Employing a foreign domestic worker or caregiver in Turkey is regulated in three layers, and a work permit is required even for work inside a private home: the International Workforce Law (Uluslararası İşgücü Kanunu) governs the permit, which the household obtains for the care of a child, an elderly, disabled or sick person; the Code of Obligations (Türk Borçlar Kanunu) governs the service contract, because domestic work is outside the Labour Law, with the Court of Cassation treating care work differently from housekeeping; and the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law governs registration with the Social Security Institution (SGK) from the first day. This article explains who can obtain a permit and for what, how the application runs from abroad or inside Turkey, what the permit does for residence, what the contract must say about wages, hours, rest and live-in terms, how SGK registration works for a household employer, how the employment ends and what is owed, and where disputes go.
- Permits for domestic service are granted for the care of a child, an elderly, disabled or sick person, not for cleaning or housekeeping alone.
- The household applies as the employer; the wage cannot be below the gross minimum wage; the first permit runs up to one year.
- A valid work permit serves as the worker's residence permit; the address is registered separately.
- Domestic work follows the Code of Obligations: notice of two to six weeks, two weeks' annual leave, one rest day a week; care work may fall within the Labour Law with severance.
- SGK registration is the household's duty and must be in place within the period the permit allows, or the permit lapses.
Who can obtain a permit, and for what work
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security (Çalışma ve Sosyal Güvenlik Bakanlığı) grants work permits for foreigners in domestic services on the principle that the work is the care of a child, a disabled or elderly person, or the companionship of a sick person; its published evaluation criteria state this limit, and an application whose real content is cleaning, cooking or housekeeping is refused. In our filings the care need is the file: the person to be cared for, their age and health, and the applicant's relationship to them. For child care the applicant is a parent, adoptive parent, guardian or foster parent; for elderly, disabled or sick care the applicant is the person themselves, a relative of the first or second degree, or a guardian. The employer is therefore a natural person, and the staffing and capital criteria written for companies are not the test a household is measured against.
The wage declared in the application cannot be below the gross minimum wage in force, and the Ministry treats the declared wage as the wage that will be paid and reported to the SGK; a declared minimum wage with a different cash arrangement is both a permit problem and a social security problem. The criteria also restrict movement between employers: an application from inside Turkey to work for a different household within six months of a permit obtained from abroad is refused except for force majeure, and applications to employ foreign students in domestic services are assessed negatively. Nationality matters in practice for the consular stage and for the social security agreement that may apply, not for the permit criteria themselves.
The permit is issued for a fixed term tied to the contract: up to one year on the first application, up to two years on the first renewal with the same household, and up to three years on later renewals. A change of household is a new application, not a renewal. Our practice page on the work permit in Turkey covers the general regime; this article stays on the household case.
The application from abroad or inside Turkey, and what the permit does for residence
Where the worker is abroad, the process starts at the Turkish consulate in the worker's country of nationality or lawful residence: the worker applies for a work visa with the contract and receives a reference number, and the household then completes the employer's application in the Ministry's electronic work permit system within the period allowed, uploading the contract, the care documents, identity and passport copies and, in our files, the medical report or birth record that proves the need. Where the worker is already in Turkey, the household applies directly, provided the worker holds a residence permit still valid and issued for at least six months; a tourist entry or a short-term permit that does not meet that condition does not open the domestic route, and the worker then goes through the consulate.
The decision is notified electronically and the fee and card charge are paid before the card is issued. A valid work permit serves as a residence permit under the International Workforce Law, so the worker does not apply separately to the Migration Management for a residence permit while the permit runs; the worker does register their address at the household's home with the civil registry within the period the law sets, and a live-in worker's registered address is the family's address. The permit's activation has a deadline: the worker must start work and be registered with the SGK within one month of the permit's start date in domestic applications, and within one month of entry, and in any case within six months of the start date, for workers arriving from abroad; a permit that is not activated in time lapses, and the household starts again.
Two household duties continue through the permit's life. The household notifies the Ministry when the employment ends, within fifteen days, which closes the permit and starts the worker's own clock for a new status; and a renewal is filed before the current permit expires, with the renewal window beginning two months before expiry, so that the worker is never without a valid document. In our practice the calendar with those three dates, activation, renewal and termination notice, is the document that keeps a household out of the administrative fines the law imposes on employers of unregistered foreigners and out of the deportation and entry ban the worker faces. Practice may vary by authority and year.
The contract: Code of Obligations rules, wages, hours, rest and live-in terms
Domestic work is excluded from the Labour Law (İş Kanunu), so the contract of a housekeeper, cook or cleaner is a service contract under the Code of Obligations, with its own rules on notice, leave, rest and overtime, and without the Labour Law's severance pay. The Court of Cassation has, in a line of decisions, treated the care of a sick or elderly person as work that is not domestic service, bringing those caregivers within the Labour Law, and has reached the same result in decisions concerning nannies whose work was predominantly the care of a child; a worker who mainly cares for a person and only occasionally helps in the house is on that side of the line, and a worker who mainly keeps the house is on the other. The contract therefore states what the predominant work is, because the answer decides which law governs the end of the employment.
Under the Code of Obligations the worker is entitled to the minimum wage, to overtime at a premium of at least half the normal wage unless compensated by time off by agreement, to one full day of rest a week, to at least two weeks of paid annual leave after a year of service, three weeks for workers under eighteen or over fifty, and to notice of two weeks in the first year, four weeks between one and five years and six weeks after five years, with pay in lieu where the household ends the contract without the notice period. A fixed-term contract ends without notice at its term, and the Ministry's own model contract for domestic services is a fixed-term form tied to the permit. The obligation to pay wages through a bank applies to employers above a staff threshold, not to a household; we nevertheless pay through the worker's bank account, because the transfer record is the only proof of payment a household will ever have.
A live-in arrangement is written, not assumed. The Code of Obligations treats board and lodging provided to a worker who lives in the employer's home as part of the terms, and the contract sets out the room, the shared facilities, meals, the hours that are working hours and the hours that are the worker's own, the rest day, and how availability outside working hours, for a night-time care need for example, is counted and paid. Our note on employment contracts in Turkey covers the general drafting points; for a household the two provisions that prevent most disputes are the working-time schedule and the description of the care tasks.
Social security: registering the worker as a household employer
A household that employs a domestic worker for ten or more days in a month is an employer for social insurance purposes and registers the worker with the SGK under the simplified procedure the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law created for domestic work, through e-Devlet or the SGK directorate, without the monthly declarations a company files; the SGK calculates the premium on the declared wage, which for a foreign worker is at least the minimum wage, and the household pays it monthly. For a foreign worker the registration is also the condition of the permit, because the Ministry checks the SGK record when the permit is activated and again at renewal, and a gap between the permit's start date and the registration is the most common reason a renewal is refused.
Registration gives the worker what any employee has: health coverage under general health insurance for themselves and their dependants, sickness and maternity benefits, work accident and occupational disease protection, and pension contributions that count in Turkey and, where a social security agreement with the worker's country exists, are added to periods completed at home. A worker sent to a Turkish household by an employer abroad is rare in domestic work, so the posting exemptions that apply to company staff seldom arise; the worker is insured in Turkey. Our note on social security rights in Turkey covers what the record gives the worker and how gaps are repaired.
The household's exposure is the same as any employer's. An unregistered or under-declared worker produces back premiums with surcharges and administrative fines when the SGK inspects, and a service detection lawsuit by the worker within five years of the end of the year in which the work took place; a work accident in the home, a fall on the stairs or an injury lifting a patient, must be reported to the SGK within three working days, and an unregistered accident is charged to the household. Where the household cannot administer this itself, a power of attorney to a Turkish representative covers the SGK registration, the monthly payments and the Ministry filings; a family abroad that employs a caregiver for a parent in Turkey runs the file this way. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Privacy, cameras and health information in the home
The Personal Data Protection Law (Kişisel Verilerin Korunması Kanunu) exempts processing carried out by natural persons for activities entirely related to themselves or their family in the same household, and whether a household's handling of its employee's data falls within that exemption is not settled; the safe course, and the one we follow, is to treat the worker's identity, permit, bank and health details as personal data, keep them only for the employment and the SGK and tax records, and tell the worker in writing what is kept and why. Health information about the person cared for is the worker's working material, not the worker's data, and the family decides what the worker may share with doctors, emergency services or others.
Cameras are where households go wrong. A camera in common areas, installed for security and disclosed to the worker in the contract, is defensible; a hidden camera, or a camera in the worker's room or the bathroom, is not, and recording a person secretly in a home is an offence under the Penal Code whatever the purpose. Recordings are kept for a short, stated period and deleted, and they are not used as a general monitoring tool of the worker's day. In our practice the camera clause in the contract, naming the rooms and the purpose, is the provision that converts a potential criminal complaint into an accepted term of employment.
Screening before hiring follows the same proportionality. References about the care work, certificates in first aid or care, and a criminal record certificate the worker chooses to provide are legitimate; questions about religion, ethnicity or political views are not, and the Code of Obligations' duty to protect the worker's personality extends to the hiring stage. Documents gathered for the decision are returned or deleted once it is made.
Ending the employment: notice, final payments and the permit
Where the household ends an indefinite contract, it gives the notice the Code of Obligations requires for the worker's length of service, or pays the wage for that period in lieu, and pays accrued wages, overtime, unused annual leave and any amount the contract promises on exit; where the Labour Law applies because the work was care, the Labour Law's longer notice periods and severance pay after one year of service apply instead, and a termination without valid reason exposes the household to the Labour Law's compensation. Where the worker's conduct makes continuation unreasonable, theft, violence or abandonment of a dependant, the contract is terminated for just cause without notice, in writing, promptly and with the facts recorded, because the household will have to prove them.
Under the Code of Obligations a termination that abuses the right, for example in retaliation for a complaint, carries compensation of three times the wage for the notice period, and an immediate termination without just cause can lead to compensation of up to six months' wages at the court's discretion; a worker who leaves without notice owes the household a quarter of a month's wage and any further loss proved. A settlement at the end of the employment is written in both languages, lists each item paid, and does not ask the worker to waive rights the law treats as non-waivable; a release signed for an amount that was not actually paid is worth nothing.
The permit side runs in parallel: the household notifies the Ministry within fifteen days, the SGK exit declaration is filed with the correct reason code, and the worker is given the documents they need, the contract, payslips, the SGK statement and a reference, because their next permit or residence application depends on them. A worker whose permit ends has a short period in which to leave Turkey or obtain another status, and a household that wants to help a departing worker stay lawfully in Turkey does so by timing the termination so that the next application can be filed, not by keeping a permit alive for work that has ended.
Disputes: mediation and the labour court
Claims between a household and a domestic worker for wages, overtime, leave, notice and compensation go to the labour court (İş Mahkemesi), whose jurisdiction covers service contracts under the Code of Obligations as well as Labour Law employment, and the claim must first pass through mandatory mediation, with the mediator's final report attached to the petition. Mediation suits household disputes, because the amounts are modest, the parties know each other, and a signed agreement is enforceable like a judgment; in our practice most household claims settle there once the documents are on the table.
The documents decide these cases. A household with a signed contract, a working-time schedule, bank transfers for each month, an SGK record from the first day and dated notes of any changes to the arrangement defends a claim from a position of strength; a household that paid cash, registered late and agreed changes orally is in the position the Court of Cassation describes in its domestic-work decisions, where the worker's account is accepted on witness evidence and the household's is not. The same documents are what the Ministry, the SGK and the Migration Management ask for when they examine the file for any other reason.
A foreign worker's complaint can also reach the authorities directly: a report to the SGK of unregistered work, a labour inspection following a complaint, or an application to the Migration Management when the worker claims exploitation, which in serious cases opens the human-trafficking and victim-protection framework. A household that has registered the worker, paid the declared wage through the bank and kept the contract's terms has nothing to fear from any of these; the households that do are the ones that treated the permit as the end of the compliance rather than its beginning. Our practice page on the Turkish labour and employment lawyer covers representation in these disputes.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I get a work permit for a foreign housekeeper or cleaner? No. The Ministry grants domestic-service permits for the care of a child, an elderly, disabled or sick person; an application whose content is housekeeping or cleaning alone is refused.
- Does the worker need a separate residence permit? Not while the work permit is valid: a valid work permit serves as a residence permit under the International Workforce Law. The worker registers their address at the household's home, and the household notifies the Ministry when the employment ends.
- Can we apply while the worker is in Turkey on a tourist visa? No. An in-country application requires a residence permit valid for at least six months; otherwise the worker applies for a work visa at a Turkish consulate and the household completes the application with the consular reference number.
- Which law governs the contract, and is severance pay due? Housekeeping is a service contract under the Code of Obligations, with two to six weeks' notice and no statutory severance. The Court of Cassation has treated the care of a sick or elderly person, and in decisions concerning nannies the care of a child, as work within the Labour Law, where severance pay after one year applies.
- How is a domestic worker registered with the SGK? The household registers as a household employer under the simplified domestic-work procedure, through e-Devlet or the SGK directorate, and pays the monthly premium on the declared wage, which for a foreign worker is at least the minimum wage; registration must be in place within the activation period of the permit.
- Can I install cameras at home? Cameras in common areas, disclosed in the contract and used for security, are defensible; hidden cameras or cameras in the worker's room are not, and secret recording in a home is an offence. Keep recordings briefly and delete them.
- Where does a dispute with a domestic worker go? To mandatory mediation and then the labour court, whose jurisdiction covers Code of Obligations service contracts; the household's contract, bank transfers and SGK record decide the case.
Author: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu, Managing Partner, ER&GUN&ER Law Firm, Istanbul Bar No. 67874. He advises foreign and Turkish households on work permits for caregivers and domestic workers, service contracts under the Code of Obligations, SGK registration, terminations and labour court claims, and represents families living abroad through powers of attorney. 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: labour law in Turkey.