Enerji Kimlik Belgesi: Turkey’s Building Energy Certificate
Every building in scope in Turkey carries an energy rating from A to G, and since 2020 you cannot legally sell or let a property without one. Here is what the Enerji Kimlik Belgesi records, who issues it, how long it lasts and what the letter on it is really telling you about the flat you are about to buy.
The one certificate most foreign buyers never ask to see
Foreign buyers in Turkey learn the vocabulary of the purchase quickly. The tapu is the title deed. The iskan is the occupancy permit. The aidat is the monthly service charge. The Enerji Kimlik Belgesi, usually shortened to EKB, rarely makes that list — and yet it is a document the seller is legally obliged to give you, and one of the few that tells you something objective about how expensive the property will be to live in.
The certificate exists because of the Binalarda Enerji Performansi Yonetmeligi, the regulation on energy performance in buildings, published in the Resmi Gazete on 5 December 2008 under number 27075 and in force a year later. It takes its authority from the Energy Efficiency Law No. 5627 and from Presidential Decree No. 1, and it is administered by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change. It has been amended many times since, most recently in 2025 and 2026, and several of those amendments changed thresholds that matter to buyers.
What the certificate does is straightforward. It records, at minimum, the building’s energy requirement and its energy consumption classification, its insulation characteristics, and the efficiency of its heating and cooling systems. It then places the building on a lettered scale. What makes it genuinely useful to a buyer is that the assessment is of the building fabric and its systems — not of how the current occupant happens to live.
It is also worth knowing where the certificate sits in the construction sequence, because that is where it has real teeth. For a new building, the EKB is submitted to the authority at the stage of applying for the occupancy permit, and the regulation states plainly that no occupancy permit may be granted to a building for which no EKB has been issued. A development that cannot produce its energy certificate cannot produce its iskan either, and a flat without an iskan is a materially different purchase from one with it.
Enerji Kimlik Belgesi at a glance
Turkey’s building energy performance certificate
What the certificate actually records
The regulation sets out the contents of an EKB item by item. These are the entries that tell a buyer or a tenant something they could not otherwise find out.
Primary energy class
Annual primary energy consumption per unit of usable area, classified on a reference scale from A to G. This is the headline letter most people mean when they talk about a building’s rating.
CO₂ emission class
A second, separate A to G scale for annual greenhouse gas emissions per square metre of usable area. A building can score differently here because the result depends on which fuels it burns.
Insulation characteristics
The thermal properties of the building envelope. On an older block this is usually the single biggest driver of the final letter, and the hardest thing to change after purchase.
System efficiency
The efficiency of the heating and cooling installations, together with the energy used for heating, cooling, air conditioning, ventilation and domestic hot water in kilowatt hours per year.
Renewable energy ratio
The proportion of the building’s energy met from renewable sources. This entry has become materially more important since the near zero energy building rules took full effect.
Lighting energy
The building’s lighting energy consumption value, alongside general building information, the usable area in square metres, the stated purpose of the building and the details of whoever issued the certificate.
How an EKB is obtained, and how to check one
For a buyer the sequence usually runs backwards — you are checking a certificate someone else obtained. Both directions are below.
Ask the building management before you ask anyone else
Because the certificate covers the whole building rather than a single flat, one may already exist. The regulation requires a copy to be held by the owner, manager, management board or energy manager, and a second copy to be displayed in a readily visible place at the building entrance. On a managed site, the entrance board or the site management office is the fastest route to it.
Establish whether the building is in scope at all
Industrial production buildings, buildings planned for use for less than two years, buildings with a construction area under 50 square metres, greenhouses, workshops and unconditioned structures such as depots and barns sit outside the regulation. Article 25 adds further cases where no certificate is required, including unpermitted structures and buildings outside the adjacent development area with a construction area below 1,000 square metres.
Appoint the right category of certifier
The regulation splits this by building age. For new buildings, authorisation goes to persons or companies holding a consultancy and engineering services certificate issued by the relevant chamber of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, with trained staff. For existing buildings, authorisation goes to energy efficiency consultancy companies authorised in the building category under Law No. 5627, and to qualifying practices confirmed by the provincial directorate.
The assessment runs through BEP-TR
Certificates are produced using BEP-TR, the ministry’s calculation software, applying the calculation method published by the ministry. Access to BEP-TR is granted to energy identity certificate experts and to authorised bodies, and since the June 2025 amendment both the expert and the authorising organisation are responsible for the information on the certificate and for its accuracy.
For new builds, it gates the occupancy permit
The certificate is submitted to the relevant authority when applying for the occupancy permit, and no occupancy permit is issued to a building without one. Separately, a project that does not comply with the regulation on energy grounds cannot receive a building permit in the first place, and where the work as built does not match the approved project, the occupancy permit is withheld until the deficiencies are corrected. For off-plan buyers this is a completion risk worth tracking.
Hand it over, then watch the clock
At the point of sale or letting the owner gives a copy to the buyer or tenant. The certificate then runs for ten years from its date of issue. If any work changes the building’s annual primary energy requirement — a new heating system, external insulation, a deep retrofit — it must be renewed within one year, so a pre-renovation certificate is not something a seller can safely rely on afterwards.
New build and existing building: what differs
The same certificate, but a different route to it, a different certifier and a different set of consequences if it is missing.
| Point of difference | New building | Existing building |
|---|---|---|
| Who may issue the certificate | Practices with a chamber-issued consultancy and engineering services certificate plus trained staff | Energy efficiency consultancy companies authorised in the building category, and qualifying practices confirmed by the provincial directorate |
| Blocks the occupancy permit if missing | Yes | Not applicable |
| Blocks a sale or a letting if missing | Yes | Yes |
| Energy compliance checked at building permit stage | Yes | No |
| Near zero energy obligation may apply | Yes, at 2,000 m² and above | No |
| Prepared for the building as a whole | Yes | Yes |
| Validity period | 10 years from issue | 10 years from issue |
| Must be renewed after works changing primary energy need | Yes, within one year | Yes, within one year |
Near zero energy buildings, and why the build date matters
The most consequential recent change for anyone comparing new developments is the near zero energy building obligation, known in Turkish by the abbreviation NSEB. Buildings with a total construction area of 2,000 square metres and above must be constructed as near zero energy buildings. Since the great majority of Turkish apartment blocks comfortably exceed that figure, the rule reaches far more of the new-build market than the technical label suggests.
To qualify, two conditions have to be satisfied together. The energy performance class recorded on the EKB must be B or better, and at least 10 per cent of the building’s primary energy requirement must be met by renewable energy generated on site. Where a building meets the standard, that fact is noted on its energy certificate, which gives a buyer a simple way to verify the claim rather than take it from a brochure.
Both thresholds were phased in, and the phasing is the part that matters when you are weighing up two blocks of different vintages. Between 1 January 2023 and 1 January 2025, the area trigger was applied as 5,000 square metres rather than 2,000, and the renewable share was applied as 5 per cent rather than 10. Since 1 January 2025 the full thresholds apply. A block permitted in 2023 and one permitted in 2026 can therefore sit under genuinely different obligations, which is a real distinction when you are weighing a new build against a resale.
There is also a provision for the oldest and most sensitive part of the stock. For buildings registered as cultural assets requiring protection, the regulation requires the opinion of the conservation board to be taken, and energy efficiency measures to be applied in a way that does not affect the character and external appearance of the structure. If you are buying a listed property, this is the route through which efficiency work has to be approached.
Near zero energy building
Thresholds as they now stand
Not sure whether the building you are buying has a valid certificate?
We check the energy certificate alongside the title deed, the occupancy permit and the annotations, before anything is signed.
Why a letter on a certificate is worth your attention
It is tempting to file the EKB with the paperwork that exists to satisfy a rule rather than to inform a decision. That would be a mistake, for three reasons that have nothing to do with compliance.
The first is that it is one of the very few assessments of a Turkish property you will see that is about the building rather than the sales pitch. Marketing material talks about the view, the finish and the distance to the beach. The certificate talks about the envelope and the systems. On a coastal apartment that will be cooled hard through the summer, or an Anatolian one heated hard through the winter, the envelope is what you will pay for every month you own it. That running cost sits alongside the other recurring items in the cost of living in Turkey.
The second is that the characteristics it measures are the expensive ones to change. You can replace a kitchen for a known sum over a known weekend. Improving the thermal performance of a block’s envelope is a building-wide project requiring the agreement of other owners, and in an apartment block you do not control that decision. Buying into a poorly performing building is a commitment to its running costs for as long as you hold the flat.
The third is that the certificate is already a disclosure obligation on the seller, which makes it a low-cost question to ask. You are not requesting a favour or commissioning a survey. The owner is required to give you a copy at the point of sale, and the building is required to display one at its entrance. A certificate that nobody can locate tells you something in itself — most often that the building’s paperwork has not been kept up, which is worth knowing before you look at the rest of it.
For landlords the same obligation runs the other way. Since 1 January 2020 the requirement has applied to letting as well as to sale, so anyone renting out a Turkish property needs the certificate in place and a copy to hand to the tenant. If you let through an agent or a management company from abroad, it is worth confirming they hold one rather than assuming it.
Related guides for owners and buyers
The documents, permits and running costs that sit alongside the energy certificate.
- Habitation certificate (iskan) in Turkey — the occupancy permit the energy certificate gates.
- Selling property in Turkey — the documents a seller has to produce, and when.
- Renting out property in Turkey — landlord obligations, including disclosure to tenants.
- New build or resale in Turkey — how build date changes what the law requires.
- Buying off-plan in Turkey — permits, completion risk and what to track.
- Setting up utilities in Turkey — electricity, water and gas after completion.
- Building age and earthquake codes — the other thing the construction date tells you.
- All Turkey property guides — the full library for foreign buyers and owners.
Enerji Kimlik Belgesi — frequently asked questions
What foreign owners, buyers and landlords ask most often about Turkey’s building energy certificate.
Have the building documents checked first
Tell us the property you are considering and we will confirm the energy certificate, the occupancy permit, the title deed record and the annotations before anything is signed. We work with licensed Turkish conveyancers and authorised certifiers.
