Medical Tourism in Türkiye: A Legal Guide for Foreign Patients

A patient treated in Türkiye can, as a general rule, pursue a claim here, and in most cases Türkiye is the natural forum rather than a fallback. MÖHUK, Law No. 5718 does not create a separate head of international jurisdiction: Article 40 provides that the international jurisdiction of the Turkish courts is determined by the domestic venue rules. Those rules sit in the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK, Law No. 6100), and Article 6/1 makes the general venue the court of the defendant’s domicile at the date the action is filed. Because a Turkish hospital or clinic is domiciled in Türkiye, a Turkish court is always open against it — whatever the patient’s nationality or residence. Which Turkish court, and which law that court applies, then depend on where the treatment was given and on whether the claim is put contractually or in tort.

People travel to Türkiye for surgery, dental work, hair transplantation, ophthalmic and fertility treatment. When something does go wrong, the patient is usually already in another country by the time the problem becomes clear, and the first question is procedural rather than medical: where is the claim brought, under which law, and how much of it can be handled without flying back. This guide answers those questions from the statutory texts. It is a companion to the general guide on medical malpractice law in Türkiye, which sets out the substantive test, the burden of proof and the limitation periods applying to any claim heard here. What follows is the cross-border layer on top of that.

Which court hears the claim

Article 40 of MÖHUK is short and decisive: “Türk mahkemelerinin milletlerarası yetkisini, iç hukukun yer itibariyle yetki kuralları tayin eder.” International jurisdiction is therefore not a free-standing question. It is answered by asking whether any Turkish venue rule would place the case before a Turkish court, and the relevant rules are in the HMK.

• HMK Article 6/1 — the general venue. The court of the defendant’s domicile at the date the action is filed. A hospital, clinic or polyclinic operating in Türkiye is domiciled here, which is why a Turkish forum is always available against the provider.
• HMK Article 16 — tort. The court of the place where the tort was committed, the court of the place where the damage occurred or may occur, and the court of the injured party’s domicile are also competent.
• HMK Article 10 — contract. An action arising from a contract may also be brought before the court of the place where the contract is to be performed.

This is the one sense in which the destination is legally, and not merely practically, relevant. A procedure performed in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir or anywhere else in Türkiye is governed by the same body of law; what changes is the courthouse. The place of treatment and the provider’s registered seat, taken together, are what identify the competent venue, and getting the defendant’s exact legal name and registered address is therefore an evidential task, not an administrative one.

One limb needs a caveat. The third limb of Article 16 — the injured party’s domicile — cannot help a patient domiciled abroad. Because Article 40 of MÖHUK routes international jurisdiction through these domestic venue rules, a limb that points outside Türkiye does not produce a Turkish court. It is Article 6, and the first two limbs of Article 16, that do the work in a medical-tourism case.

Subject-matter competence and the mediation step

Venue and subject-matter competence are separate questions. Under Article 3(k) of the Consumer Protection Law No. 6502 a consumer is defined purely by purpose — a natural or legal person acting for non-commercial or non-professional purposes — and the definition says nothing at all about nationality or residence. Article 3(l) expressly brings vekâlet (mandate) contracts within the concept of a consumer transaction, and Article 73/1 gives the consumer courts competence over disputes arising from consumer transactions and practices directed at consumers.

Where the claim falls in that track, Article 73/A — added by Law No. 7251 of 22 July 2020 — makes an application to a mediator before filing a condition of action, subject to the exceptions the provision itself lists. The general framework is set out in the guide to mandatory mediation in Turkish law; the point to carry over here is that a foreign patient is no more exempt from it than a Turkish one.

Article 73/5 additionally opens the consumer court of the consumer’s own domicile. As with Article 16, that limb points away from Türkiye for a patient living abroad, and so adds nothing to the Turkish forum analysis.

Which law the Turkish court applies

Identifying the forum does not settle the governing law. MÖHUK treats the contract track and the tort track separately, and a cross-border medical claim frequently has both.

Contract (MÖHUK Article 24). Contractual obligations are governed by the law expressly chosen by the parties, an unambiguously implied choice being equally valid. Failing a choice, the contract is governed by the law most closely connected with it, which for contracts made in the course of a commercial or professional activity is presumed to be the law of the characteristic performer’s place of business. In a treatment contract the characteristic performance is the medical treatment itself, and for a Turkish hospital that place of business is in Türkiye.

Tort (MÖHUK Article 34). Obligations arising from tort are governed by the law of the country where the tort was committed. Where the place of the act and the place where the damage occurred are in different countries, Article 34/2 applies the law of the country where the damage occurred. Article 34/3 then requires the law of another country to be applied where the obligation is more closely connected with it, and Article 34/5 permits the parties to choose the applicable law expressly after the tort has occurred.

Article 34/2 is the provision that often complicates a medical-tourism file, because the act is in Türkiye while the consequences may first materialise months later at the patient’s home. The statutory text does not resolve that scenario mechanically — Article 34/3 exists precisely so that a relationship centred on a Turkish operating theatre, a Turkish treatment contract and a Turkish provider is not artificially detached from Turkish law. The analysis is fact-sensitive, and it is one of the reasons the framing of the claim deserves thought before filing rather than after.

Two outer limits on any foreign law. Even where a foreign law is chosen or designated, MÖHUK Article 5 bars the application of a foreign rule manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy, and Article 6 makes Turkish overriding mandatory rules applicable within their own scope regardless. A choice-of-law clause in a treatment contract is therefore never the last word.

Claims against the insurer

MÖHUK Article 34/4 provides that “[h]aksız fiile veya sigorta sözleşmesine uygulanan hukuk imkân veriyorsa, zarar gören, talebini doğrudan doğruya sorumlunun sigortacısına karşı ileri sürebilir” — if the law applicable to the tort, or to the insurance contract, so permits, the injured party may bring the claim directly against the liable party’s insurer. This is a conditional gateway, not a free-standing right: whether it is open in a given case depends on the content of the law that governs.

Separately, and as a matter of Turkish substantive law, Law No. 1219, Supplementary Article 12 (added by Law No. 5947 of 21 January 2010) obliges physicians, dentists and specialists working in private health institutions or practising independently to hold professional financial liability insurance covering damage caused to persons through medical malpractice and recourse claims against them. For practitioners working in a private institution the policy is taken out by the institution, with half the premium paid by the practitioner and half by the employer. Where the treatment was given in the private sector, this compulsory cover is a standing feature of the landscape — how, and against whom, it can be reached is the separate question governed by Article 34/4.

Do not assume your home consumer rules travel with you

It is tempting to reason that a patient is a consumer at home and therefore keeps a home forum and home law. MÖHUK does not say that. Article 26/4 provides that the article does not apply — package tours apart — to carriage contracts and to “tüketiciye hizmetin onun mutad meskeninin bulunduğu ülkeden başka bir ülkede sağlanması zorunlu olan sözleşmelere”, contracts where the service must necessarily be supplied to the consumer in a country other than his habitual residence. And because Article 45, which provides the consumer forum, applies only to consumer contracts as defined in Article 26, treatment that can only be delivered in Türkiye falls outside both provisions on the face of the text. There is Turkish scholarly discussion around this, and this guide does not present a settled answer — but the statutory wording should not be read optimistically.

Foreign-court clauses in the treatment contract

MÖHUK Article 47 governs agreements conferring jurisdiction on a foreign court. Such an agreement is possible only where venue is not determined on an exclusive basis; it is valid only if proved by written evidence; and even then the Turkish court will hear the case if the foreign court declines jurisdiction, or if no jurisdictional objection is raised before the Turkish court. Article 47/2 adds that the jurisdiction fixed by Articles 44, 45 and 46 cannot be excluded by agreement. A clause buried in a consent bundle is, in short, a good deal weaker than it looks.

Bringing the claim from abroad: power of attorney, apostille, translation

Distance is a document problem, not a jurisdictional one.

The power of attorney. HMK Article 76/1 requires an advocate to file, for the case file, the original of a power of attorney certified or drawn up by a notary (noter tarafından onaylanan ya da düzenlenen), or a copy certified by the advocate as conforming to the original. Article 77/1 provides that without it the advocate cannot commence the action or take any procedural step; the court may permit action within a definite period where delay would cause harm, but if the power of attorney is not then filed the action is deemed never to have been brought. Note also that Article 89 of the Notaries Law No. 1512, which lists the transactions that must be executed in düzenleme (drawn-up) form — land-registry powers, wills, marriage contracts, foundation deeds and so on — does not include a litigation power of attorney.

The apostille. Türkiye is a party to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, signed on 8 May 1962, ratified on 31 July 1985 and in force for Türkiye since 29 September 1985; domestically it was approved by Law No. 3028 of 20 June 1984 and Council of Ministers Decision No. 84/8373, published in the Resmî Gazete of 16 September 1984, No. 18517. Article 1 of the Convention lists notarial acts among public documents, so a power of attorney executed before a notary abroad is within it — while documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents are expressly outside it. Under Articles 2 to 4, the apostille is the only formality that may be required to certify the signature, the capacity of the signatory and the seal; it is placed on the document itself or on an allonge, follows the model annexed to the Convention, and carries the French heading Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961). Article 6 leaves each State to designate its own competent authorities. In Türkiye, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that governorates and district governorates issue apostilles; in your own country it will be whichever authority that State has designated.

The Convention operates only between contracting States — 130 of them according to the HCCH status table consulted on 25 July 2026, a figure that changes as States accede. A document coming from a State outside the Convention needs the full legalisation chain described in the same Ministry guidance, running through that country’s own internal certification and its foreign ministry.

The translation. An apostille alone is not enough. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs guidance is explicit that a foreign official document intended for use before Turkish authorities must be accompanied by a Turkish translation made by a sworn translator (yeminli tercüman), certified either by a Turkish mission abroad or, where the route runs through the foreign State’s mission in Türkiye, by a notary here. Article 103 of the Notaries Law governs how a notary annotates a translation: where a sworn translator was used, the annotation must record the translator’s identity and address and must be dated, signed and sealed by the notary. Article 60/6 lists translating documents among notaries’ statutory functions.

Three things travel together: a notarial power of attorney, an apostille from the competent authority of the State where it was executed, and a certified Turkish translation. Any one of them missing and the file stalls at the door.

Security for costs

Foreign claimants face one procedural requirement Turkish claimants do not. MÖHUK Article 48/1 requires foreign natural and legal persons who bring an action, intervene, or start enforcement proceedings before a Turkish court to post security fixed by the court for the costs of litigation and enforcement and for the other side’s losses. Article 48/2 exempts them on the basis of reciprocity.

The Ministry of Justice states officially that this reciprocity may arise from a treaty, from statute, or from actual practice, and points to Article 17 of the 1954 Hague Convention on Civil Procedure: no security or deposit of any kind may be required of nationals of a contracting State who are resident in a contracting State and who appear as claimant or intervener before the courts of another contracting State, by reason of their being foreigners or of having no domicile or residence in that country. Türkiye acceded on 23 October 1972 and the Convention entered into force for Türkiye on 11 July 1973. Both conditions must hold: the claimant must be a national of a contracting State and resident in one. Where they do not, Article 48/1 security applies unless reciprocity is made out on another basis.

What happens if you sue at home instead

Filing in your own country is sometimes unavoidable, and occasionally sensible. It is never a shortcut, because a foreign judgment has no effect on assets in Türkiye until a Turkish court says so.

Under MÖHUK Article 50/1, judgments of foreign courts in civil matters that have become final under the law of the rendering State can be executed in Türkiye only if a Turkish court grants an enforcement (tenfiz) decision. Article 51 makes the asliye court competent, sitting at the Turkish domicile — failing that, the residence — of the person against whom enforcement is sought, and where there is neither, in Ankara, İstanbul or İzmir. Against a Turkish clinic that will normally mean the court where the clinic is seated, which is often the same courthouse the patient could have used in the first place.

Article 54 then sets four cumulative conditions:

• reciprocity — a treaty, or a statutory provision or actual practice in that State permitting enforcement of Turkish judgments (Art. 54/1(a));
• no encroachment on exclusive Turkish jurisdiction, and — where the defendant objects — no judgment given by a court that assumed jurisdiction without any genuine connection to the subject matter or the parties (Art. 54/1(b));
• no manifest conflict with Turkish public policy (Art. 54/1(c)); and
• respect for the right of defence — the defendant properly summoned or represented, and no default judgment contrary to those laws, unless the point is not raised before the Turkish court (Art. 54/1(ç)).

Two of those bear directly on a medical-tourism judgment obtained at home. Reciprocity under Article 54/1(a) is assessed State by State on treaty, statute or practice, and no assumption should be made about any particular country. And Article 54/1(b) gives the Turkish defendant a specific objection where the foreign court took jurisdiction over a Turkish provider with no genuine connection to it — precisely the criticism a home-forum judgment invites.

Article 53 fixes the file: the original of the foreign judgment duly certified by that country’s authorities, or a copy certified by the issuing judicial body, with a certified translation; and the document showing the judgment is final, likewise certified and translated. The petition is heard under the simplified procedure (basit yargılama usulü) under Article 55, and under Article 57 an enforced foreign judgment is executed like a Turkish one, with appeal suspending execution.

Where the judgment is needed only as conclusive evidence or res judicata rather than for execution, recognition (tanıma) is the lighter route: Article 58/1 requires the court only to establish that the enforcement conditions are satisfied, and expressly disapplies the reciprocity condition in Article 54/1(a). Conflating the two on reciprocity is a common and expensive error. The mechanics, the documents and the grounds for refusal are set out in full in the guide to the enforcement of foreign judgments in Türkiye, and the same considerations that make cross-border commercial disputes turn on forum choice apply here.

Evidence to gather before you leave Türkiye

The single most valuable window in a cross-border medical claim is the period when you are still the facility’s patient and still in the country. Once you have flown home, every document becomes a request, a translation and a delay.

• The complete medical file — consultation notes, imaging and the underlying image data, operative and anaesthesia records, pathology and laboratory results, nursing and discharge notes, prescriptions and post-operative instructions.
• The signed informed-consent form, together with a note of the language it was in and whether an explanation was given in a language you understood. Consent is a recurring pivot in Turkish malpractice litigation, and language is the recurring weakness in the cross-border version of it.
• Details of any implant, device or material used, including product and batch identifiers where they appear in the record.
• The treatment contract, the price quotation, invoices and proof of payment, along with any package or accommodation arrangements booked around the procedure.
• The exact legal name and registered address of the facility and the name and title of the treating physician. This is what the venue analysis under HMK Articles 6 and 16 runs on.
• The identity of any intermediary organisation that arranged the treatment, and the full booking and messaging correspondence with it — pre-operative promises frequently live there and nowhere else.
• Documentation of your condition after returning home by your own treating doctor, in detail. It will need translating before it can be put to Turkish court-appointed experts.

The authorised-provider framework

International health tourism in Türkiye is a regulated activity, and the regulatory position of the facility that treated you is a fact worth establishing early.

The governing instrument is the Uluslararası Sağlık Turizmi ve Turistin Sağlığı Hakkında Yönetmelik, published in the Resmî Gazete of 26 April 2025, No. 32882, which entered into force on publication and expressly repealed the regulation of the same name published on 13 July 2017, No. 30123. This matters more than it sounds: a great deal of secondary commentary still describes the 2017 text as current. Its legal basis (Article 3) is Article 9(c) and Supplementary Articles 11 and 19 of Law No. 3359, Supplementary Article 2 of Decree-Law No. 663, and Articles 355 and 508 of Presidential Decree No. 1. Its stated purpose (Article 1) is to fix minimum service standards for health services and intermediary services supplied within international health tourism and tourist health, to authorise the health institutions and intermediary organisations operating in the field, and to regulate their supervision.

Three features of the regime are worth knowing as a patient:

• Authorisation is compulsory, and it attaches to organisations. A health facility (sağlık tesisi) and an intermediary organisation (aracı kuruluş) each require an authorisation certificate (yetki belgesi) to operate in international health tourism services. The certificate is issued by the Ministry for health facilities and by USHAŞ (Uluslararası Sağlık Hizmetleri A.Ş.) for intermediary organisations. It is not something an individual physician holds.
• The intermediary is a regulated actor in its own right. The regulation defines the aracı kuruluş as the entity providing consultancy to the international health tourist and accompanying persons within the scope of international health tourism services — which is to say the booking agency sits inside the framework, not outside it.
• Language capacity is a regulatory condition, not a courtesy. An intermediary organisation must be able to handle incoming calls in at least two foreign languages on a 24/7 basis, either through its own infrastructure or under a service contract with a call centre. Separately, the health facility must set up an international health tourism unit, and at least one member of that unit’s staff must know a foreign language and be able to document it.

The regulation also contains a transitional provision (Provisional Article 1) giving facilities and intermediaries that already held a health tourism authorisation certificate before it entered into force six months to bring themselves into compliance.

Supervision sits above all of this. Supplementary Article 11 of Law No. 3359, in the form given to its opening paragraphs by Law No. 7496 of 21 February 2024, provides that all work and transactions relating to the provision of health services are supervised by the Ministry of Health, and states expressly that this covers the activities of every kind of entity within the scope of international health tourism. The certificate, accreditation and record-keeping duties that supervision is exercised against are set out in the 26 April 2025 Regulation, and we deal with them under health tourism regulatory compliance. The same provision makes providing or causing the provision of health services without a licence or authorisation punishable by imprisonment from one to three years and a judicial fine of up to twenty thousand days, and attaches an administrative fine — calculated by reference to a statutory floor and to half of the previous month’s gross service revenue — to opening special-permit service units or health establishments without Ministry permission or supplying services there. The monetary floors are revalued annually and are not stated here; the mechanism is the point. Where the facts also engage criminal law, that is a separate track from any compensation claim.

One correction worth carrying into any criminal complaint

Supplementary Article 18 of Law No. 3359, added by Law No. 7406 of 12 May 2022 and amended in 2024, is frequently described as applying only to public-sector healthcare personnel. On its terms it applies to physicians, dentists and other health professionals working in public or private health institutions and in foundation universities. Investigations arising from their examination, diagnosis and treatment acts are subject to Law No. 4483, and the investigation permission (soruşturma izni) is granted by the Professional Liability Board (Mesleki Sorumluluk Kurulu) established within the Ministry of Health; the time limits in Article 7 of Law No. 4483 apply doubled, and the Board’s decisions may be challenged before the Ankara Regional Administrative Court. For medical tourism this is not academic: a criminal complaint against a surgeon at a private clinic still runs through that permission stage.

The certificate regime itself — application, suspension and revocation — is set out in the international health tourism authorisation certificate. The two policies an authorised facility must carry are examined in complication cover and physician professional liability. The position of the agency that arranged the trip is examined in the legal position of health tourism intermediaries.

What this means in practice

Cross-border medical claims fail on procedure far more often than on medicine, and the procedural failures are nearly all avoidable.

• Do not assume the claim must be brought where you live. HMK Article 6 gives you a Turkish court against a Turkish provider as of right, and the Turkish forum is usually where the defendant, the records, the witnesses and the assets all are.
• Establish the defendant precisely. The facility’s registered legal name and seat, not its trading or marketing name, drive the venue analysis and the enforcement position.
• Treat the documents as the case. Records secured while you are still in Türkiye, and a power of attorney properly notarised, apostilled and translated, are what allow the matter to proceed without you.
• Think about framing before filing, not after. Contract and tort lead to different applicable-law analyses under MÖHUK Articles 24 and 34, and consumer-court competence brings the Article 73/A mediation condition with it.
• Weigh the home forum honestly. A judgment obtained abroad still has to survive Article 54 here, including the specific objection that the foreign court had no genuine connection to the Turkish defendant.
• Check the regulatory position of the provider and the intermediary under the regulation in force since 26 April 2025 — it is relevant evidence, and it is a matter of public regulation rather than private assertion.

The substantive law that decides whether treatment fell below the recognised standard is the same for a foreign patient as for a Turkish one, and it is set out in our foundational guide to medical malpractice law in Türkiye and across our health law practice. For procedure-specific guidance, consult our companion guides on cosmetic surgery malpractice, hair transplant complications, dental treatment claims, how to sue a hospital or doctor, and medical malpractice compensation calculations. What the cross-border dimension adds is a layer of forum, applicable-law and documentary questions that are best resolved before a claim is filed rather than during it.

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