Plastic surgery in Turkey for Australian patients.

Between 2 and 14 days, depending entirely on the procedure. Your own number is written into your plan before you book anything, and it is the number the whole trip is built around.

As a guide, and always confirmed for your case:

• Hair transplant: 2 to 3 days
• Breast augmentation: about 5 days
• BBL: about 6 days
• Rhinoplasty and breast lift: about 7 days
• Facelift: about 8 days
• Tummy tuck: about 9 days
• Dental work: from 4 days to two weeks, depending on the plan
• Combined body surgery, such as a mommy makeover or a body lift: longer again, up to around two weeks

Nobody flies before the surgeon clears them. We do not shorten a stay to fit a cheaper flight, and we never book a return flight before the final check-up. Every procedure page on this site carries its own day by day timeline, and the FAQ lists the stays together.

From Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth you reach Istanbul with at least one stop, and door to door it is usually somewhere around 20 to 24 hours each way. Check the current routes yourself; that figure is a planning estimate, not a promise from us.

The distance does not make your stay longer. What it does is make the order of things non negotiable. A long flight soon after surgery raises the risk of clots, and that risk is the reason the final check-up comes before the flight home rather than after it. It is also why we ask early whether you have any history of clots, so the surgeon knows before, not on the day.

Our longer write-up on planning the journey is here: Flying from Australia for surgery.

Istanbul runs about 7 hours behind eastern Australia, 8 when daylight saving is on. In practice that means your evening is our afternoon, and the genuinely awkward hours fall on our side rather than yours.

This matters more than it sounds. A surgeon operates and then moves to the next theatre; that is how surgery works everywhere, including at home. The person who actually answers you on the third night, when you are not sure whether what you are feeling is normal, is your coordinator. One person, the same person, reachable on WhatsApp. That is not an extra we sell on top. It is the thing we do.

Distance is where most of the worry lives, so this is the part we make concrete.

For roughly the first two weeks at home we stay in close contact and ask you to send photographs of your sutures every couple of days, so that redness or an early infection is caught while it is still small. That continues until every suture has healed, not until a fixed date passes.

If something feels wrong, you contact us first. We give you first guidance, and if the situation is genuinely serious we say so plainly and direct you to the right doctor. You also fly home with a written summary of your treatment, because your GP in Australia will want it.

What we cannot do is treat you from Istanbul. In an emergency you use local emergency care, immediately, and tell us afterwards.

Visa. Australian passport holders need a visa for Turkey. Apply through the official Republic of Turkiye e-Visa service, and check the current rules yourself close to your travel date. Entry requirements change, and we are not able to advise on them.

Medicare. Assume it does not apply. Medicare does not pay for treatment received outside Australia. Turkey is not one of the countries Australia has a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with.

Private health cover. Australian funds generally exclude elective cosmetic surgery performed overseas, and that exclusion usually extends to follow-up and to any revision. Do not rely on a phone call: ask your fund to answer in writing, naming the procedure, before you book anything.

Travel insurance. Cover for complications of planned surgery abroad varies enormously between policies and many exclude it outright. Read the product disclosure statement rather than the summary page.

We are a coordinator in Istanbul. We have no insurance facts of our own to give you, we do not process claims, and nothing on this page is financial or insurance advice. Check with Services Australia and with your own fund. Position last reviewed 25 August 2026.