A presence in Türkiye. Without building an organisation for it.
Most companies that need to be present in Türkiye do not need a Turkish organisation. They need a team, an address, physical capability and somebody who answers when an authority writes. Those are different things, and the second list is far cheaper to end.
You can have a working presence in Türkiye — people, address, coordination, physical operations, someone dealing with authorities — arranged so that ending it is a contract date rather than a liquidation.
Whether that presence can also sell and invoice depends on the structure. We will tell you which one your plan needs, including when the honest answer is your own entity.
Four different things, one word.
When a company says it needs an office in Türkiye, it usually means one of four things — and the four have very different costs, obligations and exits. Conflating them is how companies end up with a registered entity when what they needed was a person.
- 01
An address
Somewhere to register, receive post and appear on documents. Cheap, available from coworking providers, and close to worthless on its own — nothing happens because a letter arrives at an address.
- 02
A person who acts
Somebody who opens that letter, understands what it demands, meets the supplier, visits the warehouse and tells you what they actually saw. This is what most companies are really asking for.
- 03
Physical capability
Goods arriving, clearing customs, being stored in the right customs status and moving on. An address does not move a pallet.
- 04
The right to sell and invoice
This one needs a structure that is permitted to trade. It is the only item on this list that a liaison office cannot deliver — and the item companies most often assume comes free with the others.
It does not answer them.
The liaison office is better than its reputation.
A liaison office is permitted under Foreign Direct Investment Law No. 4875 with ministry permission. It can represent you, research the market, coordinate with suppliers and customers, and employ the people doing that. What it cannot do is sell, invoice or generate income in Türkiye.
Two reasons. The first is that it does not fit a provider's incentive: a liaison office generates a fraction of the fees a company setup does, so it is rarely the structure that gets recommended.
The second is that salaries of liaison office staff paid in foreign currency from abroad are exempt from income tax under Income Tax Law article 23/14. That is a real advantage, and it is not widely explained because explaining it tends to talk the client out of something more expensive.
The limit is genuine, though. If your plan involves selling, invoicing or importing in your own name, a liaison office is the wrong structure — and running commercial activity through one is among the quickest ways to convert a cautious decision into a finding.
A team that is yours in every way that matters.
Recruitment, employee administration and work permit coordination, so that the people working on your Türkiye operation are selected for your requirements and accountable for your outcomes — without you carrying the fixed cost of an organisation you will not need in three years.
Work permits for expatriates are applied for under International Labour Law No. 6735. Whether you need an expatriate at all is usually the better first question.
On the employment side we are deliberately careful with terminology. Employer-of-record models are marketed for Türkiye, and we do not describe our arrangement that way. What holds up here is a service relationship where we deliver a defined outcome with our own organisation — not one where a payroll is held for staff who, in substance, work under your direction. We are taking formal advice on exactly where that line sits and will publish it when we have it.
A contract date, not a liquidation.
This is the part that distinguishes a presence from an entity. If the operation sits inside our structure, it ends when the contract ends — no liquidation, no statutory waiting period, no closure filing of yours to trigger a tax review.
If you built your own entity, ending it is a project of several months with personal exposure for whoever runs it. Both are legitimate choices. They are just very different at the end, and almost nobody raises that at the beginning.
What companies ask about presence.
Including the one about employer of record, which we answer more carefully than the market usually does.
Can we have people in Türkiye without a Turkish company?
There are routes, and which one applies depends on what those people will actually do. A liaison office can employ staff for representation and coordination. Work that amounts to selling, invoicing or generating income here needs a structure that is allowed to do that.
The question that matters is not the label on the arrangement. It is what the person does, whose instructions they follow and whose business benefits — because that is what an inspection looks at.
Is this an EOR arrangement?
No, and we are careful about the term. Employer-of-record models are common in other markets and are marketed for Türkiye too. Our position is that the safe structure here is a service relationship where we deliver a defined outcome with our own organisation — not one where we hold a payroll for staff who are, in substance, working under your direction.
We are taking formal legal advice on where exactly that line sits and will publish the detail when we have it. Until then we would rather describe the arrangement accurately than borrow a label that sells better.
What can a liaison office actually do?
Represent you, research the market, coordinate with suppliers and customers, and support your people when they visit. What it cannot do is sell, invoice or generate income in Türkiye. Permission comes from the ministry under Foreign Direct Investment Law No. 4875.
Salaries of liaison office staff paid in foreign currency from abroad carry an income tax exemption under Income Tax Law article 23/14. That is a genuine advantage and one reason the structure is underused.
Do you provide the address as well?
An address is the easy part and on its own it is close to worthless. What makes a presence real is somebody who opens the post, answers the authority's letter, meets the supplier and tells you what they saw. We provide that, and the address comes with it.
If all you need is a registered address, several coworking providers do that well and more cheaply than we would.
How long does a work permit take for our expatriate?
It depends on the role, the applicant's nationality and documents, and the employing structure. Applications are made under International Labour Law No. 6735. We give you a timeline for your case once we have the facts rather than quoting an average that may not apply to you.
The more useful question at this stage is usually whether you need the expatriate at all, or whether the role can be filled locally faster and at lower cost.
What happens when the project ends?
If the presence was built inside our structure, it ends when the contract ends. There is no entity to liquidate, no statutory waiting period and no closure filing of yours to trigger a tax review.
If you built your own entity, the exit is a real project with its own timetable. That difference is worth weighing at the start rather than at the end.
Legislation named on this page: Foreign Direct Investment Law No. 4875 and International Labour Force Law No. 6735. 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.
Enter Türkiye
The four decisions that come before the structure — including whether to enter at all.
Twelve capabilities
People, goods, obligations and operations. Use the ones you need.
Governance
What we are answerable for, and the arrangements we decline.