This presentation investigates the divergent regulatory frameworks that shaped the experiences of independent (serbest) and state-sponsored (iskanlı) immigrants from the Balkans who moved to Republican Turkey. While the first group came to modern-day Turkey on an individual basis and struggled to obtain financial assistance, the latter group was settled and assisted by the Turkish government. The varying legal definitions of immigrants complicated the state’s immigration policies since the late Ottoman Empire. A growing number of Balkan Muslims sought to leave their ancestral lands for Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. State authorities could not standardize the process by signing bilateral treaties with Balkan countries due to the complicated international environment in the Balkans and wars between the Ottoman Empire and its successor states. Kemalists faced similar problems in the 1920s. Though the Greco-Turkish population exchange set the standard for the forced transfer of populations between the two countries, thousands of Balkan Muslims who intended to migrate to Turkey did not enjoy a similar arrangement. There was no concrete agreement for immigrants especially those from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). The settlement laws of 1926 and 1934 regulated the settlement of immigrants but legal ambiguities and their repercussions on independent immigrants persisted well into the Cold War. While treaties provided a structured support system for state-sponsored immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania, which contributed to a relatively smooth integration, the absence of similar arrangements and material endorsement from the state posed unique challenges, such as transferring their properties, for independent immigrants due to property transfer limitations, and a lack of comprehensive state support. While scholars have focused on differences between Turkish and non-Turkish communities and country-based analysis, the complexities of navigating an unregulated immigration landscape have remained unstudied. By drawing on diplomatic treaties, international conventions, diplomatic correspondence, parliamentary speeches, oral history accounts, and newspaper articles, this presentation sheds light on the socioeconomic and legal barriers that Balkan immigrants encountered in Turkey.