The same amendment that repealed the UNHCR protection-document residence-permit exemption (A.E.784/2026, Geçici Madde 1) gives people who held that exemption, or whose application for it was still pending, a 60-day window to apply instead for a Humanitarian residence permit. Whether that 60-day count runs uniformly from the amendment's own commencement (2026-08-24, which would close the window around 2026-10-23) or separately for each person, from their own earlier receipt of an exemption certificate, is not established by the text NCR has read: the extracted passage is OCR-degraded at exactly this point, and a second, careful manual re-read (2026-09-20) left both readings open. Anyone this may affect should confirm their own specific deadline directly with the Immigration Department rather than rely on either reading.

How to read this claim

Jurisdiction

Turkish Cypriot administration (TRNC)

Where in the source

Geçici Madde 1(1)-(3)

Verification

Secondary source onlyWhy this is published: NCR read the primary text directly (Official Gazette 154/2026, A.E.784/2026, Geçici Madde 1) — this is not a secondary description. It is marked secondary-only because the extracted text at exactly this passage shows OCR-quality degradation severe enough that two materially different readings of the 60-day trigger remain plausible, and NCR cannot currently say which is correct: (i) uniform, running from the amendment's 2026-08-24 commencement, or (ii) individual, running separately for each person from whenever they personally received an exemption certificate. This is published, despite that unresolved uncertainty, because the transition affects real people against a real, near-term date, and withholding it entirely would leave an affected reader with no warning at all rather than a caveated one. The effectiveTo date below records the closing date under the more likely, uniform reading — it is not a confirmed legal deadline, and this record's own statement says so.

Legal review

Not yet reviewed by a named legal reviewer. Marked for priority review.

Relevant from

24 August 2026

Rules

• UNHCR protection-document holders no longer exempt from needing a residence permit

Concepts

• Residence Permits and Visas Regulation

Version history

• 23 September 2026 — Published from research/candidates/cand-live-unhcr-exemption-transition-window-refined-ambiguity.json (Mission 03, 2026-09-20 refinement of an OCR-degraded passage first flagged 2026-09-17). Encoded now, honestly caveated, because the transition window is time-critical (closing on or around 2026-10-23) — see docs/legal-review.md category-C handling; not a legal conclusion, a recorded ambiguity. (version 1, First published)