MERSIN, Turkey — In a bustling office on a palm-lined street along the Mediterranean shore, Ahmet Ammar Restom is busy answering phones, rifling through papers and greeting clients. He looks like any another businessman, but in the eyes of the Turkish authorities he is a refugee — and he doesn’t like it.

“When I go to government offices to sort out problems, I’m treated as a refugee. But I’m a businessman,” the Aleppan merchant told Al-Monitor, proudly sharing the documentation for his latest shipment of cooking oil exports. “I don’t take any aid [from the Turkish state]. On the contrary, I am aiding the state — I pay taxes.”

Restom is among a growing number of Syrians who have started businesses in Turkey, many with little intention to return home one day. After registering 489 companies in 2013, Syrians set up 1,004 companies in the first 10 months of 2014, becoming the largest group of new foreign entrepreneurs in the country, according to Turkey’s Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges. In addition to the wealthier, larger-scale businessmen who register their companies, hundreds of Syrians have opened small shops and restaurants, often under the table.

These industrious newcomers certainly offer financial relief for Turkey, where the bill for providing for nearly 2 million refugees has swelled to $5 billion, according to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Official statistics show that only about 221,500 Syrians remain in the 22 camps in the border regions. Scattered across the country, the rest struggle to earn their bread and often live in squalid conditions, and Syrian beggars are now a fixture in urban centers.