Lease agreements in Turkey are governed by the Turkish Code of Obligations (Türk Borçlar Kanunu), whose rules for residential and roofed workplace leases protect the tenant in ways the contract cannot remove: a landlord cannot end a residential lease simply because the term has expired, the annual rent increase is capped by the consumer price index, the deposit is limited to three months' rent, and eviction runs through a court or the enforcement office on listed grounds. This article explains which rules are mandatory and which can be negotiated, what the contract should say about rent, currency, deposit, expenses, use and repairs, how rent increases and the five-year rent determination work, how leases extend and how a tenant terminates, on which grounds and within which deadlines a landlord evicts, what the 2024 short-term rental regime requires, and how disputes run through mediation, the civil court of peace and the enforcement office, with the points that matter to foreign tenants and landlords.
- Residential and roofed workplace leases share the same protective rules; the parties cannot contract out of them against the tenant.
- Annual increases are capped at the twelve-month average of the consumer price index; after five years either side can ask the court to set the rent.
- A fixed-term lease extends by one year unless the tenant gives notice fifteen days before the end; the landlord needs a statutory ground and a deadline.
- Since 2024, letting a home for up to one hundred days requires a Ministry of Culture and Tourism permit and the consent of all owners in the building.
- Lease disputes go to mediation first and then to the civil court of peace; unpaid rent and eviction undertakings can go straight to the enforcement office.
Which rules apply: mandatory protection, form and registration
The Code of Obligations has general lease provisions that apply to any lease, and a special set for residential and roofed workplace leases (konut ve çatılı işyeri kiraları) that applies to homes, shops, offices and any roofed premises used for business; the special set is the one that matters in practice, and most of it is mandatory in the tenant's favour, so that a clause imposing an obligation on the tenant beyond the rent and the expenses the Code allows, waiving the tenant's protection or widening the landlord's termination rights is void even if signed. A foreign landlord used to a system where the contract is the law reads a Turkish lease differently: the question is not only what the contract says but which of its clauses survive the Code. The distinction between a residential and a commercial lease is therefore narrower than foreign parties expect; a shop lease is as protected as a flat lease, with a few differences noted below.
No form is required for validity: an oral lease is binding, and a written contract is not notarised. The written contract is nevertheless the evidence of everything, and in our practice it identifies the parties with identity or tax numbers, the premises by its land registry particulars, the rent and its payment date, the term, the deposit, the use and the expenses, and is signed on each page by both parties, with a dated handover record listing the condition and the fixtures. The lease may be annotated in the land registry (tapuya şerh) on the parties' joint application, which binds a later buyer to the lease for the annotated period; without the annotation a buyer still takes over the lease as landlord under the Code, but gains the new-owner eviction right described below. Our practice page on property rental law in Turkey covers the framework; this article covers the contract and the disputes.
Foreign tenants and landlords face no nationality restriction on leasing; a foreign company or individual can rent as tenant without a residence permit, and a foreign owner lets property under the same rules as a Turkish owner. Two formalities follow the foreigner: the address registration for a residence permit requires a lease or title in the tenant's name, and utility companies ask for a Turkish tax or foreigner identity number to open an account. Rent in foreign currency is prohibited between persons resident in Turkey under the foreign exchange legislation, with exceptions that include non-citizen residents, so a lease to a foreign national may be agreed in euros or dollars where the exception applies and is otherwise drafted in lira, a point we check before signing because a prohibited currency clause is converted, not enforced.
The contract: rent, deposit, expenses, use and repairs
Rent is payable at the end of each month unless the contract says otherwise, and in practice is agreed in advance on a fixed day; residential and workplace rent is paid through a bank or the postal service, and the bank record is the proof of payment that both sides will need. A clause that makes all remaining rent due on a single missed payment is void in residential and workplace leases; a late-payment interest clause is valid. The deposit (depozito, güvence bedeli) cannot exceed three months' rent and, where it is money, is deposited in a bank account in the tenant's name as a time deposit that the bank releases only with both parties' consent, a final court decision or a final enforcement order; a landlord who takes the deposit into their own account has broken the Code, and the tenant's remedy at the end of the lease is a claim for the deposit with interest, after the mediation step described below. If the landlord makes no claim within three months of the end of the lease, the bank returns the deposit to the tenant on request.
Expenses are split by the Code unless the contract allocates them: the tenant pays the costs of use, such as electricity, water, gas, heating and the building's running charges (aidat), and the landlord bears the costs attached to the property itself, including property tax, mandatory earthquake insurance and major building works, a split that the contract may vary only within the limits the Code sets for residential and workplace leases. Use is defined in the contract, and the tenant may not change it, sublet or transfer the lease without the landlord's written consent; a landlord who refuses consent to the transfer of a workplace lease needs a justified reason. The tenant carries out the small maintenance that use requires, cleaning, minor repairs and the upkeep of fixtures, while the landlord keeps the premises fit for the agreed use throughout, so that a broken boiler, a leaking roof or a failed lift is the landlord's cost; where the landlord does not repair within a reasonable period after written notice, the tenant may have the work done and set the cost against the rent, claim a rent reduction for the period of reduced use, or terminate for a serious defect.
Improvements the tenant makes with the landlord's consent are dealt with at the end of the lease as the Code provides, with a claim for the added value only where the landlord agreed in writing to compensate it; the fit-out clause in a shop or office lease is where that is settled in advance. The handover record at the start, with photographs, is the document that decides every deduction dispute at the end, because the tenant returns the premises in the condition received, allowing for ordinary wear. In our practice a lease for a foreign tenant is drafted in Turkish with an English version for understanding, and the Turkish text governs, because the courts and the enforcement office read only that one. Our practice page on the tenant and landlord lawyer in Turkey covers drafting and review.
Rent increases: the index cap and rent determination after five years
For residential and roofed workplace leases the rent for a renewal year may be increased by no more than the twelve-month average change in the consumer price index published by the Turkish Statistical Institute for the previous year; a clause providing a higher increase, a foreign-currency formula or a fixed percentage above the index is applied only up to the cap. The temporary cap of twenty-five percent that applied to residential leases between mid-2022 and mid-2024 has expired, and the index rule applies again to both residential and workplace leases; the postponement that once exempted merchant tenants of workplaces ended in 2020, so a commercial tenant is protected by the same cap as a residential one. Where the contract contains no increase clause, the landlord may still claim an increase up to the cap through the court, which is why we always write the clause.
After five years of the lease, counted from the start and renewed at each further five-year interval, either party may ask the civil court of peace to determine the rent afresh, without being bound by the index cap, on the basis of the index, the condition of the premises and comparable rents, with the court's expert valuing the premises and the court applying a customary reduction in the tenant's favour where the tenant is long established. The determined rent applies from the start of the new lease year if the claim is filed, or the landlord's written request is served, within the periods the Code sets before that year begins. In our files the five-year determination is the landlord's lawful route to a market rent after years of index increases in an inflationary period, and the tenant's defence is the comparables and the reduction, not the contract.
A foreign-currency rent, where lawfully agreed, follows a different rule: no increase may be made for five years, after which the parties fall into the determination procedure, and the rule that a tenant may claim adaptation of the rent where the currency's movement has made performance excessively onerous applies within the limits the Code and the Court of Cassation set. Rent increase disputes are among the commonest in the civil courts of peace, and the practical advice is uniform: pay the lawful amount on time through the bank, dispute the excess in writing, and let the landlord bring the determination claim rather than withholding rent, because unpaid rent opens the fastest eviction route there is. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Term, extension and termination by the tenant
A residential or workplace lease for a fixed term does not end at its term. Unless the tenant gives written notice at least fifteen days before the end of the term, the lease is deemed extended for one year on the same terms, and the same happens each following year; the landlord cannot end the lease by notice at the end of the term at all, and may do so only after ten extension years, by notice given at least three months before the end of the following lease year, without giving a reason. A lease for an indefinite term is terminated by the tenant with the notice periods the general provisions set, and by the landlord only after ten years from the start on the same three-month notice. These rules are mandatory; a clause that the lease "ends automatically" at its term is read as the Code reads it.
The tenant's fifteen-day notice is the whole of the tenant's termination right at the end of a term, and it is exercised in writing, sent through a notary or by registered mail with proof of delivery, because an oral notice or a message that the landlord later denies leaves the lease extended. A tenant who wants to leave during the term has three routes: agreement with the landlord, recorded in a signed termination and handover document; termination for an important reason that makes continuation unreasonable, with the notice period the general provisions require and a possible claim by the landlord for the rent until the premises can reasonably be re-let; or simply leaving, in which case the tenant owes the rent until the landlord lets the premises again or could reasonably have done so, a liability the Court of Cassation has reduced to a few months in ordinary cases, and which a tenant limits by proposing a suitable replacement tenant.
Death of the tenant does not end a residential lease; the heirs and the persons living with the tenant may continue it. Sale of the premises does not end the lease either: the buyer steps into the landlord's place from the transfer, and the tenant keeps paying rent to the new owner once notified. A tenant who has signed an eviction undertaking, described next, is in a different position, which is why that document is read before anything else when a foreign tenant asks whether they can be made to leave. Our note on shared title deeds in Turkey covers the position where the premises have several owners, who must act together as landlord.
Eviction by the landlord: grounds, deadlines and the enforcement route
The landlord evicts only on the grounds the Code lists, within the deadlines it sets, and through the civil court of peace or, for two grounds, the enforcement office. The grounds based on the landlord's side are need and reconstruction: the landlord may sue within one month after the end of the lease term, or after the ten-year notice period, where the premises are needed as a residence or workplace by the landlord, their spouse, their descendants or ascendants or the persons they must support by law, or where the premises are to be rebuilt or substantially renovated so that occupation during the works is impossible; a landlord who evicts for need and lets the premises to someone else within three years without a valid reason owes the former tenant compensation of at least one year's rent. A new owner may evict for need by notifying the tenant in writing within one month of acquiring the property and suing six months after the acquisition, or at the end of the lease term if that is sooner.
The grounds based on the tenant's side are three. A written eviction undertaking (tahliye taahhüdü), signed by the tenant after the premises were handed over and naming a date, allows the landlord to apply to the enforcement office or sue within one month after that date; an undertaking signed on the day of the lease is open to challenge, and a foreign tenant who is asked to sign one with the lease should understand that it is the landlord's strongest document. Two justified written warnings for late payment within one lease year, for a lease of a year or longer, allow the landlord to sue within one month after the end of that lease year. And where the tenant or their spouse owns a habitable residence within the same municipal boundaries and the landlord did not know it when the lease was made, the landlord may sue within one month after the end of the term.
Unpaid rent is enforced through the enforcement office without a court case first: the landlord starts proceedings for the rent with a demand for eviction, the enforcement office serves a payment order giving the tenant thirty days to pay and seven days to object, and if the tenant neither pays nor objects within those periods, the landlord asks the enforcement court for an eviction order; payment within the thirty days stops the eviction but the warning counts as a justified warning for the two-warning ground. An eviction judgment or order is executed by the enforcement office, which gives the tenant a short period to leave and then removes the occupants with the police if necessary; a landlord who changes the locks, cuts the utilities or removes the tenant's belongings commits an offence and is liable in damages, however clear the right to possession. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Short-term tourism rentals since 2024
Letting a home for tourism purposes for up to one hundred days at a time is regulated since the start of 2024 by the law on the tourism rental of residences, outside the ordinary lease rules. The owner needs a permit (izin belgesi) issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism through the provincial directorate before the first rental, and the application requires a unanimous decision of all unit owners in the building; in buildings with more than three units the same lessor may hold permits for at most a quarter of the units, a lessor with more than five units in one building also needs a business licence, and in a site all owners must consent. The permit holder displays the Ministry's plaque at the entrance, reports each guest's identity under the identity notification law, and issues the invoices and pays the taxes that tourism income attracts.
The administrative fines for letting without a permit are high and rise with each repetition within the periods the law sets, platforms and intermediaries that advertise an unpermitted home are fined as well, and a person who lets a home more than four times in a year for periods over one hundred days to avoid the regime is treated as a tourism lessor; the amounts are revalued each year and are not quoted here. An owner who holds a residential lease with a tenant does not thereby acquire a right to let short-term, and a tenant who sublets a home on a platform without the landlord's written consent breaches the lease and exposes both of them to the fines.
For a foreign owner who bought a flat as an investment the choice is therefore between a residential lease under the Code, with its tenant protection and index cap, and a tourism permit, with its unanimity requirement and compliance burden; a building whose owners refuse consent leaves only the first route. In our practice the question is asked before the purchase, because the building's management plan and the other owners decide it. Our practice page on the property rental lawyer in Turkey covers permit applications and the disputes that follow refusals.
Disputes: mediation, the civil court of peace and the enforcement office
Since September 2023 a lawsuit arising from a lease relationship, whether for eviction on a statutory ground, rent determination, unpaid rent, the deposit or damage to the premises, must be preceded by mandatory mediation, with the mediator's final report attached to the petition; the mediator must close the process within three weeks, extendable by one, and the limitation and forfeiture periods are suspended while it runs, so that a landlord with a one-month deadline applies to the mediation office before the deadline, not after. Eviction through the enforcement office for unpaid rent or on an eviction undertaking is outside the mediation requirement, as are the objections and eviction requests before the enforcement court that follow it.
Lease disputes are decided by the civil court of peace (Sulh Hukuk Mahkemesi) whatever the amount and whether the lease is residential or commercial, with an expert for rent determination and condition disputes, and are appealed to the Regional Court of Appeal and, above the threshold, the Court of Cassation. The documents decide: the signed lease, the handover record, the bank records of rent, the notarised notices and the mediation report. A tenant who disputes an increase pays the lawful rent through the bank and keeps the correspondence; a landlord who wants possession serves the right notice, through a notary, within the right month, and files the mediation application before the month runs out.
A foreign landlord abroad runs all of this through a Turkish lawyer under a notarised and apostilled power of attorney, including the mediation session, the enforcement file and the eviction; a foreign tenant who leaves Turkey before the deposit is returned does the same for the deposit claim. Where the premises belong to a foreign company, the lease and the power of attorney are backed by the company's apostilled registry documents, and rent received in Turkey is declared under the rental income rules. Our practice page on real estate law in Turkey covers the ownership side that sits behind every lease.
Frequently asked questions
- Can my landlord end the lease when the one-year term expires? No. A residential or roofed workplace lease is extended by one year unless the tenant gives notice fifteen days before the end of the term; the landlord cannot terminate at the term and needs a statutory ground, or ten extension years and three months' notice.
- How much can the rent be increased each year? By no more than the twelve-month average change in the consumer price index for the previous year, for residential and workplace leases alike; a higher contractual increase is cut to the cap. After five years either party can ask the civil court of peace to determine the rent afresh.
- What are the deposit rules? At most three months' rent, deposited in a time-deposit bank account in the tenant's name and released only with both parties' consent or a final court or enforcement decision; if the landlord makes no claim within three months of the end of the lease, the bank returns it to the tenant.
- On what grounds can a landlord evict? Need of the landlord or close family, reconstruction, need of a new owner, a written eviction undertaking signed after handover, two justified written warnings for late payment in one lease year, or the tenant's ownership of a suitable home in the same municipality, each within a one-month deadline; unpaid rent is enforced through the enforcement office with a thirty-day payment order.
- Can I rent out my flat on a short-term platform? Only with a Ministry of Culture and Tourism permit, which requires the unanimous consent of all owners in the building, a plaque at the entrance and guest identity reporting; letting without the permit attracts large fines for the owner and the platform.
- Do I have to go to mediation before suing my landlord or tenant? Yes, for any lawsuit arising from the lease, including eviction, rent determination, rent and deposit claims; the mediator's report is a condition of the case. Eviction for unpaid rent or on an eviction undertaking through the enforcement office does not require it.
- Can a foreigner rent property in Turkey, and in which currency? Yes, as tenant or landlord without restriction. Rent between residents of Turkey must be in lira, with an exception for non-citizen residents that allows a foreign-currency rent where it applies; a foreign-currency rent cannot be increased for five years.
Author: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu, Managing Partner, ER&GUN&ER Law Firm, Istanbul Bar No. 67874. He advises foreign tenants, landlords and investors on residential and commercial leases in Turkey, rent increase and determination disputes, deposits, evictions through the civil court of peace and the enforcement office, and short-term rental permits. Education: Istanbul University Faculty of Law (2018); Galatasaray University, LL.M. (2022).
Profile: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu. LinkedIn: Profile. Istanbul Bar Association: Official website. Related practice page: Turkish real estate lawyer.