Unpaid USD Invoices From a Turkish Buyer: How US Exporters Collect in Türkiye

This guide explains why the CISG usually governs the sale, how enforcement starts in Türkiye without a judgment, what the buyer's objection does, the mediation step before a lawsuit, attachment before judgment, a buyer's concordat, and where an arbitral award or a US judgment fits in.

A machinery maker in Wisconsin ships a packaging line to an importer in Istanbul on open account. The invoices are in US dollars and fall due sixty days after the bill of lading. Two payments arrive, then replies to emails slow down, and USD 180,000 stays open. The buyer is still trading in Türkiye: it has customers, bank accounts and stock in a warehouse there. None of that can be reached from Milwaukee without taking a step under Turkish procedure.

This guide is written for US manufacturers and distributors, their finance teams and the US attorneys who advise them. It follows the order in which a Turkish collection file usually moves: the law that governs the sale, the demand, enforcement without a judgment, the buyer’s objection and the mediation that comes before a lawsuit, freezing assets, and two events that change the plan (a quality dispute and a buyer’s concordat). It closes with arbitration awards, US judgments and how the matter is run from the United States. It belongs to our series for people and companies in the United States with a legal matter in Türkiye, listed at the end of this page.

The CISG and the US Article 95 declaration

Both countries are parties to the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). It entered into force for the United States on 1 January 1988 and for Türkiye on 1 August 2011, and Türkiye made no declarations. For a US exporter the rule that matters is Article 1(1)(a): the Convention applies to a contract for the sale of goods when the seller’s and the buyer’s places of business are in different States and those States are Contracting States. A seller in Wisconsin and a buyer in Istanbul meet both conditions.

The US declaration under Article 95 often causes confusion. It states that the United States is not bound by Article 1(1)(b), which extends the Convention to cases where the rules of private international law lead to the law of a Contracting State. That is a second, separate route. When both places of business are in Contracting States, Article 1(1)(a) applies on its own and the declaration has nothing to act on. Turkish law also keeps treaty rules in force: Article 1(2) of the Turkish Private International and Procedural Law Act (MÖHUK, Law No. 5718) reserves the provisions of international conventions to which Türkiye is a party.

Three points shape the rest of the file:

• Exclusion. Article 6 lets the parties exclude the Convention. If your terms and conditions exclude it expressly, the sale is governed by the law the conflict rules select instead.
• Gaps. The Convention governs the formation of the contract and the rights and obligations of seller and buyer, but not the validity of the contract or its effect on property in the goods (Article 4). Questions it governs but does not settle are decided by its general principles or, failing those, by the law applicable under private international law (Article 7(2)). A Turkish court finds that law through MÖHUK Article 24. The parties’ choice comes first, made expressly or clearly evident from the contract or the circumstances (Article 24(1)). Without a choice, the law most closely connected with the contract applies; for contracts made in the course of commercial or professional activity that law is taken to be the law of the place of business of the party owing the characteristic performance, unless all the circumstances show a closer connection with another law (Article 24(4)). The statute does not say who that party is; in a sale it is generally regarded as the seller, so the law of a US state may fill the gaps, and a US-qualified attorney should confirm what that law provides. Turkish domestic law fills them only where it is the applicable law, for example because the contract chooses it.
• Price and interest. The buyer must pay the price (Article 53) on the date fixed by or determinable from the contract and the Convention, without the need for any request or formality on the seller’s part (Article 59). A party that fails to pay a sum in arrears owes interest on it (Article 78), but the Convention sets no rate. Where Turkish law is the applicable law under that analysis and the contract does not provide a higher rate, Article 4/a of Law No. 3095 applies to a foreign-currency debt the highest rate paid by state banks on one-year deposit accounts in that currency.

The demand letter and what Turkish law expects from it

Under the CISG the buyer is in breach once the payment date passes, without a reminder (Article 59). A demand still does useful work. It fixes the amount and the currency, records the buyer’s silence or its excuses, and often brings out the real reason for non-payment, which decides the next step.

If Turkish law governs the contract (for example because your terms choose Turkish law and exclude the CISG), two provisions of the Turkish Commercial Code (TTK, Law No. 6102) matter. Article 18(3) provides that between merchants, notices meant to put the other party in default, to terminate a contract or to rescind it are made through a notary, by registered letter, by telegram or by registered electronic mail with a secure electronic signature. Article 21(2) provides that a person who receives an invoice and raises no objection to its contents within eight days of receipt is deemed to have accepted those contents. A demand served through a Turkish notary (ihtarname) satisfies the first rule and gives you a dated record of delivery.

A workable demand from a US seller lists the invoices, the shipments they cover, the payments received, the balance in USD, the interest claimed and a deadline, and encloses the statement of account. Keep discussions about discounts or quality out of it unless you mean to negotiate. Whatever the buyer writes back, including an email that admits the balance and asks for time, becomes evidence.

The payment order: collecting before any court judgment

Turkish law lets a creditor start enforcement for a money claim at an enforcement office (icra dairesi) without first obtaining a judgment. The procedure is called ilamsız takip and is governed by the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (İİK, Law No. 2004). For an unpaid invoice it is usually the first formal step.

The request may be made in writing, orally or electronically (İİK Article 58(1)). Among other things it states:

• the creditor’s details and, for a creditor living abroad, an address in Türkiye; if none is given, the place of the enforcement office is treated as its address (Article 58(2)(1)). A US creditor usually gives its Turkish lawyer’s office for this purpose;
• the amount in Turkish lira with the interest and the day it started to run, and for a foreign-currency claim the date of the exchange rate on which the claim is made (Article 58(2)(3));
• the document relied on or, if there is none, the cause of the debt (Article 58(2)(4)).

Where the claim rests on a document, the original or a copy certified by the creditor or its representative is lodged, with one more copy than the number of debtors (Article 58(3)). On venue, İİK Article 50 applies the jurisdiction rules of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK, Law No. 6100) by analogy, and the general venue is the defendant’s domicile (HMK Article 6(1)), so a file against an Istanbul importer is normally opened in Istanbul.

The enforcement office then issues a payment order (ödeme emri). It warns the buyer to pay the debt and costs within seven days and to declare within the same seven days any objection to the debt or to the creditor’s right to enforce (Article 60). The objection is made to the enforcement office, in a petition or orally, within seven days of service (Article 62). A buyer that objects to only part of the debt must state which part and how much, or its objection is treated as not made (Article 62). An objection made within the period stops the file; if the period is missed, enforcement continues for the whole amount at the creditor’s request (Article 66(1)).

Article 62 does not ask the buyer to give reasons for objecting to the whole debt, and a timely objection is enough to stop the file. For that reason the decisive work in an invoice case usually comes after the objection.

Security for costs. MÖHUK Article 48(1) requires foreign individuals and companies that sue, join proceedings or start enforcement in Türkiye to provide the security the court determines, covering the costs of the proceedings and of enforcement and the other side’s loss. Article 48(2) adds that the court exempts a claimant from this security on the basis of reciprocity. Whether a US company is exempted depends on how that reciprocity question is answered, so budget for the possibility that security is asked for.

After the objection: mediation, then the action to annul it

The annulment action. A creditor whose request has met an objection may, within one year of being notified of the objection, ask the court to annul it by proving the existence of the claim under the general rules (İİK Article 67(1)). A dispute that arises from matters connected with both parties’ commercial enterprises is a commercial case (TTK Article 4(1)), heard by the commercial court of first instance (TTK Article 5(1)). If the year passes, Article 67(5) still preserves the creditor’s right to sue for the debt under the general rules.

Mediation comes first. Under TTK Article 5/A(1), in commercial cases whose subject is a sum of money (claims for payment, compensation, annulment of an objection, negative declaratory actions and restitution) an application to a mediator before the action is filed is a precondition of the action. The words covering annulment of an objection were added by Law No. 7445 in 2023. The mediator must conclude the file within six weeks of appointment, with an extension of at most two weeks in compelling cases (Article 5/A(2)). The Mediation Law (Law No. 6325) adds the procedure:

• the mediation office to apply to is the one at the place where the competent court sits (Article 18/A(4));
• the parties may take part in person, through legal representatives or through their lawyers (Article 15(6)), so a US company can be represented by its Turkish lawyer, who needs express authority for it (HMK Article 74);
• the limitation period stops running, and no forfeiture period runs, from the application until the final report is drawn up (Article 18/A(15));
• a party that misses the first meeting without a valid excuse, if the mediation ends for that reason, is named in the final report and bears half of the costs of proceedings the other side would owe, even if it wins in whole or in part, and only half of the attorney fee under the minimum fee scale is awarded in its favor (Article 18/A(11));
• if the claimant skips mediation and sues directly, the court dismisses the action on procedural grounds for lack of a precondition, without any further step (Article 18/A(2)).

If the parties settle, the agreement in a commercial dispute signed by the lawyers and the mediator counts as a document having the nature of a judgment without any court annotation of enforceability, except where a statute makes that annotation mandatory (Article 18(4)).

Compensation for denial. In the annulment action, if the court finds the buyer’s objection unjustified, the buyer is ordered, at the creditor’s request, to pay appropriate compensation of not less than twenty percent of the amount awarded. If the creditor’s enforcement is found unjustified and in bad faith, the creditor faces the same on the amount rejected (İİK Article 67(2)). The amount in the enforcement request or the claim is the basis for the calculation (Article 67, final paragraph). Turkish lawyers call this icra inkâr tazminatı.

A faster route with an acknowledgment. Where the enforcement rests on a document containing an acknowledgment of debt whose signature is admitted or certified by a notary, or on a receipt or document issued by an official authority within its competence, the creditor may ask the enforcement court to remove the objection within six months of notification; if it does not, a new enforcement without judgment cannot be started (İİK Article 68(1)). An invoice issued by the seller is not, on its own, such a document. That is one reason to ask a buyer that admits the balance to sign a written acknowledgment.

Payment plans. If the buyer offers to pay in installments, consider recording the plan as a notarial deed drawn up by a Turkish notary containing an acknowledgment of the money debt. Under İİK Article 38 such deeds are enforced under the rules for judgments.

Freezing assets before they move: attachment before judgment

If there is a risk that the buyer will empty its accounts or sell its stock, the tool is attachment before judgment (ihtiyati haciz), discussed in more detail in our guide on interim attachment for foreign creditors.

• Who may ask. The creditor of a money debt that is due and not secured by a pledge may have the debtor’s movable and immovable property, receivables and other rights attached, whether held by the debtor or by third parties (İİK Article 257(1)).
• Debts not yet due. Attachment is available only if the debtor has no fixed domicile, or prepares to hide or remove its assets or to flee in order to escape its obligations, or flees, or for that purpose carries out fraudulent transactions that harm the creditor (Article 257(2)).
• Evidence and hearing. The creditor must produce evidence that satisfies the court about the claim and, where needed, the ground for attachment; the court may decide with or without hearing the parties (Article 258).
• Security. The creditor is liable for all losses the debtor and third parties suffer if the attachment proves unjustified and must provide security, which is not required when the claim rests on a judgment (Article 259).
• Deadlines. The order lapses unless execution is requested within ten days of the decision (Article 261). A creditor that obtained it before suing or enforcing must request enforcement or sue within seven days of the attachment being carried out, or of service of the attachment report if it was carried out in the creditor’s absence (Article 264(1)). If the buyer then objects to the payment order, the creditor must, within seven days of being notified of the objection, ask the enforcement court to remove it or sue (Article 264(2)). Under Article 18/A(16) of the Mediation Law, the period for filing an action under Article 264(1) does not run from the mediation application until the final report; the provision does not mention Article 264(2), so plan the sequence before the attachment is carried out.
• The buyer’s response. A debtor not heard before the order may apply to the court against its grounds, the court’s jurisdiction and the security within seven days of the attachment if it was carried out in the debtor’s presence, otherwise of service of the attachment report (Article 265(1)). The attachment turns into an executive attachment by operation of law once the period to object to the payment order passes without objection, or the objection is finally removed or annulled (Article 264, final paragraph).

When the buyer disputes quality: a California food exporter

A California exporter of dried fruit and nuts sells three shipments to a buyer in Mersin. The buyer pays for the first, then says the second and third were below specification and stops paying. Its objection to the payment order may just say that it owes nothing. The quality argument surfaces later, in the annulment action.

Under the CISG, the buyer must examine the goods, or have them examined, within as short a period as is practicable in the circumstances, and where the contract involves carriage the examination may wait until the goods arrive (Articles 38(1) and 38(2)). It loses the right to rely on a lack of conformity if it does not give the seller notice specifying its nature within a reasonable time after it discovered it or ought to have discovered it (Article 39(1)), and in any event if it gives no notice within two years from actual handover, unless that limit is inconsistent with a contractual guarantee period (Article 39(2)). With perishable goods, the date and the content of the buyer’s first complaint carry real weight.

Build the file early: pre-shipment inspection and laboratory reports, temperature records for the reefer, loading photos, the buyer’s emails accepting the goods, and anything showing that it resold them. If the court finds the objection unjustified, Article 67(2) of the İİK applies. The Turkish domestic rules on notice of defects between merchants, and how they sit next to the CISG, are covered in our guide on notice of defect in commercial sales.

When the buyer files for concordat: a Texas parts supplier

A Texas supplier of hydraulic parts ships monthly to a Turkish equipment maker under a framework supply agreement. Two invoices are overdue when it learns that the buyer has applied to the commercial court for a concordat (konkordato). Under İİK Article 285(1), a debtor that cannot pay its debts when due, or is at risk of being unable to, may request a concordat to pay them with more time or at a discount, or to avoid bankruptcy. Our page on concordat in Türkiye describes the procedure as a whole; for a supplier, these rules matter most:

• Respite periods. Once the documents are complete, the court grants a temporary respite of three months, which it may extend by up to two months; the total cannot exceed five months (Article 287). The temporary respite has the effects of the definitive one (Article 288(1)). It is published, and creditors may object within a firm period of seven days from the announcement that there is no ground for a respite (Article 288(2)). The definitive respite lasts one year (Article 289) and may be extended by up to six months in difficult special cases.
• Effect on collection. During the respite no enforcement may be started against the debtor and pending files stop, interim injunctions and attachment orders are not carried out, and limitation and forfeiture periods that an enforcement step could interrupt do not run (Article 294(1)). Unless the approved project provides otherwise, interest stops running on all unsecured claims from the date of the definitive respite (Article 294(3)).
• Declaring the claim. The commissioner’s announcement invites creditors to declare their claims within fifteen days; creditors that do not are not admitted to the negotiations unless their claim appears in the balance sheet (Article 299).
• The supply contract. Contracts that matter for the continuation of the debtor’s business continue. Clauses that treat the concordat application as a breach, a ground for termination or an acceleration event do not apply, the contract cannot be ended because the debtor applied, and performances due under such contracts during the respites are made on both sides (Article 296(1)).
• New shipments. In an ordinary concordat, debts the buyer takes on with the commissioner’s permission after the decision granting the temporary respite are not subject to the concordat terms, may be enforced even during the respite if the buyer defaults, and are paid right after secured claims, ahead of all other claims; the same rule covers counter-performances in continuing contracts that the debtor accepts with the commissioner’s permission (Article 308/c(4)).
• Vote and binding effect. The project is deemed accepted if signed by a majority exceeding half of the registered creditors and claims, or a quarter of the creditors and two thirds of the claims (Article 302). Once approved it binds all claims that arose before the request, or during the respite without the commissioner’s permission, except first-rank privileged claims, secured claims up to the value of the collateral and public receivables covered by Law No. 6183 (Article 308/c). A creditor whose claim was disputed may sue within one month of the announcement of the approval decision (Article 308/b(1)).

How to register and challenge claims is covered in our guide on proof of debt in bankruptcy and concordat estates.

Arbitration clauses, US court clauses and US judgments

An arbitration clause. Many US terms of sale send disputes to arbitration in a US city. The United States acceded to the 1958 New York Convention on 30 September 1970 (in force 29 December 1970) and Türkiye on 2 July 1992 (in force 30 September 1992). Both declared that they apply the Convention only to awards made in the territory of another Contracting State and only to differences arising from relationships treated as commercial under their national law. An award made in New York or Chicago is made in another Contracting State. The applicant supplies the duly authenticated original award or a certified copy and the original arbitration agreement or a certified copy, with translations certified by an official or sworn translator or by a diplomatic or consular agent (Article IV). Enforcement may be refused only on the grounds in Article V. MÖHUK Article 60(2) sends the application to the civil court of first instance at the place agreed in writing, otherwise at the losing party’s domicile in Türkiye, failing that its residence, failing that the place of assets that can be enforced against. An arbitration agreement also takes the file outside mandatory mediation: Article 18/A(18) of Law No. 6325 disapplies the precondition rules where one exists. If the buyer sues in Türkiye despite the clause, see our guide on the arbitration objection in Turkish courts; for the award itself, our guide on enforcing foreign arbitral awards.

A clause choosing a US court. Parties to a dispute with a foreign element arising from obligations may agree on a foreign court where Turkish jurisdiction is not exclusive; the agreement is valid if proved by written evidence, and a Turkish court then hears the case only if the foreign court declines jurisdiction or no objection to jurisdiction is raised in Türkiye (MÖHUK Article 47(1)). A clause in your favor can therefore stop your own action in Istanbul if the buyer objects.

A US judgment. A judgment from a US court needs a Turkish enforcement decision first (MÖHUK Article 50(1)), and reciprocity is one of the conditions (Article 54(1)(a)). The steps are explained in our guide on enforcing a US court judgment in Türkiye.

The collection routes at a glance

What to pull from your files in the US

• the contract, purchase orders and order confirmations, and the version of your terms and conditions the buyer actually received;
• the USD invoices, the customer ledger and the wire transfer records for payments received;
• bills of lading or air waybills, packing lists, delivery receipts and inspection reports;
• emails and messages in which the buyer acknowledges the balance, promises payment or complains about the goods;
• for a company creditor, evidence of who may sign for it, prepared for apostille together with the power of attorney.

A party relying on a document in a foreign language must file its translation, and the court may ask for an official translation (HMK Article 223). Translations into Turkish are usually prepared in Türkiye and certified by a Turkish notary.

Running the file from the United States

A Turkish lawyer acts under a power of attorney. A US company signs it before a notary public, and the document then receives an apostille from the competent US authority, which for state-notarized papers is generally the Secretary of State’s office. The Apostille Convention has been in force for the United States since 15 October 1981 and for Türkiye since 29 September 1985, so consular legalization is not needed. Owners who are Turkish citizens sometimes sign at a Turkish consulate instead (there are consulates general in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, and an embassy in Washington, D.C.). Both routes are compared in our guide to a power of attorney and apostille from the US for Türkiye.

Draft the authority with the whole file in mind. Under HMK Article 74, unless expressly authorized, a lawyer may not settle, make an arbitration agreement, make or consent to a concordat proposal, apply to alternative dispute resolution, waive or accept a claim, or release the other side. A collection power should name these acts.

Istanbul is on UTC+3 all year. New York is seven hours behind in US summer time and eight in winter, Chicago eight and nine, Los Angeles ten and eleven. The gap changes only on the US clock-change dates, because Türkiye does not change its clocks. Questions about how a recovery or write-off is treated for US tax purposes belong to a US-qualified adviser.

Lex Lata’s work for US sellers

Lex Lata acts for sellers in the United States in Turkish collection matters: demands through a notary, mediation, enforcement proceedings, attachment before judgment, claims in concordat, and enforcement of arbitral awards and foreign judgments. The work is done remotely in English. Documents are reviewed by email, the power of attorney is signed in the US and apostilled, and calls are arranged in the US morning, when the Istanbul working day is still open. Our commercial debt collection practice page describes the work in general terms, and the guide to debt collection in Türkiye for foreign creditors gives a wider overview. The rest of the US series starts from our page on a lawyer in Türkiye for people living in the US; to write to us, use the contact page.