Employment Contracts in Türkiye: What Foreign Employers Must Get Right

An employment contract in Türkiye is, by default, an indefinite-term contract (belirsiz süreli iş sözleşmesi) governed by the Labour Act No. 4857 (İş Kanunu); a fixed term is valid only where an objective reason genuinely justifies it, and roles outside the Act’s scope fall under the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (TBK). There is no at-will employment. Statutory notice periods run from two weeks to eight weeks with seniority (Art. 17/2); an employer at a workplace of 30 or more employees needs a valid reason to dismiss an employee with at least six months’ seniority (Art. 18); and probation is capped at two months, extendable to four only by a collective bargaining agreement (Art. 15). All of these are in force as at 17 July 2026, and each is a floor: a contract may improve on them, never lower them.

For a foreign company making its first hire in Türkiye, the employment contract is where the most expensive assumptions are quietly built in — and where they are cheapest to correct. Both statutes are markedly protective of the employee, and the floor of rights they set cannot be lowered by agreement. Three ideas that travel well in other jurisdictions do not survive contact with this framework, and each one, left unexamined, turns into a claim. Getting the contract right at the start is a practical safeguard for a foreign employer, and it sits at the front end of the wider task of employing staff in Türkiye.

Assumption One: Employment Is At-Will

It is not — there is no at-will employment anywhere in Turkish law. Every indefinite-term hire is wrapped in notice periods graduated by seniority. Under Art. 17/2 of the Labour Act, in force as at 17 July 2026, notice is two weeks where the employment has lasted less than six months, four weeks from six months to one and a half years, six weeks from one and a half to three years, and eight weeks beyond three years. Those are statutory minimums: a contract may increase them but cannot cut them. A party that terminates without observing notice owes compensation equal to the wage for the notice period, and the employer may instead terminate by paying that wage in advance.

Once an employee completes six months’ service in a workplace of 30 or more employees, the job-security regime (iş güvencesi, Arts. 18–21) applies. From that point the employer needs a valid reason (geçerli sebep) — connected to the employee’s conduct, capacity, or the operational needs of the business — and must follow procedure, including written notice and, for conduct dismissals, a chance to defend. A dismissal that fails this test is invalid, and the employee can pursue reinstatement. Where severance (kıdem tazminatı) is due, it is calculated per full year of service against a gross ceiling that is reset every six months: 64.948,77 TRY for the period 1 January – 30 June 2026, and 73.729,87 TRY for the period 1 July – 31 December 2026. The amount is set by the semi-annual circular of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and published on the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s severance ceiling page. The mechanics of ending a relationship lawfully are a subject in their own right, covered in our guide to terminating an employee in Türkiye; the point for the contract stage is simpler. No clause reserving a right to dismiss “at any time, for any reason” means anything. It is void, and drafting one signals to a court exactly the mindset it is watching for.

Assumption Two: Fixed-Term Contracts Are the Default

Foreign employers often reach for a fixed-term contract as the default, on the theory that it expires cleanly and avoids the job-security regime. In Türkiye the logic runs the other way. Indefinite-term is the default, and a fixed-term contract (belirli süreli iş sözleşmesi) is valid only where an objective reason (esaslı neden) genuinely justifies a fixed duration — a defined project, seasonal work, or covering a named employee’s leave. Where that reason is real, the fixed term holds.

The trap is renewal. Chaining fixed-term contracts, or renewing one without a fresh objective reason, converts the relationship into an indefinite-term contract by operation of law — and the employee is treated as having been on an indefinite contract from the beginning, with the job-security protection that carries.

A fixed-term contract used as a device to avoid job security does not merely fail on renewal; a court looks at the substance of the work from day one. If the role was always ongoing, the “fixed” term was never valid, and the employee acquires full termination protection regardless of the label on the page.

The practical consequence is that the contract type is a legal characterisation, not a drafting preference. Choosing it wrongly does not reduce exposure — it manufactures a dispute about severance and notice, subjects treated in detail in our guide to severance and notice pay in Türkiye.

Assumption Three: Non-Competes Can Be Broad

The third imported instinct is the sweeping non-compete — global, multi-year, covering the whole industry. Under Turkish law that clause is largely unenforceable as written. The non-compete (rekabet yasağı) is governed by Articles 444–447 of the TBK, and it is valid only where several conditions all hold:

Requirement under TBK 444–447	What it means in practice
Access to protected interests	The employee must have had access to the customer base or to trade secrets; a junior role with neither cannot be bound.
Limited in time	The restraint must be reasonable in duration rather than open-ended.
Limited in place	It must be confined to the geography where the employer actually competes, not the world.
Limited in subject matter	It must cover only the line of business where competition would genuinely harm the employer.
Written form	The clause must be in writing and the employee must have capacity when signing.

Where a clause overreaches on any axis, a court does not simply ignore it — it narrows it to what is reasonable, or strikes it out. There is a further limit foreign employers miss: a non-compete does not bind the employee at all where the employer terminates without a justified reason, or where the employee resigns for a reason attributable to the employer. In other words, the restraint protects a business that parts with staff fairly, not one that dismisses at will.

Confidentiality is the better-built companion. A confidentiality (gizlilik) obligation protecting trade secrets and know-how is far more durable than a non-compete and is not subject to the same statutory time limit, so the two should be drafted as separate clauses rather than folded together. Where the employee will handle customer or personnel data, the contract should also align with data-protection obligations under Law No. 6698 — a live compliance surface for which we advise clients through our personal-data-protection practice.

Getting the Written Form Right

Turkish law does not require every contract to be written, but it requires enough of them that “we shook hands” is never a safe position. Written form is mandatory for fixed-term contracts of one year or more, and for specific clauses — probation and non-compete among them — which are simply ineffective unless recorded in writing. For indefinite-term contracts below one year the writing requirement is softer, but the employer must still furnish the employee a written document setting out the essential terms within two months of the start.

Even where writing is not compelled, it is indispensable in practice, because in a dispute the burden of proving the agreed terms falls on the employer. A sound contract fixes the identities and addresses of both parties, the job title, duties and place of work, the wage and any allowances, working hours and rest periods, the duration where fixed, and the notice and termination conditions.

Several of those terms are bounded by statute rather than by negotiation, and the following limits are in force as at 17 July 2026. General working time is at most 45 hours a week (Art. 63; 7.5 hours a day and 37.5 hours a week for underground mining work). Work beyond 45 hours in a week is overtime (fazla çalışma), paid at the normal hourly wage increased by 50%, requiring the employee’s consent and capped at 270 hours a year (Art. 41); where the contract itself sets weekly hours below 45, time worked above the agreed average but still within 45 hours is work at extra hours (fazla sürelerle çalışma), paid at the normal hourly wage increased by 25%. Annual paid leave (Art. 53) may not be less than 14 days for one to five years’ service, 20 days for more than five and less than fifteen years, and 26 days at fifteen years or more — with a 20-day floor irrespective of band for employees aged 18 or younger and 50 or older — and the right cannot be waived. A contract may improve on any of these figures; it cannot go below them.

Probation, Part-Time, On-Call and Remote

Four further points routinely go wrong at the drafting stage.

Probation (deneme süresi) is capped at two months, extendable to four months only by a collective bargaining agreement. It must be stated expressly in the contract to take effect. During the trial period either side may terminate without notice and without severance — a genuine flexibility, but a narrow window that cannot be stretched by contract.

Part-time and on-call arrangements are permitted, but part-time employees cannot be treated less favourably, on a pro-rata basis, than a comparable full-time worker. An on-call (çağrı üzerine çalışma) contract must fix the weekly hours and the notice the employer gives before calling the employee in; silence on those points is read against the employer.

Remote work has been formally regulated since the 2021 Remote Working Regulation (Uzaktan Çalışma Yönetmeliği), issued under Labour Act No. 4857. It requires the arrangement to be made in writing and addresses equipment, the reimbursement of work-related expenses, data protection, and the boundaries of working time — points that a contract written for an office role will not cover.

One further matter is not an assumption but a factual precondition: employing a foreign national requires a work permit from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, issued together with the right of residence. It is a distinct, specialist process that sits outside the ordinary contract, and it must be secured before the employee’s first day.

Social-security registration is the other precondition, and it applies to every hire. Under Art. 8 of Law No. 5510, in force as at 17 July 2026, the employer must file the employee’s entry declaration (sigortalı işe giriş bildirgesi) with the Social Security Institution before the insurance start date — that is, before the employee begins work. The statutory exceptions are narrow: construction, fishery and agriculture workplaces may file at the latest on the day work commences, and a workplace submitting its first işyeri bildirgesi has one month for employees starting within that window. The workplace declaration itself must reach the Institution at the latest on the date it starts employing insured persons (Art. 11).

The Cost of Getting It Right Early

None of these are exotic rules — they are the ordinary architecture of a Turkish hire, and they reward employers who draft to them rather than around them. A contract that starts from indefinite-term, uses fixed terms only where an objective reason supports them, keeps probation within bounds, and pairs a proportionate non-compete with a durable confidentiality clause is not merely compliant; it reduces the scope for a costly dispute later. The alternative — importing an at-will template and discovering its clauses are void when the relationship ends — tends to cost considerably more, and it rarely surfaces at a convenient moment. Our employment-contracts practice exists to close that gap before the first hire, not after the first claim.

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Related Practice Areas

• Employment Contracts & Workplace Policies
• Termination & Severance
• Workplace Disputes & Labor Litigation
• Labor & Employment Law