After finishing secondary school at Kartal Anadolu İmam Hatip Lisesi in 1999, Erdoğan moved to the United States, and graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with a bachelor's degree in political science and economics.

[2] He then earned a master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2004.

Erdoğan is one of the three equal shareholders of BMZ Group Denizcilik ve İnşaat Sanayi Anonym Şirketi, a marine transportation corporation.

[7] The couple have two sons, Ömer Tayyip and Ali Tahir, and a daughter, Fatıma Serra.

[8] In October 2014, Today's Zaman reported that Erdoğan and his family had moved to Bologna, Italy, after his father's AK Party lost its parliamentary majority in June.