Termination & Severance in Türkiye

Ending an employment relationship in Türkiye is the most litigated moment in the whole employment lifecycle, and it is where a foreign employer’s instincts are most likely to be wrong. There is no at-will employment. Under Labour Law No. 4857 (İş Kanunu), supplemented by the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 for staff outside its scope, the outcome turns almost entirely on how the contract ends, not on whether the employer wants to part ways. We plan and execute lawful terminations for employers, calculate what is genuinely owed, and defend the claims that follow when a dismissal is contested. This service sits alongside our work on employment contracts and workplace disputes and litigation, and forms part of our wider guidance on employing staff in Türkiye and our broader labour and employment law practice.

• Ordinary termination with notice. Either side may end the contract by serving a notice period (bildirim süresi) graduated by seniority, two weeks under six months’ service, rising to eight weeks beyond three years, or paying notice indemnity (ihbar tazminatı) in lieu.
• Termination for valid reason (geçerli sebep). Where job security applies, the employer must show a valid ground rooted in the employee’s capacity, conduct, or the operational needs of the business, and follow the required procedure.
• Just-cause termination (haklı nedenle fesih). The grounds listed in Art. 25 (health reasons, conduct contrary to morality and good faith, force majeure, and detention or arrest lasting beyond the notice period) allow termination without notice. Where the ground is conduct contrary to morality and good faith (Art. 25/II), Art. 26 requires the right to be used within six working days of learning of the conduct and in any event within one year of the act; the one-year limit does not apply where the employee obtained a material benefit.

The six-working-day window is unforgiving. An employer who investigates for a fortnight before acting will usually find that the just cause has evaporated, converting what could have been a no-severance dismissal into a full liability. Move the legal analysis to the front, before the decision is announced.

Where a workplace has 30 or more employees and the worker has at least six months’ service on an indefinite-term contract, the job-security regime (iş güvencesi, Arts. 18-21) applies. Where the employer has several workplaces in the same line of business, the 30-employee threshold is counted across all of them (Art. 18). The dismissal must then rest on a valid reason, be notified in writing, and, for conduct dismissals, give the employee a chance to defend themselves first. A dismissal that skips these steps is invalid regardless of how sound the underlying reason was.

Where the dismissals are driven by the business rather than the individual and reach the headcount thresholds in Art. 29, a second, collective layer of procedure applies on top of all of this, written notification to İŞKUR, the workplace union representatives and the regional directorate at least thirty days in advance, and a consultation meeting. That timetable is set out in collective dismissal in Türkiye.

Severance pay (kıdem tazminatı) is the headline figure. It accrues after at least one full year of service and equals 30 days’ gross wage per year worked, calculated on the all-in wage, base pay plus regular benefits, and pro-rated for part years. The statutory ceiling (kıdem tazminatı tavanı) is updated semi-annually, so any calculation has to use the ceiling in force at the termination date rather than a remembered figure; our severance and notice pay calculator applies the ceiling for the second half of 2026 and gives an estimate to check against payroll records. Notice pay follows Article 17 of Law No. 4857: two weeks where service is under 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. These periods are minimums that a contract can extend, and the party that does not observe them pays compensation equal to the wage for the notice period. No severance is owed where service is under a year, where the employee resigns without a qualifying reason, or where the employer validly terminates for the employee’s misconduct under Art. 25/II. Our detailed walk-through of the mechanics sits in our guide to severance and notice pay in Türkiye.

The case is generally won or lost on the file the employer assembled before the dismissal, the documented warnings, the written reason, the defence taken from the employee. Article 19 of Labour Law No. 4857 requires a written, clear and precise reason and, for conduct or performance, the employee’s defence before dismissal; a record built after the decision cannot supply those steps. For the practical detail of dismissing an employee cleanly, see our guide on terminating an employee in Türkiye.

A release that reads as a blanket quit-claim, or that an employee signed on their last day, does not meet Article 420(2) of the Code of Obligations: the type and amount of the claim must be named, the payment must be complete and made through a bank, and at least one month must have passed since the contract ended. A signature obtained under duress does not bind the signatory under Article 37. A boilerplate waiver buys the employer far less certainty than it appears to. The four conditions a release must meet, and what it becomes when one of them is missing, are set out in our note on the four conditions of a valid release deed.

Because most employment money claims and every reinstatement claim must pass through mandatory mediation before a court will hear them, a negotiated exit structured with the mediation regime in mind gives both sides their best chance to settle before positions harden. We build these agreements to hold, calculate the exit package so it withstands scrutiny, and represent employers through mediation and, where it fails, before the labour courts.

• Employment Contracts & Workplace Policies: Compliant contracts, remote work policies, and non-compete covenants for foreign employers.
• Termination & Severance Under Turkish Law: Severance pay calculation (Kıdem), valid termination grounds, and defending reinstatement claims.
• Workplace Disputes & Labor Litigation: Mandatory labor mediation and Labor Court defense across Istanbul.
• Legal Matters in Istanbul for Foreign Clients and Companies: Labor law compliance, work permits, and cross-border employer representation.