This is the question a guest asks you three days before booking a flight, and it is worth having an answer ready rather than researching it per person.
The general shape
Türkiye operates three tiers:
- Visa-free entry for short stays. Most EU and Schengen nationalities, the UK, and a long list of others.
- e-Visa, applied for online, granted in minutes to hours. A large group including several nationalities that used to need a sticker visa.
- Sticker or consular visa, applied for in advance at a Turkish mission. A smaller group.
Which tier applies depends on nationality, not on residence. A Pakistani passport holder living in London follows the Pakistani rule, not the British one. This is the same principle that governs the document route for Gulf residents.
Türkiye has revised entry requirements repeatedly in recent years, generally in the direction of making them easier, and several nationalities that needed an e-visa now do not.
That is exactly why we will not print a nationality list on this page: a list that is right today will be wrong within a year, and a guest who relied on it and got it wrong has a genuine problem at the airport.
The authoritative source is the official Turkish e-visa portal, which asks for a nationality and returns the current answer in one screen. That link goes in your guest page, and it is the only visa information you should be distributing.
Passport validity: the thing that actually catches people
Far more of your guests will have a passport problem than a visa problem.
Türkiye generally requires a passport valid for at least 150 days beyond the date of entry. That is a fraction over five months, and it is a longer margin than many countries require, which is why people are caught out.
Put this sentence in your guest page word for word: *"Check that your passport is valid for at least six months after the wedding date. If it is not, renew it now. Renewal takes weeks and there is no fast fix at the airport."*
Send it twelve months out and again at six weeks.
For a mixed guest list
If your guests hold passports from several countries, which is common for a wedding in İstanbul or a multi-day celebration, do not attempt to answer per nationality.
Do this instead:
- Link to the official e-visa portal.
- State the passport validity rule.
- Say that anyone unsure should check before booking flights, not after.
- Give them the planner's email for genuinely difficult cases.
We handle the difficult cases. Every wedding has one or two, and they are almost always a guest with an unusual nationality combination or a passport renewal in progress.
Invitation letters
Some guests applying for a visa are asked for evidence of why they are travelling. We produce a formal invitation letter on company letterhead: the couple’s names, the wedding date, the venue, the guest's name and passport number, and our licence details.
Ask early. Letters take a day to produce and consulates take longer.
Residence permits and long stays
Guests planning to stay beyond the visa-free or e-visa period need to look at this properly rather than assuming they can extend. It comes up occasionally with parents who want to make a month of it.
What goes in your guest page
A short block, and no more:
Entry to Türkiye. Most European passport holders do not need a visa for a short stay. Some nationalities need an e-visa, which is applied for online and usually granted the same day. Check your own nationality on the official Turkish e-visa portal before booking flights. Your passport must be valid for at least six months after the wedding date. If it is not, renew it now.
Then the link, then the planner's email.
Where visas sit in the guest sequence
The full sequence of guest communications and which airport works for your list.
