the metro.
Healthcare? Top tier. Acıbadem — Turkey’s most famous private healthcare provider — bought İzmir’s Kent Hospital in 2023. In terms of quality, only another city that we will reveal soon can compare.
Getting around: metro, suburban rail, cross-bay ferries, and up to 15 daily flights to Istanbul — your gateway home.
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The biggest downside of İzmir is… geography. İzmir sits in Turkey’s most seismically active region — the Western Anatolian fault system — and took a damaging earthquake in 2020.
The solution is to buy post-2018-code construction — Turks themselves pay a 35-to-40% premium for it since those are more earthquake-resistant — and check your address on AFAD’s hazard map through the e-Devlet portal.
There are also some considerable differences between İzmir and people from, for example, Istanbul. A local described it to us:
“I am from Izmir, but I have also spent a considerable amount of time in Istanbul for work. Izmir and Istanbul have two opposite cultures. Istanbul is a city where you’d spend most your time on commuting and the citizens are filled with this false sense of urgency. In Izmir however, we are generally called ‘reckless’ or ‘unpredictable’ by people that are not from here, because we plan things the last day, we don’t have to make appointments with friends to see them.”
Another thing: the 25 thousand foreigners there are mostly students and professionals; the expat retiree community is relatively small. You’d retire into a Turkish city, not an expat bubble — and for some of you, that’s the whole point.
The next city is the opposite: a resort city that became permanent for many foreigners.
#2 — Alanya
Alanya is where retiring in Turkey stops being an experiment. Foreigners have been settling there for decades — so many that the government started closing the door, but there is still time for you.
It is also the most eastern city of this ranking — it is only 150 kilometers from Cyprus. And talking about Cyprus, I am considering covering in a future article how attractive real estate on this island became since the Iran conflict started. If you would like me to cover that, type CYPRUS in the comment section and help us decide what we should talk about next!
Alanya is a district of 371,547 people, and in about half of its neighborhoods, foreigners are more than 30% of the registered population. Scandinavians and Germans were the first to come in big numbers; today the community is substantially Russian-speaking. Restaurants, gyms, clinics, and shops run all winter.
Now the saga I flagged at the start — the mistake that might consume an entire year. Mahmutlar, Kestel, and Avsallar, the three most established foreign neighborhoods, became so foreign that Turkey closed them to new residence registrations.
They reopened on June 4, 2026 — but these districts have opened and closed before, and status is checked on the day you apply, not the day you buy.
Buying in a closed mahalle — neighborhood — is still legal; it just gives you no right to live there. Verify the specific neighborhood with the local migration office before you sign anything.
Real estate prices fell about 10% in real terms, after accounting for inflation. On top of the published prices, buyers typically can negotiate a 6 to 10% discount.
Alanya has a sheltered microclimate that allows swimming from May to November. Winter afternoons are mild, around 13°C — 55 Fahrenheit, and yes, rainy.
Alanya has the lowest earthquake risk of all cities we mentioned, consistently placed in Turkey’s lower hazard grouping. That is a huge advantage, but healthcare is the gap: plenty of private clinics, but no accredited tertiary hospital.
The next city, the best in our ranking, has no such problem.
#1 — Antalya
Here you get world-class private healthcare and Mediterranean beaches inside the same twenty-minute radius.
Memorial Antalya is an internationally accredited hospital and a member of the American Hospital Association, and it is only one of the many renowned institutions in the city.
Tertiary cardiac and cancer care is about twenty minutes away — the same journey that costs three hours from Kaş and nearly four from Fethiye. For anyone over 60, that single fact reorders this entire list.
And Antalya is a real city — 2.4 to 2.8 million people, universities, a tram network, an economy that doesn’t depend on tourists. Its airport moved 39.16 million passengers in 2025, third-busiest in Turkey.
Talking about costs, the offer of real estate there is very, very ample. From very cheap studios for less than US$80,000 to luxury penthouses that are still affordable when compared to what you would pay in the US.
The biggest flaw there isn’t cost or safety — it’s the sky. Antalya has the wettest January of all ten: 228 millimeters, overcast about 41% of the time in winter. And July and August at sea level are hot and humid.
There is another thing that will surprise you too. Almost 132 thousand foreigners live in the province of Antalya. It is the largest concentration outside Istanbul. Mostly they are Russians, Kazakhs, and Ukrainians. Your neighbors will more likely greet you in Russian than English.
And check your neighborhood, because some remain closed to new foreign registrations, while Kepez and Aksu are largely unaffected.
So who is Antalya for? Anyone who wants city conveniences with the Mediterranean atmosphere. People looking for a quiet village, Antalya isn’t the prettiest place on this list, nor the cheapest.
It’s the one that still works on the day something goes wrong — and after 12 years living outside my own country, I can tell you: that’s the day that decides whether the move was right.
Now, there is a neighbouring country to Turkey that offers even more impressive tax incentives for expat retirees. Greece! I covered in another article how good these incentives are.
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Levi Borba is the founder of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the YouTube channel The Expat, and a best-selling author. Some of the links in our articles may be affiliated links, meaning the author earns a small commission if you make a purchase.
