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Three decisions that shape every Turkey hire
Three things to decide before you hire in Turkey
Before you extend an offer to a Turkish candidate, three decisions will shape everything that follows.ย
First, decide whether an EOR is the right vehicle or whether entity setup makes sense for your headcount and timeline. For most companies hiring one to a handful of people, an EOR is the faster and lower-risk path.ย
Second, understand what Turkey's employer obligations actually cost: the statutory employer contribution sits at 22.5% of gross salary on top of whatever you agree to pay, payroll runs monthly, and Turkey's progressive income tax means your employee's net pay will decrease month over month as cumulative earnings rise unless you account for it.ย
Third, decide how quickly you need to move. Oyster compresses the time from decision to compliant hire to roughly 48 hours. None of these decisions need to be made alone, and none of the compliance obligations need to be managed manually.
One nuance worth flagging before you finalize an offer: Turkey's progressive income tax is calculated on cumulative year-to-date earnings. As the year progresses, your employee's monthly net pay will fall even if their gross salary stays flat. Many employers in Turkey incrementally increase monthly gross salary across the year to keep net pay consistent. Oyster surfaces this dynamic proactively so it doesn't become a surprise conversation in October. US, UK, and Spain-based companies are among the most active employers of Turkish talent through Oyster.
What hiring in Turkey actually looks like
A real scenario for your first Turkish hire
You have found a senior software engineer in Istanbul. You do not have a Turkish entity. Your finance lead is asking how much this hire actually costs, and your legal team has no Turkey expertise.
Here is what happens the moment you decide to hire. You need to register for payroll in Turkey, run a monthly payroll cycle, contribute 22.5% of gross salary on top of whatever you agreed to pay, enroll the employee in social security under Law No. 5510, administer maternity and severance provisions from day one, and manage the progressive income tax withholding that will reduce your employee's net pay as the year progresses. If your hire is a foreign national, you also need to navigate Law No. 6735 for work permit coordination. An employer of record steps in as the legal employer on record in Turkey, taking on every one of these obligations while you retain full day-to-day direction of the work. Oyster compresses this entire setup into a guided onboarding workflow that takes roughly 48 hours from contract to active employee record.
What a Turkey EOR does for your team
How an EOR legally employs your Turkish hire
An employer of record is a third party that becomes the legal employer of your hire, taking on payroll, tax filing, benefits administration, and compliance obligations under Turkish law while you retain day-to-day management of the person's work.
In practice, this means the EOR signs the employment contract, registers the employee with Turkish social security authorities, runs monthly payroll with all statutory deductions applied, and handles every compliance obligation under Labor Law No. 4857. You direct the work. The EOR carries the legal and administrative weight. This structure is legal in Turkey. Turkish law does not prohibit third-party employment arrangements, and EOR structures are an established route for foreign companies accessing Turkish talent without a local entity.
Who can be an employer of record? Any organization that holds the legal capacity to employ workers in a given country and takes on the associated employer obligations. The quality of that organization, its local expertise, and whether it owns its own entity in Turkey rather than relying on sub-contractors, matters enormously for your compliance exposure.
EOR versus entity setup in Turkey
Setting up a Turkish legal entity gives you full control and can become cost-effective at scale, but it carries significant lead time and ongoing administrative overhead. Entity setup in Turkey requires roughly 2 to 4 weeks to complete, plus ongoing accounting, tax compliance, and corporate governance obligations once you are operational.
An EOR lets you hire in weeks rather than months. Oyster's onboarding workflow gets a new Turkish hire from signed contract to active payroll in as little as 48 hours, without you chasing documents across email threads. EOR is the appropriate route when you are hiring one to a handful of people and want to test the market before committing to a permanent structure. Entity setup is a later-stage decision, not a first-hire decision. The two paths are not mutually exclusive: many companies start with an EOR and transition to an entity once headcount justifies the investment.
Why foreign companies use an EOR to hire in Turkey
The employer of record in Turkey is the entity that holds legal employment responsibility for your hire under Turkish law, managing payroll, statutory contributions, and compliance on your behalf.
Three situations drive most companies to an EOR for Turkey hiring.ย
First, no local entity exists and setting one up is not yet justified by headcount. Second, speed matters: a competitive candidate will not wait months for entity setup to complete. Third, compliance risk is high without local expertise. Turkey's 22.5% employer contribution, monthly payroll obligations, mandatory severance rules, and progressive income tax structure create real exposure. Employers who manage these without country-specific knowledge take on unnecessary risk. An EOR helps manage and mitigate all three of these risks, with compliance responsibilities and cost allocation defined by Oyster's Terms and the applicable service agreement. Oyster is the only B Corp-certified EOR, which means fair employment practices are built into the product, not added as a marketing claim.
Turkish labor laws your EOR manages for you
Employment contracts and probationary periods in Turkey
Employment contracts in Turkey must include employer and employee names and addresses, job title and description, and salary and payment schedule. Benefits must also be specified. Contracts must be in Turkish, and written contracts are strongly recommended and in practice are standard. The probationary period in Turkey is two months. During probation, either party may terminate the employment relationship without severance. After probation, full statutory protections apply. Oyster's in-house legal specialists review every Turkish employment contract and monitor Turkish Labor Code changes so your agreements stay current without you monitoring Turkish legislation.
Working hours and overtime rules in Turkey
Turkish labor law sets a maximum working week of 45 hours, and no single day may exceed 11 hours. Hours can be distributed unevenly across the week provided the daily cap is respected. Employees cannot opt out of these restrictions. Overtime is paid at 150% of regular salary for hours over 45 per week; hours worked on weekends are paid at 200%. These thresholds are statutory and cannot be contracted away. An EOR tracks these obligations in payroll calculations automatically.
Statutory leave and maternity rights in Turkey
Turkey's main employee benefits include paid annual leave, maternity leave, and several personal leave entitlements that are statutory floors, not employer discretionary benefits.
Paid annual leave is available to employees with at least one year of tenure. Employees over 50 automatically receive 20 days of paid leave. Maternity leave runs up to 16 weeks at full pay, typically split into 8 weeks before and 8 weeks after birth, with a minimum of 3 weeks required before the due date. Employees are also entitled to marriage leave and bereavement leave. An EOR ensures all of these entitlements are administered correctly from day one, including the tenure-based leave calculation that catches first-time Turkey hirers off guard.
Severance pay rules every Turkey employer must know
Employees in Turkey with at least one year of continuous employment are entitled to a severance payment when their employment ends under qualifying circumstances. The rate is 30 days of gross salary for each full year of employment. The severance payment is capped at 6,730.15 TRY per annum. This cap applies per year of service, which means longer-tenured employees can accumulate significant obligations over time.
Severance is distinct from notice periods. An EOR calculates and administers severance correctly so you are not exposed to claims after a termination. Oyster charges no termination fees of its own on top of statutory obligations, and the platform tracks severance liability from day one of employment so there are no surprises at offboarding.
Payroll taxes and employer contributions in Turkey
Regulatory compliance for payroll in Turkey means correctly calculating, withholding, and remitting all statutory contributions on the required schedule, with no gaps that create employer liability.
The employer contribution rate is 22.5% of gross salary, governed by Law No. 5510. Employee taxes are deducted monthly from gross salary based on cumulative year-to-date pay. As cumulative earnings rise, the applicable tax rate rises and net salary falls. This is the progressive income tax effect that surprises first-time Turkey hirers: your employee's take-home pay in December will be lower than in January even if their gross salary has not changed. The common employer practice is to incrementally increase monthly gross salary to keep employee net pay consistent across the year. Payroll is monthly in Turkey. An EOR handles all tax withholding, social security filings, and remittances on your behalf.
Work permits and foreign national hiring in Turkey
Law No. 6735 governs the employment of foreign nationals in Turkey, covering work permit applications, vocational training requirements, and cross-border service providers.
Foreign employees applying for or actively working in Turkey need a work permit under this law. Law No. 5510 includes a carve-out for foreign workers on short assignments. It applies to assignments of no more than three months with documented home-country social security coverage. An EOR manages work permit coordination and monitors compliance with both laws so you are not navigating Turkish immigration rules alone. Oyster's in-house specialists handle this directly rather than outsourcing to third-party advisors, which matters when timelines are tight and questions need fast answers.
IP protection and non-compete agreements in Turkey
Non-compete agreements in Turkey must be defined in writing, be reasonably limited in scope and geography, and cannot exceed two years. Unlike some jurisdictions, Turkish law does not require the employer to make any payment to the former employee to enforce the agreement. EOR-issued contracts include IP assignment clauses and properly scoped non-compete provisions as standard. Oyster's legal team reviews all agreements rather than generating them from a template library without review, which is the difference between a contract that holds up and one that creates exposure.
The workforce in Turkey and what you can expect
Why global teams hire in Turkey
Turkey's workforce of over 85 million includes a large and growing technology and engineering talent pool, particularly concentrated in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. The UTC+3 time zone sits comfortably within European business hours and overlaps meaningfully with Middle Eastern markets, giving distributed teams genuine flexibility. Many Turkish professionals are bilingual in Turkish and English, and cultural familiarity with European business practices is common among the technology and finance talent that international companies most often seek.
Oyster platform data identifies US, UK, and Spanish companies as frequent Turkey hirers, confirming Turkey as a proven remote hiring destination rather than an emerging experiment. When benchmarking compensation, account for the progressive income tax effect on net salary: the gross figure you agree to in January will produce a different net outcome in December, and candidates who have worked with international employers will notice.
How to choose the right Turkey EOR for your team
Four criteria that separate good Turkey EOR providers
Turkey's layered regulatory environment means EOR provider depth of local expertise matters more than platform aesthetics. Use these four criteria when evaluating any provider, including Oyster.
First, does the provider own a Turkish legal entity or rely on sub-contractors? Sub-contractor networks add a compliance layer between you and Turkish labor law. Second, does it employ in-house Turkey compliance specialists or outsource legal review? In-house specialists catch changes before they become your problem. Third, is pricing flat and fully disclosed before signing? Variable or tiered pricing makes total cost hard to forecast, which creates friction with your finance team. Fourth, does it offer a dedicated contact or a shared support queue? When a compliance question arises at 4pm on a Thursday before a payroll cutoff, the answer to that question determines whether you have a partner or a platform. The next section covers what full Turkey compliance actually requires in practice.
How Oyster keeps your Turkey hires compliant
What compliance looks like when you hire in Turkey
Full Turkey compliance requires legally valid employment contracts in Turkish and correct payroll registration. Monthly social security remittances at the 22.5% employer rate are also mandatory. Accurate progressive income tax withholding and severance liability tracking from day one are required. Work permit monitoring for foreign hires and year-end tax filings complete the obligation set. Any single gap creates employer liability.
Oyster manages each item through a combination of platform automation and in-house legal specialists. Agreements are legally reviewed, not auto-generated. Oyster's compliance team monitors Turkish Labor Code changes and updates contract templates before regulatory deadlines, not after. Turkey's Labor Code has been subject to ongoing amendments, and the progressive income tax structure, severance cap adjustments, and social security contribution rates can change with each budget cycle. Staying current requires active monitoring, not a one-time setup.
Transparent EOR pricing for your Turkey hires
Turkey EOR pricing is flat with no termination fees
EOR pricing typically includes a platform fee per employed individual per month and may or may not include add-on charges for onboarding, offboarding, or compliance support. Oyster's model is flat pricing with no termination fees and no hidden charges. For a precise quote, visit oysterhr.com/pricing or Book a Demo and we will walk through total cost for your specific situation.
One important distinction: the statutory employer contributions (22.5% of gross salary in Turkey) are separate from EOR platform fees. They are a pass-through, not a margin item for Oyster. When your finance lead asks what this hire actually costs, the answer is gross salary plus 22.5% plus the Oyster platform fee. No asterisks, no hidden fees.
How fast you can hire in Turkey with Oyster
From offer accepted to first payroll in Turkey
Oyster's onboarding workflow gets a new Turkish hire from signed contract to active payroll in as little as 48 hours. Here is how it works.
- Submit hire details in the Oyster platform
- Oyster generates a legally reviewed Turkish employment contract
- Employee signs digitally in the platform
- Oyster registers employment with Turkish social security authorities
- Payroll runs on the next monthly cycle with all statutory deductions applied
Oyster surfaces Turkey-specific onboarding checklists inside the platform, covering document requirements, right-to-work verification, and mandatory benefit enrollment. The platform also surfaces Turkey's monthly payroll cutoff dates so you are not caught paying a partial month manually. Compare this to the multi-week entity setup route, and the time-to-hire difference is not marginal. It is the difference between a candidate who joins your team and one who accepts a competing offer.
How Oyster compares to other Turkey EOR providers
Oyster versus Deel for hiring in Turkey
When you are evaluating the two, three differences are worth examining based on publicly available information.
Oyster employs in-house Turkey compliance specialists rather than outsourcing legal review; when Turkish Labor Code changes, Oyster's team catches it before it affects your contracts. Oyster is B Corp certified, which means ethical employment practices are part of the product design, not a marketing add-on. And Oyster offers dedicated contacts rather than shared support queues, which matters when you need a fast answer on a compliance question rather than a ticket number. If you need a compliance partner who will flag a Turkish regulatory change before it becomes your problem, in-house expertise and a dedicated contact are the relevant criteria.
Oyster versus Remote and Rippling in Turkey
Vs Remote: Oyster provides dedicated contacts versus Remote's shared support model, and Oyster charges no termination fees of its own on top of statutory obligations.
Vs Rippling: Oyster is purpose-built for global employment rather than expanding from a US-centric HR platform. Turkey compliance depth reflects a global-first design, not a feature added to a domestic product.
Start hiring in Turkey with Oyster today
Book a demo and hire your first Turkish employee
After a demo, you will be able to see the onboarding workflow, review a sample Turkish employment contract, and get a clear view of total employer cost including the 22.5% statutory contribution.
A dedicated contact guides you through Turkey-specific requirements, and in-house specialists are available when questions go beyond the platform. Oyster covers 120+ countries from a single platform, so your Turkey hire sits in the same workflow as your broader global team, not a separate process.
