Work Permits in Türkiye: The Employer's Application and the 1:5 Rule

The permit belongs to the job, not to the person

Foreign employment in Türkiye is governed by the International Labour Force Law No. 6735 (Uluslararası İşgücü Kanunu), which replaced the earlier 2003 regime and moved the whole subject under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (Çalışma ve Sosyal Güvenlik Bakanlığı), acting through its Directorate General of International Labour Force.

The structural point that surprises most foreign investors is this: a work permit (çalışma izni) is not a personal document that a candidate acquires and then carries from job to job. It is granted for a specific foreign national, to work in a specific job, at a specific workplace, for a specific employer. That is why the application is filed by the employer, through the Ministry’s online system, using the employer’s own electronic credentials. A person who is not yet employed cannot simply apply and then look for work.

The practical consequence for a company setting up in Türkiye is one of sequencing. The Turkish entity must exist, be registered with the tax authority and the Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu, SGK), and have credentials for the application system, before any foreign hire can be lodged. Groups that plan to bring in a country manager at the same moment they incorporate frequently find that the corporate steps described in our company formation and corporate law practices have to be completed first, and only then can the residence permits and work authorisation steps begin.

There are two narrow departures from the employer-applies rule, dealt with further below: the independent work permit and the Turquoise Card. Neither is a general alternative for ordinary employment.

Route one: applying from outside Türkiye

Where the foreign national is abroad, the process begins at a Turkish consulate in the country of citizenship or lawful residence. The applicant attends the consulate and applies for a work visa (çalışma vizesi). The consulate records the application and issues a reference number.

That reference number then travels back to the employer in Türkiye, who must complete the domestic online application within ten business days of the consular application, uploading the employment contract, the applicant’s diplomas and, where the profession requires it, recognition of the foreign qualification. Missing the ten business day window is the single most common avoidable failure in this route; it does not usually destroy the case, but it means starting again at the consulate.

Once a properly completed file is before it, the Ministry is required to conclude the application within thirty days. In practice the clock only starts when the file is complete, and requests for further documents restart it in substance if not in form. If the permit is granted, the applicant collects the work visa from the consulate, enters Türkiye on it, and the permit card follows.

This route is the cleaner one where the candidate has never been to Türkiye, and it avoids the awkward position of a person sitting in Türkiye on a tourist entry while a permit is pending. It is slower in wall-clock terms because two authorities, in two countries, are involved.

Route two: applying from inside Türkiye

Where the foreign national is already lawfully in Türkiye, the employer may apply directly to the Ministry without any consular step. The gateway condition is a valid residence permit (ikamet izni) with enough remaining validity at the date of application. Certain residence permit categories are treated differently, and a short-term permit that is about to expire will not carry an application.

A tourist entry or a visa exemption stay is not a residence permit. This is worth stating plainly, because the assumption that ninety days of visa-free presence can be converted into a work permit from inside the country causes real difficulty. It cannot, on its own.

Students are a distinct case. Foreign nationals studying at Turkish universities may obtain a work permit, with associate and bachelor’s degree students eligible only after their first year and limited in the hours they may work. The permit is still applied for by the employer.

The attraction of the domestic route is that a person already integrated into a Turkish workplace, on secondment or on a group transfer, does not have to leave the country to regularise their position. The risk is that if the residence permit lapses while the file is pending, the applicant’s presence becomes irregular, with consequences that overlap with the removal framework described in Understanding Deportation in Türkiye.

The five Turkish citizens rule

The best known feature of the Turkish regime is a labour market test expressed as a headcount ratio. Under the evaluation criteria applied by the Ministry, the workplace for which the permit is sought must generally employ at least five Turkish citizens for each foreign national to be employed there.

The ratio is per foreign national, not per company. A workplace seeking permits for three foreign employees is therefore looking at fifteen Turkish employees, counted at that workplace, evidenced by the employer’s SGK records for the month in question. It is a workplace test rather than a group test, which matters for companies operating several registered workplaces under one legal entity.

Where the foreign national is also a shareholder in the employing company, the requirement is applied to the final six months of the first permit year rather than at the moment of application. That is the concession that makes it possible, in principle, for a founder to obtain a first permit before the payroll has been built out, and then to build it out.

The rule is a criterion of the administration, not a provision of Law No. 6735 itself. It is applied consistently, but it is applied by an authority with discretion, and it changes by ministerial practice rather than by statutory amendment. Anyone planning headcount two years out should confirm the current position rather than rely on a figure read once. Structuring hiring around it is an employment contracts planning question as much as an immigration one.

Where the quota does not bite

The ratio is not universal. Household services are outside it: a permit for a person employed in a private home is not expected to be accompanied by five Turkish employees in that home, which would be absurd. Applications concerning the same workplace where no Turkish employee could sensibly be required, and certain categories favoured by sectoral policy, are also treated differently.

Beyond the quota, some professions are closed to foreign nationals altogether by their own governing statutes rather than by immigration law. Advocacy is reserved to Turkish citizens under Article 3 of the Attorneys Act No. 1136. Comparable citizenship conditions appear in the statutes governing certain health professions, notarial office and some regulated activities. A work permit application in these fields fails on the underlying professional legislation, whatever the headcount at the workplace, and the analysis belongs with our health law and regulatory review rather than the permit file alone.

Separately, Law No. 6735 provides for work permit exemptions (çalışma izni muafiyeti) for defined short-term and specialised activities. An exemption is a distinct instrument with its own conditions and its own maximum durations; it is not a lighter version of a permit, and it should not be used to cover what is in substance ordinary employment.

Capital, turnover and salary thresholds

Alongside the headcount ratio, the Ministry applies financial criteria to the employing company. These are published as evaluation criteria and are revised from time to time, so the figures below should be verified against the version current at the date of the application.

The employer is expected to satisfy one of a set of alternative financial tests, historically expressed as a minimum paid-in capital, or a minimum gross turnover, or a minimum export figure for the preceding year. The alternatives exist because a trading company, a manufacturer and a newly capitalised subsidiary present their substance in different ways, and the criteria are drafted to let each of them qualify on its own terms. Companies whose activity is principally cross-border will usually satisfy the export limb, which sits naturally with our customs law and foreign trade practice.

There is also a salary floor, expressed as a multiple of the gross minimum wage and graded by the seniority and nature of the role. Senior management and specialised technical positions carry the highest multiples; sales, service and household roles carry the lowest. Because the minimum wage is revised at least annually, the absolute figures move every year even though the multiples do not. A contract drafted at last year’s floor will not necessarily clear this year’s.

An application that meets the headcount ratio but proposes a salary below the applicable multiple will be refused on the salary point alone.

Founders, independent professionals and the Turquoise Card

A foreign national who owns a Turkish company is still, formally, applying as an employee of that company, and the general criteria apply with the shareholder adjustments noted above. The Ministry additionally looks at the size of the shareholding: a foreign shareholder-director is expected to hold a meaningful percentage of the capital, with a floor expressed in Turkish lira, rather than a token share created for immigration purposes.

The independent work permit (bağımsız çalışma izni) is the route for a foreign national who will work on their own account rather than for an employer. It is assessed against the applicant’s education, professional experience, contribution to science and technology, and the effect of the proposed activity or investment on the Turkish economy and on employment. It is granted for a definite period and is not a general-purpose self-employment visa.

The Turquoise Card (Turkuaz Kart), introduced by Article 11 of Law No. 6735, is the country’s high-skill instrument. It is granted on the basis of the same qualitative factors, on the recommendation of the advisory structure established under the Law, and it confers the rights attaching to an indefinite work permit. The first three years are a transition period; if the holder’s position is confirmed at the end of it, the transition annotation is removed. Spouses and dependent children of the holder are granted residence permits.

Where a card or an independent permit is refused, the reasons given are often thin, and the response is an administrative one; that is commercial litigation and dispute resolution territory rather than a matter of refiling the same application.

After the grant: duration, registration and what ends a permit

A permit granted on a first application runs for up to one year, for the same employer, in the same job. The first extension may be granted for up to two years with that same employer, and once three years of lawful work are complete a further extension of up to three years may be granted, at that stage in the same occupation but with an employer of the foreign national’s choosing. A foreign national holding a long-term residence permit, or having completed at least eight years of lawful work, may apply for an indefinite work permit.

The permit issued under Law No. 6735 also stands in place of a residence permit by operation of Article 27 of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection No. 6458. The holder does not need a parallel residence application. Family members do.

Registration with the Social Security Institution under Law No. 5510 remains a separate obligation of the employer, on its own timetable, and is not discharged by the permit itself. So is the duty to notify the Ministry when a permit holder does not take up the job, or when the employment ends. Notifications of this kind are short-deadline items and are easy to overlook in a termination that is otherwise being handled well.

Employing a foreign national without a permit exposes the employer to administrative fines under Law No. 6735, revalued annually, applied per person and increased on repetition, alongside liability for the unpaid social security contributions. The exposure sits with the employer, and it does not disappear because the arrangement was described as consultancy.

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Related Practice Areas

• Turkish Citizenship
• Turkish Residence Permit