The Turkish government is planning new moves to promote what it calls the “dignified return” for thousands of Syrian refugees. Always a champion of people taking shelter after fleeing the oppressive regime of Bashar Assad, Türkiye now hopes refugees will build new lives in their own country after the Syrian revolution of December 2024 that toppled the brutal regime in its southern neighbor.
Starting on Jan. 1, 2026, Syrian refugees will no longer be eligible for free health care in Türkiye. They will have to pay the same premiums as Turkish citizens with social security plans. Authorities hope this will encourage at least some among more than 2.3 million Syrians in Türkiye to return home.
Secondly, Türkiye plans to remove temporary protection status for Syrian nationals. European countries were quick to remove it after the civil war, but Türkiye delayed action on the issue. Security officials have suggested following the example of European countries, but President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opposed a rapid implementation. Erdoğan is known for his unwavering support for Syrian refugees despite far-right movements in the country and the opposition parties long advocated expulsion of refugees even at the height of the civil war. This steadfast support made Erdoğan one of the most beloved figures in Syria. Those opposing speeding up the lifting of the temporary protection status point out that this may jeopardize the ongoing school life of Syrian students and thwart Syrians’ contribution to the Turkish workforce. With the recovery of post-Assad Syria, however, the status is expected to be removed soon.
Removal of the status means that Syrians will have to apply for residence permits, and it will be a complicated process involving evaluation of residence conditions of the applicants, whether he or she own a house or have a leasing contract, evaluation of employment, health care insurance, and financial assets.
Authorities also plan to introduce financial incentives for returnees, tapping into U.N. funds for refugees.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, more than 600,000 Syrians have returned home from Türkiye and this number is expected to increase in the near future.
The Syrian war, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more since 2011, drove some 5 million into neighboring countries as refugees, most of whom fled to Türkiye.
Türkiye embraced refugees from its southern neighbor as the war intensified and, at one point, hosted the largest Syrian refugee community in the world. Türkiye occasionally encouraged returns for refugees, but only to areas in northern Syria liberated from terrorist groups and only voluntarily.
The number of Syrians arriving in Türkiye under temporary protection status increased steadily from 2011 to 2021, except for a small decline in 2019. It peaked at 3.7 million in 2021 and has steadily declined since.
After the collapse of the Baathist regime, refugees who called Türkiye home for years have been streaming to the border crossings for returns.
The U.N. refugee agency said earlier this month that some 1.2 million refugees, in addition to 1.9 million internally displaced people, have gone home since Assad was toppled.
