A recall in Türkiye is governed by Article 19 of Product Safety and Technical Regulations Law No. 7223, and it turns on two rules that most compliance manuals get wrong. First, Article 19/3 requires the economic operator to offer the returning end user at least one of three options — repair of the problem that caused the recall, payment of the product’s retail value at the date of delivery, or replacement with a compliant, safe and equivalent product — and the wording places that choice with the operator, not the consumer. Second, Article 19/4 puts all recall costs on the operator carrying out the recall, and obliges it to arrange matters so the end user can return the product promptly and easily without incurring any additional cost.
Everything else in a Turkish recall — the ladder of measures, the announcement, the deadlines, the fines — sits around those two sentences, in the framework set out below.
Withdrawal and Recall Are Not the Same Measure
Law No. 7223 defines both terms, and the difference decides how much a compliance failure costs.
Withdrawal (piyasadan çekme, Art. 3/1(j)) is “any measure aimed at preventing a product in the supply chain from being made available on the market.” It is directed at distributors, retailers and warehouses. Units already sold stay where they are.
Recall (geri çağırma, Art. 3/1(d)) is “any measure aimed at bringing a product in the hands of the end user back to the economic operator.” It reaches into households. It requires public communication, a return channel, and a remedy for every unit that comes back.
A third measure sits alongside them. Where there are strong indications that a product carries a serious risk, the authority may order temporary suspension of supply and availability while it completes its checks. Under Article 21 of the Framework Regulation on Market Surveillance and Control of Products (Presidential Decision No. 4269, Official Gazette of 10 July 2021, No. 31537), that suspension may not exceed four days — but the same provision allows a longer period where technical grounds require the product to be tested or further information supplied, and a product found safe has the suspension lifted automatically, while an unsafe one stays suspended until an administrative sanction decision is taken.
| Measure | Who is affected | Statutory basis | Practical cost driver |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temporary suspension | The operator's own supply and sales | Law Art. 16/6(ç); Framework Reg. Art. 21 | Lost sales during the checking period |
| Withdrawal (piyasadan çekme) | Distributors, retailers, warehouses | Law Art. 3/1(j), 16/6(d) | Reverse logistics through the chain |
| Recall (geri çağırma) | End users holding the product | Law Art. 3/1(d), Art. 19 | Announcement, collection, and the Art. 19/3 remedy for every unit |
| Destruction / rendering unusable | Recovered stock | Law Art. 16/6(d) | Disposal, supervised and minuted |
When Recall Becomes Compulsory
Article 19/1 is deliberately conditional: the operator recalls the product “where the other measures taken are insufficient to remove the risk”, acting either on its own initiative or at the authority’s request. Recall is therefore the last rung, not the first response.
The rungs below it are set out in Article 16/6, which lists the corrective measures an operator must take, proportionately and in good time: informing the authority fully about the risk and the measures taken and their results; bringing the non-compliant product into conformity; marking the product with clear Turkish warnings or subjecting it to pre-conditions where the risk arises only in certain circumstances or for certain people; temporarily suspending supply where there are indications of serious risk; and — for products carrying serious risk — immediately stopping supply, preventing further availability, withdrawing and recalling, ensuring distributors know of and comply with the decisions, warning end users, and disposing of or disabling the stock.
Article 17/1 is the sting. If the operator does not take the necessary measures, does not take them in time, takes measures the authority finds incomplete or inadequate, or cannot be identified, the authority takes the Article 16/6(d) measures itself. Under Article 22/1, the cost of doing so is then recovered from the operator under the general rules — so an operator that stalls does not avoid the recall; it loses control of how it is run while still paying for it.
Records draw the perimeter. Article 12/1 requires operators to keep an orderly record of the previous and, where applicable, next operator in the chain together with the information that makes the product traceable, and to hold it for at least ten years; Article 11/2 of the Framework Regulation adds that distributor and quantity must be logged by batch, series or lot number. Where those records are thin, a company cannot isolate the affected units and recalls the whole run. Testing carries its own bill: under Article 15/7 the cost of the sample and of the test or examination falls on the manufacturer or importer where the product is found non-compliant. Nor is the absence of a product-specific technical regulation an escape — Article 5/3 assesses such a product’s safety under the general product safety legislation.
Importers should note where they sit in this structure. An importer — or a distributor — that places a product on the market under its own name or trade mark, or modifies a product already on the market in a way affecting its conformity with the technical regulation or the general product safety rules, is treated as the manufacturer under Article 11/1 and becomes responsible for discharging the manufacturer’s obligations set out in Article 7. Separately, where the manufacturer, authorised representative or importer cannot be identified, a distributor that fails to supply their names and contact details — or, lacking those, the details of the previous operator in the supply chain — within ten working days of the authority’s notification being served on it is itself deemed the manufacturer under Article 11/2. Anyone bringing goods across the border should therefore read these duties together with the border conformity checks described in our guide to importing goods into Türkiye — a product that clears customs is not thereby certified safe, and market surveillance operates independently of the tariff and valuation questions covered in our note on customs duty in Türkiye.
The Three Options in Article 19/3
This is the provision the plan of a recall is built around. The operator “offers the end user who returns the product at least one of the following options”:
| Option (Art. 19/3) | What the statute actually says | Point most often misread |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Repair | Elimination of the problem that led to the recall | The repair must remove the recall trigger, not merely restore function |
| (b) Payment | Payment of the product's retail sale value at the date of delivery | Not the price this consumer paid, and not today's shelf price — the retail value at the date the product is handed back |
| (c) Replacement | Replacement with a product that is compliant with its technical regulation, safe and equivalent | All three qualifiers apply; an equivalent product that shares the defect is not a remedy |
Two consequences follow. The operator may build its recall around the cheapest of the three that genuinely removes the risk — commonly a repair kit or a service-centre modification. And the offer must be published: Article 19/2 requires the announcement to add the address and contact points for collection or repair, and the options presented to the end user.
A distributor returning withdrawn stock is treated differently. Under Article 21/5, where the product must be rendered unusable or destroyed, the manufacturer or importer offers the distributor payment of the sale value at which it placed the product on the market, or an equivalent compliant replacement — the supply price, not the retail price. Distribution and supply agreements should allocate this expressly, which is one reason recall clauses belong in the commercial contracts that govern a Turkish supply chain rather than being left to the default rules.
The Cost Rule in Article 19/4
Article 19/4 has two limbs, and the second is the one that generates disputes. All costs relating to the recall are borne by the operator carrying it out. And the operator must “provide the conditions necessary for the end user to return the product in good time and easily, without imposing any additional cost on the end user.”
In practice that means prepaid return shipping or collection, accessible drop-off points, and no proof-of-purchase requirement that functions as a filter. Where the product is bulky, “easily” does real work: a return channel obliging the consumer to arrange and pay for freight is not compliant.
One drafting point matters for exposure. The administrative fine list in Article 20/1(e) attaches to breaches of Article 19/2 and 19/3 — the announcement content and the three options — and does not list Articles 19/1 or 19/4. That does not make them unenforceable: failing to recall triggers the authority’s own intervention under Articles 16/6(d) and 17/1 with cost recovery under Article 22/1, and forfeits the protection of Article 21/1. But a claimed fine “for making the consumer pay return postage” should be checked against the text rather than assumed.
The Law’s fine amounts are stated as nominal figures and revalued each year: the current bands are set by the Ministry of Trade’s annual Product Safety and Inspection communiqué, so the applicable figure must be read from the communiqué in force for the relevant year, not from the printed statute. Article 20/8 doubles the previous fine for each repetition of the same non-conformity within two years, Article 20/10 requires payment within one month of notification, and Article 20/11 requires the size of the breach and the operator’s economic position to be taken into account.
The Announcement: What Must Be Published, and Where
Article 18/1 fixes the minimum content: the brand, model or type name or other distinguishing features; a photograph or illustrated description where possible; the measure taken; a clear and comprehensible description of the problem requiring it; the responsible operator’s name, address and contact details; and the methods recommended for avoiding the risk or curing the problem. The same provision requires accessibility for disabled persons to be taken into account according to the scope of the announcement. Article 19/2 then adds the return address, contact points and the offer. Article 18/3 makes distributors pass the information on down the chain and place the announcement where customers can easily see it, and Article 18/2 lets the authority require an inadequate announcement to be repeated.
Where the Ministry of Trade is the competent authority, its Market Surveillance and Control Regulation (Official Gazette of 9 February 2022, No. 31745) goes further. If the regional directorate finds the announcement or its form inadequate, it can require publication by one or more of four specific channels: direct notification of the persons at risk; publication on the operator’s homepage in an easily visible manner for at least one year; broadcast on a national or local television channel between 07:00 and 22:00, in written and audio form, for not less than thirty seconds; or a quarter-page advertisement for one day in a national or local newspaper through the Press Advertisement Agency. That regulation also lists an image of the product as minimum content, where the Law says “where possible.” Separately, under Article 16/8 of the Law, the authority publishes the measures taken through all methods it considers necessary, including its own website, and in a newspaper or an internet news site.
Procedure and Timing Before the Ministry
Article 16/5 of the Law gives the operator a reasonable period of not less than ten working days to make its defence before a final decision — except where the product carries a serious risk. The notification must state the grounds of the decision, any proposed solutions, the legal remedies and the time limits.
The Ministry of Trade Regulation puts numbers on what follows. The notified decision allows fifteen working days to submit a corrective action plan. Once the regional directorate approves it, the directorate sets a period of up to six months to eliminate the non-conformity — judged against its nature, the product and its spread in the market — extendable by up to six months where force majeure is proved. Products shown to have been brought into conformity are minuted and may go back on the market. Where a serious risk requires urgent intervention, the sanction decision is taken without requesting a defence, and the operator’s later submissions are reassessed by the risk assessment commission.
Decisions can be challenged. Article 22/2 sends administrative sanction decisions under the Law to the administrative courts under Administrative Procedure Law No. 2577.
The Provision Worth Building a Compliance System Around
Article 21/1 is the most commercially valuable sentence in Law No. 7223. Administrative sanctions under the Law are not applied to an economic operator that detects the non-conformity in a product it has placed on the market, takes the necessary measures on its own initiative — expressly including recall — without any request or warning from the authority, and completely eliminates the non-conformity.
The Ministry of Trade Regulation turns that into a procedure. An operator that identifies the non-conformity before a Ministry inspection may take “voluntary measures”: it applies to the regional directorate with the full file and the period it needs, receives up to six months (extendable by up to six for proven force majeure), and — critically — cannot place the cured product back on the market until the directorate has assessed it, with independent testing if required.
The lesson is about sequencing. The same recall, started by the company rather than by an inspector, changes from a sanctioned non-conformity into a protected voluntary measure. That makes complaint monitoring, the batch and lot records, and clear escalation authority worth more than any later defence — and it is why recall planning belongs in the same file as a company’s import and export compliance work rather than being improvised in the week it is needed.
Civil Liability Runs Separately
A completed recall does not close the compensation question. Article 6 imposes liability on the manufacturer or importer for damage caused by a product to a person or to property. The injured party must prove the damage and the causal link between the non-conformity and the damage; multiple liable manufacturers or importers are jointly and severally liable; and contract terms that exclude or reduce this liability are void. Damages are assessed under the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098. The limitation period is three years from the date the injured party learns of the damage and of the person liable, and ten years in any event from the date the damage arose. Running alongside all of this is a separate, permanent set of duties owed by the same importer under consumer legislation rather than under Law No. 7223 — the warranty certificate and the after-sales service competency certificate, described in the importer’s two certificates. That nullity is worth reading closely before a supply agreement is signed, because it strikes the clause rather than the contract and leaves the rest of the bargain standing; we set out how it interacts with the general rules on void terms in why a contractual limitation of product liability is void.
The defences are narrow. Under Articles 21/2 and 21/3, a manufacturer or importer escapes liability by proving that it did not place the product on the market, that the non-conformity arose from intervention by a distributor or third party or from the user, or that it resulted from compliance with mandatory technical rules. But the statute is explicit that where the damage arose from the non-conformity together with a third party’s act or omission, liability is not reduced — the operator’s recourse against that third party is preserved instead. Only fault of the injured person, or of someone for whom they are responsible, can reduce or entirely remove liability, under Article 21/4. Sector-specific regimes can also put the duty on a differently named person: in cosmetics it attaches to a responsible person established in Türkiye, whose position is examined in the responsible person for cosmetics.
Where the units were sold online, the recall has to run through channels the operator does not control. The refund and return mechanics the seller owes the consumer are governed by a separate instrument, revised with effect from 1 January 2026 and set out in the distance contracts regulation seller checklist; the delisting and payout consequences on the platform side, including what a seller can do about a suspension, are described in marketplace seller rights in Türkiye.
Article 19 governs how the product comes back; Article 6 governs what the incident costs. The two belong in one plan, not in sequence.
