Somebody has to sign the declaration. It matters who.
Every consignment entering Türkiye is declared to customs by a named party who carries the consequences of that declaration — the duty, the penalty and the record. Most foreign companies discover this after the goods have shipped.
To import into Türkiye you need a party that is registered here and willing to be named as the importer on the customs declaration. That can be your own Turkish entity, your distributor, or a service provider acting on your behalf. The declaration itself is filed by a licensed customs broker — not by you.
What we do is decide which of those routes fits your product and your commercial intent, then run it: classification, valuation, permits, declaration, storage and onward delivery, under one contract with one point of contact.
The importer of record is a legal position, not a job title.
Turkish customs does not deal with a brand. It deals with a taxpayer who has a tax number, an address and liability. Whoever is named as the importer owes the duty and the VAT, answers for the classification, and is the party the administration writes to three years later if something was wrong.
This is where market-entry plans quietly break. A company decides to test the market by shipping a pallet, then finds there is nobody in Türkiye who can legally receive it. The freight forwarder can move it. The broker can declare it. Neither of them will be the importer.
Your own Turkish entity
Setup time and a permanent structure that carries its own closing cost. In return, full control of pricing and customer relationships.
Most controlYour distributor
Fastest and cheapest to start. You also hand over the customer, the price point and the market data. Hard to reverse once done.
Least controlA provider acting for you
Keeps the customer relationship with you and avoids a permanent entity. Requires a written allocation of customs liability that both sides can stand behind.
What we doLegal basisCustoms Law No. 4458, Resmî Gazete of 4 November 1999, No. 23866. Representation before customs, and the conditions for acting as a customs broker, are governed by the same law.
and which ministry has to approve it.
Everything hangs on one number.
Türkiye classifies goods under a GTİP — Gümrük Tarife İstatistik Pozisyonu — a twelve-digit code. Your supplier already knows the first six. The rest are set here, and they carry the money.
The last four digits are where the money is. Two products that look identical in a catalogue can sit under different codes and face different obligations. One may clear in days; the other may need a ministry approval nobody planned for.
A wrong GTİP is not a clerical error. It is an understated tax liability that stays open for years.
Why we start with the code, not the shipmentAn underpaid duty does not close when the container is emptied. It sits with the importer of record, and it is the importer — not the forwarder and not the broker — who receives the assessment when a later review reopens the file.
So we treat classification as the first commercial decision rather than a paperwork step at the end. The same code that determines your duty also tells us how much of your product already enters Türkiye, from where and through which route — which is where an Opportunity Scan begins.
We run the process.
We do not sign the declaration.
Filing a customs declaration in Türkiye is a licensed activity. A gümrük müşaviri holds a permit issued under Law No. 4458 and files in their own name, under their own authorisation, with their own liability. This cannot be delegated by contract.
yobiT runs the customs process and is answerable for the outcome under your contract with us. Declarations and any other act reserved to a licensed profession are filed by our licensed customs broker partners, in their name, as the law requires.
We say this plainly because you will see it on the first declaration anyway. A provider who implies otherwise has either misdescribed the arrangement or not read the law — and you would find out at the worst possible moment.
The invoice price is the first line, not the cost.
These are the components, not the proportions. The split depends on your GTİP, your Incoterms and your route — which is exactly why we build it per product rather than quoting a percentage. The two marked in orange are set by the code you were classified under.
What sits under this capability.
Seven areas. Most companies start with the first three and add the rest when goods actually begin to move.
- 01
Classification and GTİP determination
Establishing the twelve-digit code for each product, the duty rate that follows from it, and the permits or supervision regimes it triggers. Documented, so it can be defended later.
- 02
Import model and importer of record
Choosing between your own entity, a distributor and a provider acting for you — then writing the liability allocation that makes the chosen route survive an inspection.
- 03
Landed cost
Goods, freight, insurance, duty, VAT, handling and inland transport, built up line by line. This is the number your Turkish price list depends on.
- 04
Declaration and clearance
Filed by licensed customs brokers, coordinated and monitored by us against the classification and valuation set out in advance.
- 05
Origin, valuation and trade compliance
Preferential origin claims, customs value, related-party pricing, sanctions screening, and the document trail behind each of them.
- 06
Free zones
Whether a free zone earns its place in your flow, or simply adds a handling step. Governed by Free Zones Law No. 3218.
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Transit
Moving goods through Türkiye without entering free circulation.
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Questions we are actually asked.
Taken from first conversations with manufacturers, traders and sourcing companies. Where we do not have a defensible answer yet, we say so.
Can we import into Türkiye without setting up a company here?
Yes, but not by yourselves. Someone registered in Türkiye has to be named as the importer. That is normally either a distributor who buys the goods from you, or a service provider who imports on your behalf under a written arrangement. Both are used routinely. The difference is commercial: a distributor takes ownership of the goods and usually of the customer; a provider does not.
What you cannot do is appear on the declaration yourselves without any Turkish registration.
Our supplier already gave us an HS code. Is that enough?
It is the first six digits of twelve. The HS code is agreed internationally and your supplier's version is usually right at that level. The remaining six digits are set by the EU nomenclature and then by Türkiye, and they carry the duty rate and the permit requirements. We confirm the full GTİP before anything ships.
Who is liable if the classification turns out to be wrong?
The importer of record owes the underpaid duty and any penalty. The broker who filed carries professional liability for the filing itself. Where we have determined the classification, our engagement terms set out what we are answerable for — that allocation is written down before work starts, not after a problem appears.
We cannot remove the liability from the importer. Nobody can. What we can do is make the classification defensible and documented, so that a later review finds a reasoned position rather than a guess.
How long does clearance take?
It depends on the regime, the product, whether a permit or ministry approval is involved, and whether the consignment is selected for examination. Quoting a single figure for customs clearance in Türkiye would be misleading, so we do not. We give you a timeline for your product, your route and your documents once we have classified it.
Can you hold our stock in Türkiye without importing it?
Goods can be held in a customs warehouse — an antrepo — under customs supervision, with duty and VAT suspended until they are released into free circulation. Whether that fits your case depends on where the goods are going next and how long they will sit.
This connects to a wider question about holding and re-selling stock from Türkiye that we are currently taking formal tax advice on. We will publish the detail when we have that advice, not before.
Do you file the declarations yourselves?
No. Declarations are filed by licensed customs brokers under Law No. 4458. We run the process around them — classification, documents, timing, storage, onward delivery — and we are answerable to you for the result under our contract.
Legislation named on this page: Customs Law No. 4458 and Free Zones Law No. 3218. The Official Gazette date and issue for each is on the key figures page, read at source rather than restated here — a citation does not change, but a copy of the law goes stale.
Warehousing & Fulfillment
Where the goods go once they have cleared, and in what customs status.
Opportunity Scan
What the trade data says about your GTİP before you commit to a route.
Governance
Our licensed partners, what we are answerable for, and what we are not.