Foreign Staff Employment Conditions:
Employer's Guide

General Framework: Which Law Binds Whom?

In Türkiye, a company’s ability to employ foreign nationals is regulated within the framework of International Labour Law No. 6735 and its related regulations. This legislation sets out which employer can employ foreign staff under which conditions, how the application will be assessed, and in which situations different rules come into play.

The first point worth underlining here: in a work permit, the applying party is legally the employer — not the foreign employee. In other words, when you talk about “my employee’s work permit,” what is actually being discussed is an application you (as the employer) make in your company’s name. This principle directly shapes how the rest of the process is built: the party that must meet the eligibility criteria and the party that follows up on the application are both the employer. (For the general flow of the application process: Foreign Work Permit Application: Process and What to Know.)

The second important point is that this framework is not a single, uniform set of rules. The law draws a general baseline, but different assessment criteria and exceptions specific to the sector, the size of the business, and in some cases the profession, are added on top of that baseline. The purpose of this article is to summarize this general framework and the existence of exceptions from the employer’s perspective — as you’ll see below, exact numerical thresholds and full criteria tables aren’t given here, because they’re both updated frequently and vary according to your business’s specific situation.

The General Conditions the Employer Must Meet

When a company’s application to employ foreign staff is assessed, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security broadly looks at a few axes:

• Headcount criterion: the general rule is that the business must employ a certain number of insured Turkish citizens for each foreign employee it takes on.
• Capital / turnover / export criterion: the business’s paid-in capital, gross sales turnover, or last year’s export figure — financial indicators like these — are expected to meet certain thresholds.
• Fit with the sector and position: the position applied for needs to be consistent with the business’s field of activity and with the foreign employee’s qualifications (education, experience, expertise).

The concrete numbers behind these three axes — how many Turkish employees, which capital amount, which turnover threshold — are updated over time and carry sub-breakdowns that differ according to the business’s size, year of establishment, and sector. In this article we deliberately don’t give a full threshold table; which criterion and which threshold applies to your business is a matter that must be assessed case by case, against current legislation.

There is a separate assessment regime for newly established or small-scale businesses — this is another sign that the general rule isn’t applied uniformly. Which category your company falls into is assessed together with its date of establishment and current financial statements.

Sector-Based Exceptions: One Rule Doesn’t Fit All

It should be known that the general headcount criterion (a certain number of Turkish employees required for each foreign employee) is relaxed or works differently in some sectors. The best-known example of this is the exception recognized for businesses certified by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism: businesses of this kind that employ a certain number of Turkish citizens may, under certain conditions, be exempted from the general employment-ratio condition.

Alongside this, the legislation also contains separate exceptions specific to certain professional groups — for example, a different assessment regime may apply to foreign staff who will work in certain health/wellness fields (such as masseurs or therapists). The scope of these exceptions — which certified businesses and which positions they cover — is updated from time to time.

The main message here is this: the conditions for employing foreign staff aren’t a single fixed table, but a framework made up of a general rule plus sector- or profession-based exceptions. A business owner generalizing that “we’re not big, so this condition already excludes us” — or the opposite, “we’re tourism-certified, so no conditions apply to us at all” — may not reflect the actual state of the file. For the official source and current criteria: Ministry of Labour and Social Security — Work Permit Assessment Criteria.

2023 Data: The Sectors With the Most Permits

It’s possible to see how this general framework plays out in practice through the official 2023 statistics. In 2023, among work permits granted to foreigners, the most were granted in the accommodation (tourism) sector — 22.747 people. Domestic staff employment came second — 17.151 people.

It’s no coincidence that these two sectors stand out: in the accommodation sector, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism certified-business exception mentioned above is actively used; in domestic services, a different employer profile (a household rather than a company) and a different assessment logic come into play (for the framework specific to domestic services: Domestic Caregiver Work Permit: Employer’s Guide).

These figures change from year to year and are given to show the general trend — for the current distribution and trend in your business’s sector, you should check the official source’s current publication. Sector-based concentration also points to which sectors the Ministry has more established assessment experience in — which can be an indirect advantage for the employer in terms of process predictability.

What Happens to Applications That Don’t Meet the Criteria?

An employer’s application that doesn’t meet the general eligibility criteria carries a direct risk of rejection. However, this doesn’t mean the process is entirely closed for the employer:

• Checking exception scope: whether the business’s activity certificate or position type falls under one of the exceptions mentioned above should be clarified first.
• Re-assessing the criterion: in some cases, the business’s financial statement or employment structure may have been assessed incorrectly due to missing information at the time of application.
• Timing: the company being in a growth phase may mean the criteria can be met in the future — in that case, application timing is a strategic matter.

An incomplete or incorrectly assessed application means lost time and effort for the employer; in some cases a re-application may be required. Clarifying in advance which exception or alternative route a file that doesn’t meet the general criterion can be assessed under ensures the process is set up correctly from the start. (For the general framework of what a rejection decision means for the employer: Work Permit Rejected: What Does a Rejection Decision Actually Say?.)

Why Does the Right Assessment Matter?

The conditions for employing foreign staff may look at first like a single yes/no question, but it’s actually a file assessed through several interlinked criteria together — headcount, financial statements, sector, position, and possible exceptions. Since the legislation is updated frequently, generalizing from a past experience or another business’s outcome can be misleading — every business’s file is assessed on its own current data.

As an employer, your real job is growing your company; tracking which criterion and which exception applies to your business is a separate area of expertise. By assessing your company’s eligibility and taking on coordination of the correct category and process, we clarify this uncertainty from the start. For details: Foreign Staff Work Permit.