Social security rights in Turkey follow the record kept by the Social Security Institution (Sosyal Güvenlik Kurumu, SGK) under the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law: an employee is insured from the day the employer registers the employment, and every entitlement, from health coverage to a pension, is computed from the days and wages the employer has declared, not from what was agreed or paid in cash. This article explains who is covered, including foreign nationals, what general health insurance provides, what the employer must declare and when, how to read your own contribution record and repair gaps, which benefits follow a work accident, an illness or a birth, how retirement is calculated, and which remedies exist when the record and the reality diverge.
- Three insurance categories: employees (4/a), the self-employed and company partners (4/b), public servants (4/c).
- Foreign employees are insured like Turkish employees unless a social security agreement between Turkey and their country provides otherwise.
- Health coverage, sickness and maternity benefits, accident and disease protection and the pension all depend on declared days and wages.
- Unregistered work is repaired by administrative correction or, within five years, by a service detection lawsuit before the labour court.
Who is insured in Turkey, and under which category
The Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law (Sosyal Sigortalar ve Genel Sağlık Sigortası Kanunu) brought the former separate schemes into one Institution and three categories. Employees who work under an employment relationship are insured in the employee category, commonly called 4/a, and their employer registers them and pays the contributions. Self-employed people, tradesmen, partners of limited companies and board members of joint-stock companies who hold shares are insured in the self-employed category, 4/b, and pay their own contributions. Public servants are insured in the public category, 4/c. Insurance in these categories is compulsory; it does not depend on an application by the worker, and an employer cannot contract out of it by agreement with the employee.
Foreign nationals working in Turkey are insured on the same terms as Turkish nationals. Two exceptions matter in practice. A person sent to Turkey temporarily by an employer established abroad is exempt for a short statutory period, and a person covered by a bilateral social security agreement between Turkey and their home country is treated according to that agreement, which typically allows posted workers to remain in their home scheme for a defined period and allows periods worked in both countries to be added together for pension purposes. Turkey has such agreements with a number of European and other countries; the list and each agreement's terms are checked at the start of the employment, because the answer decides whether the Turkish employer must register the worker and whether the worker's home insurance continues. A foreign national who is self-employed in Turkey through a company is insured in the self-employed category once the work permit position is settled; our note on company formation and residence permits for foreign founders explains the link between the manager's work permit and the insurance.
A person who is not insured through work may, while lawfully resident in Turkey, join the voluntary insurance scheme and pay contributions to build pension rights, and may be brought within general health insurance as described below. Unemployment insurance is a separate branch administered with the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR), funded by a contribution that the employer declares together with the social insurance contributions, and paid to employees who lose their job without fault after a qualifying period. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Health coverage under general health insurance
General health insurance (genel sağlık sigortası) gives access to treatment in public hospitals and in contracted private providers, with the Institution paying the tariff and the patient paying the statutory contribution shares. An employee is covered from registration, and the coverage continues for a short period after the employment ends. The coverage extends to dependants: the spouse who is not insured in their own right, children under the age limits set by law, with higher limits for those in education, and parents whom the insured supports, where the conditions are met. Dependants are entered on the insured person's record by the Institution on the basis of the civil registry, and a foreign spouse or child is entered once their foreigner identity number and residence registration exist.
Foreign nationals who are not insured through work are in a different position. A foreign national who has held a residence permit for more than one year and is not covered by another scheme may be brought within general health insurance on application to the Institution, paying a monthly premium calculated on a base fixed by reference to the minimum wage; under current practice the application is tied to a period after the first year of residence, students and nationals of agreement countries follow separate rules, and a missed application may close the route for a long time. For most foreign residents who do not work in Turkey, private health insurance remains the practical cover, and it is also the insurance that the Migration Management requires for a residence permit application where general health insurance is not in place. In our practice the question is settled when the residence permit is first applied for, because the choice affects both the permit file and the cost of treatment for years. Practice may vary by authority and year.
The coverage status can be checked at any time through the e-Devlet portal, which shows whether the person is active for health services and under which basis. Coverage gaps most often appear at a change of employer, when the previous employer has reported the exit and the new employer has not yet reported the entry, and at a change of category, for example from employee to company partner. A check of the status before a planned treatment, a pregnancy or a surgery avoids discovering the gap at the hospital counter.
What the employer must declare, and when
The employer's obligations are the point at which rights are created or lost. Before the employee starts work, the employer files the employment entry declaration with the Institution; registration on the first day of work, rather than before it, already counts as late for most workplaces. Each month the employer files a combined declaration of withholding tax and social insurance contributions (muhtasar ve prim hizmet beyannamesi) to the tax authority and the Institution, listing each employee, the days worked and the gross wage on which contributions are calculated, and pays the employee's and the employer's shares of the contributions by the statutory date. When the employment ends, the employer files the exit declaration with the reason code, which determines the employee's entitlement to unemployment benefit and affects severance.
The wage declared must be the real wage. The practice of declaring the minimum wage and paying the balance in cash is common and unlawful; it reduces the employee's sickness, maternity and pension entitlements, exposes the employer to back contributions with penalties and surcharges, and is proven in disputes by bank records and witnesses. For foreign employees the Ministry of Labour and Social Security sets minimum wage levels by position as a condition of the work permit, and the wage declared to the Institution cannot fall below the level on which the permit was granted; the two records are compared.
Two further duties carry short deadlines. A work accident must be notified to the Institution within three working days of the accident, and to the police immediately where the law requires it; an occupational disease is notified within three working days of the employer learning of it. Late or missing notifications bring administrative fines and shift the cost of the benefits to the employer. Under the Occupational Health and Safety Law (İş Sağlığı ve Güvenliği Kanunu) the employer also keeps the risk assessment, training records and accident reports that the Institution and the labour inspectors examine after an accident. Our note on the documents required in an employee file lists the records the employer should hold for each employee.
Reading your record and repairing gaps
Every insured person can see their own record through e-Devlet: the service statement (hizmet dökümü) lists each employer, the registration number of the workplace, the months and days declared and the wage base, and the separate screens show the entry and exit declarations and the health coverage status. The record is what the Institution will use; the procedure for repairing it ordinarily runs as follows.
- Download and date the record. Save the service statement and the entry and exit declarations as dated documents, because the record can change and the history matters.
- Compare it with reality. Set the declared months and wages against the employment contract, the payslips, the bank transfers and any correspondence about hours and pay. Note every month that is missing, every month declared with fewer days than worked, and every wage declared below the wage paid.
- Ask the employer to correct it. An employer that is still active can file corrective declarations for past months, paying the contributions with the statutory surcharge. A written request, with the evidence, is made first and kept.
- Apply to the Institution. Where the employer refuses, the employee applies to the provincial directorate of the Institution with the evidence; the Institution may inspect the workplace and determine the service administratively, particularly where the employer filed an entry declaration or some declarations for the period.
- File a service detection lawsuit. Where the administrative route fails, the employee brings a service detection lawsuit (hizmet tespit davası) before the labour court (İş Mahkemesi) against the employer, with the Institution taking part in the case. The lawsuit must be filed within five years from the end of the year in which the work took place; this is a forfeiture period, applied by the court of its own motion, with narrow exceptions recognised in case law where the employer had declared the employee for part of the period. This type of case is not subject to mandatory mediation, so it is filed directly.
- Prove the work. The court admits every kind of evidence: contracts, payslips, bank transfers, messages, entry logs, labour inspection reports, and witnesses, preferably co-workers whose own records show them at the workplace in the same months. A claim resting on witnesses alone is weak; a claim resting on bank transfers and workplace records is strong.
In our files the five-year period is the point that decides most cases of unregistered work: an employee who waits until retirement to raise a gap from a decade earlier has ordinarily lost the court route, and only an active employer willing to correct the record voluntarily can help. For foreign employees the same rules apply, and the evidence of the work permit, the residence permit and the bank account into which the wage was paid is usually decisive. Our service page on the work permit in Turkey covers the permit side of a foreign employee's file.
Benefits after a work accident, an illness or a birth
The short-term insurance branches pay benefits when an insured event occurs. After a work accident or an occupational disease, the Institution pays a temporary incapacity benefit for each day the insured cannot work, covers the treatment, and, where a permanent loss of earning capacity is established by the Institution's health board, pays a permanent incapacity income; where the insured dies, the survivors receive an income. These benefits do not depend on a minimum contribution period, but they depend on the accident being an accident at work within the legal definition and on the notifications described above. An occupational disease is recognised only on the basis of a health board finding that links the disease to the work, which is why the employment and exposure history must be documented over years rather than reconstructed at the end.
Sickness benefit is paid from the third day of a medically certified incapacity for employees who have a minimum number of contribution days declared in the year before the illness; the medical report is issued by an authorised physician and transmitted electronically to the Institution, and the employer confirms that the employee did not work during the report period. Maternity benefit is paid for the statutory leave before and after the birth to insured women who meet a similar contribution condition, with a longer period for multiple births, and a breastfeeding allowance is paid as a lump sum. For all of these the amount is calculated from the declared wage, which is where an under-declared wage costs the employee directly.
Employees who cannot work for a longer period because of an illness or an injury unrelated to work may qualify for an invalidity pension where the Institution's health board finds a loss of working capacity above the statutory threshold and the contribution conditions are met. Disputes about the health board's findings are brought before the labour court with a fresh medical examination by a forensic or university board. In our practice the benefit files that fail are the ones where the medical report, the declared status and the employer's notification do not match in dates; the employee's own copies of reports and leave approvals are the cure. Our note on the definition of a workplace accident covers which incidents the Institution treats as accidents at work.
Retirement: how the pension is calculated and what foreigners can take with them
An old-age pension requires a combination of an insurance start date, a minimum number of contribution days and a minimum age, and the figures depend on the category and on the date the person was first insured, because the law has changed the conditions several times and each change applies from a date forward. The pension amount is then calculated from the declared wages over the career with the formula applicable to each period. For this reason no general figure can be given here; the person's own record, read with the rules that apply to their start date, is the only reliable basis, and the Institution issues a statement on request. Our note on termination of employment in Turkey explains how the exit reason code and the severance interact with retirement.
Foreign nationals accumulate pension rights in Turkey in the same way. Where a social security agreement exists, periods completed in Turkey and in the other country are added together to meet the minimum conditions, and each country pays the part of the pension that corresponds to its own periods. Where no agreement exists, the Turkish periods stand alone, and a foreign national who leaves Turkey without having reached the pension conditions can in defined cases ask for a lump-sum payment of the contributions paid into the long-term branches, or leave the record in place to be combined with later Turkish periods. The choice is made with the record in hand, because a lump-sum payment ends the entitlement for those periods.
Employers that declare employees correctly over the years are also protecting themselves: a retirement file that reveals under-declared wages or missing months from an employer still in business turns into a back-contribution assessment with surcharges and, where the employee sues, a service detection case in which the employer carries the burden of explaining its own records.
Disputes: objections to the Institution and the labour court
Decisions of the Institution that affect an insured person or an employer, such as a refusal of a benefit, a determination of contribution debt or an administrative fine, carry an objection period stated in the notice; the periods are short, counted in days, and differ by the type of decision. An objection is filed in writing with the provincial directorate that issued the decision, with the evidence attached; where the objection is refused, the dispute goes to the labour court for matters concerning insurance status, contributions and benefits, and to the administrative court for administrative fines after the Institution's objection commission has ruled. Employers who receive a contribution assessment following a workplace inspection respond within the same short periods and should treat the inspection report as the document the court will read first.
Before the labour court, claims by employees for wages, compensation and reinstatement must first go through mandatory mediation, and the mediator's final report is a condition of the lawsuit. Service detection lawsuits and claims arising from a work accident or an occupational disease are outside mandatory mediation and are filed directly. The labour court applies a simplified procedure; expert reports on the calculation of contributions or benefits are common; and the judgment is appealed to the Regional Court of Appeal and, where the law allows, to the Court of Cassation. Our note on employment contracts in Turkey covers the contract terms that these disputes usually turn on.
For a foreign employee the practical obstacle is rarely the law and usually the documents: the Institution and the court work in Turkish, the evidence from abroad must be translated, and a worker who has left Turkey runs the case through a lawyer holding a power of attorney issued before a notary abroad with an apostille or before a Turkish consulate. The record, the contract, the payslips and the bank statements are gathered before leaving the country, because they are far harder to obtain afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
- Are foreign employees in Turkey covered by SGK? Yes, on the same terms as Turkish employees, unless a social security agreement with their home country keeps them in their home scheme for a period or they are sent to Turkey temporarily by a foreign employer for a short statutory period.
- How do I check my social security record? Through the e-Devlet portal: the service statement shows each employer, the declared days and the wage base; separate screens show entry and exit declarations and the health coverage status. Save dated copies.
- My employer paid part of my salary in cash and declared the minimum wage. What can I do? Ask the employer in writing to correct the declarations; if it refuses, apply to the Institution and, within five years from the end of the year of the work, file a service detection lawsuit before the labour court with bank records and witnesses.
- Does a service detection lawsuit require mediation first? No. Unlike wage and compensation claims, service detection lawsuits and work accident claims are filed directly before the labour court.
- What happens if a work accident is not reported? The employer must notify the Institution within three working days. Late or missing notification brings administrative fines and can shift the cost of the benefits to the employer, while the employee's benefit claim is examined on the evidence of the accident.
- Can a foreign resident who does not work get general health insurance? A foreign national with more than one year of lawful residence who is not insured elsewhere may apply to be covered by general health insurance against a premium based on the minimum wage, within the period that current practice allows; otherwise private health insurance is the cover, and it is also what the residence permit requires.
- Can I receive a Turkish pension if I return to my country? Yes, once the conditions are met, and under a social security agreement Turkish and foreign periods are added together. A person who leaves before meeting the conditions may in defined cases request a lump-sum payment of the long-term contributions, which ends the entitlement for those periods.
- How long does the health coverage continue after I leave a job? For a short statutory period after the exit declaration, after which coverage depends on a new registration, on a dependant status or on an application for general health insurance.
Author: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu, Managing Partner, ER&GUN&ER Law Firm, Istanbul Bar No. 67874. He advises foreign employees, foreign-owned employers and company partners on social insurance registration and contributions, benefit claims before the Social Security Institution, service detection and work accident cases before the labour courts, and the coordination of Turkish and foreign insurance periods. 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.