Employment & Labour Law for Foreign Employers in Türkiye

Who this page is for

This page is written for the people who run cross-border operations in Türkiye, not for lawyers. You may be:

• A foreign company hiring your first Turkish employees, or restructuring a team you already have;
• An employer facing a difficult termination, a reinstatement claim, or a severance dispute;
• A foreign professional who needs a work permit, or who believes a Turkish employer has treated you unlawfully.

Turkish employment law leans firmly towards the employee. The rules reward employers who document carefully and follow the procedure, and they punish those who improvise. We help you stay on the right side of that line — and, when a dispute is unavoidable, we run it properly.

The Turkish legal framework for employment

Most employment in Türkiye is governed by the Labour Code No. 4857 (İş Kanunu). A smaller group of relationships that fall outside its scope — for example certain senior executives and some professional engagements — are governed by the service-contract provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098. Which code applies changes the rules on job security, notice and severance, so it is the first thing we check.

Employment is also a social-security relationship: every employee must be registered with the Social Security Institution (SGK) from the first day of work, and premiums must be paid monthly. Failing to register staff is one of the most common — and most costly — mistakes foreign employers make.

Employment contracts: types and mandatory terms

A Turkish employment contract may be indefinite or fixed-term, full-time or part-time. Fixed-term contracts are only valid where there is an objective reason (a defined project, a seasonal need, a maternity cover); using rolling fixed terms to avoid job-security rules generally fails, and the relationship is treated as indefinite. A written contract is strongly advisable for every hire and is required for fixed terms of one year or more.

Whatever the format, the contract should set out the role, pay and benefits, working time, place of work, notice, confidentiality and — where lawful and properly limited — a non-compete. Vague or one-sided clauses are read against the employer. We draft and localise contracts that hold up in a Turkish court while still protecting your business; this dovetails with the commercial and service contracts for your wider Turkish operations. For the practical mechanics of hiring, see our guide on how foreign companies legally hire and onboard staff in Türkiye.

Hiring foreign staff: work permits under Law No. 6735

A foreign national generally may not work in Türkiye without a work permit, granted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security under the International Labour Force Law No. 6735. The application is normally made by the employer, and the permit, once issued, also serves as a residence permit for its validity period — so a separate residence application is usually unnecessary while the permit is live.

For relocating staff and their families, the residence and immigration side is handled by the same team, so nothing falls between two desks.

Ending employment: valid reason, just cause and procedure

How you may end a contract — and what it costs — depends on the route:

• Termination with notice (ordinary dismissal). Where the job-security regime applies (see below), the employer needs a valid reason connected to the employee's capacity or conduct, or to the needs of the business, and must follow a fair procedure (written reason, and the employee's defence taken before a conduct-based dismissal).
• Termination for just cause (instant dismissal, no notice). The employer's just-cause grounds are in Art. 25 of Law No. 4857; the employee's mirror grounds are in Art. 24.

Severance and notice pay (kıdem & ihbar tazminatı)

Two separate payments often arise on termination, and foreign employers regularly confuse them:

Not every exit triggers severance: a resignation without just cause, or a dismissal for the employee's own serious misconduct under Art. 25/II, generally does not. Getting the ground and the paperwork right is where most disputes are won or lost.

Reinstatement (işe iade) and the dismissal-challenge clock

Türkiye's job-security regime (Arts. 18–21 of Law No. 4857) gives an employee the right to challenge a dismissal and seek reinstatement where two conditions are met: the workplace has at least 30 employees, and the employee has at least six months' seniority. If the court finds the dismissal invalid, the employer must reinstate the employee or pay compensation, plus up to four months' wages for the period of the dispute.

For employers, the same clock is a planning tool: a clean, well-documented dismissal that respects the procedure is far harder to overturn. We pressure-test the decision before you act.

Restructuring, redundancy and collective dismissals

Where dismissals are driven by the business rather than the individual, the employer must show a genuine operational reason and that dismissal was a last resort (redeployment and short-time working considered first). Collective dismissals — letting go of a defined number of employees within a month — trigger extra duties, including notifying the regional labour directorate and the workplace union representatives and observing a waiting period before the terminations take effect.

We plan reductions so they are both commercially workable and legally defensible: selection criteria that withstand challenge, the right notifications, and severance modelled in advance so there are no surprises.

Workplace compliance: SGK, working time and health & safety

Beyond hiring and firing, Turkish law imposes continuing duties that inspectors and courts take seriously:

• Social security: register every worker with the SGK from day one and pay premiums on the true wage — under-declaring pay is a frequent and serious exposure.
• Working time: the standard week is 45 hours; overtime is capped annually and must be paid at a premium (or taken as time off) with the employee's consent.
• Occupational health and safety: employers owe extensive OHS duties under the dedicated OHS legislation, scaled to the workplace's risk class and headcount.

For a current view of how these obligations are shifting, see our digest of recent updates to Turkish employment law.

Unions and collective bargaining (Law No. 6356)

Collective labour relations — union membership, collective bargaining agreements, and the rules on strikes and lockouts — are governed by the Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining Law No. 6356. A union must clear statutory thresholds to be authorised to bargain for a workplace, and a concluded collective agreement sets a floor for the terms of everyone it covers. Foreign employers operating in unionised sectors need to understand how a collective agreement interacts with individual contracts before they set pay and policy.

When it goes to court: mediation and the Labour Courts

Most employment disputes cannot go straight to court. Under the Labour Courts Law No. 7036, mandatory mediation is a precondition to bringing the great majority of employee and employer claims — reinstatement, severance and notice pay, unpaid wages and the like. Only if mediation fails does the matter proceed to the Labour Courts (İş Mahkemeleri); appeals run to the regional court of appeal (Bölge Adliye Mahkemesi) and, where still open, to the 9th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation.

We represent clients at every stage — preparing for and running the mediation, then litigating if it does not settle. Our companion guide explains how the Turkish Labour Courts hear an employment claim.

Handling it from abroad: power of attorney and remote representation

You do not need to be in Türkiye to employ here or to defend a claim. With a power of attorney — signed before a Turkish consulate, or notarised and apostilled in your own country and translated — we can file work-permit applications, issue notices, attend mediation and conduct litigation on your behalf. Most foreign clients run their entire Turkish employment matter remotely, with us as their on-the-ground team.

Common mistakes foreign employers make

The disputes we see most often trace back to a short list of avoidable errors:

• Treating a dismissal as at-will — Türkiye has no at-will employment where job security applies.
• Missing the six-working-day just-cause window, then having to pay full notice and severance.
• Under-declaring wages to the SGK, which surfaces as a much larger liability on termination.
• Using rolling fixed-term contracts that a court re-characterises as indefinite.
• Letting the one-month mediation deadline pass on the employer side of a dispute.

Each of these is cheap to prevent and expensive to fix after the fact. That is the case for getting advice before you act, not after.

How we handle your employment matter

Employment law in Türkiye — frequently asked questions