Employment of Foreigners
Employment of foreigners subjects to specific regulations. Therefore, companies should give attention to following points when they plan to employ foreign employees in Turkey:
- Companies must employ 5 Turkish Citizens for each 1 foreigner. This criteria will be applied otherwise the company does not have exemption certificate given by the ministry. Exemption certificate can be given to companies if they have strategic investments.
- Companies’ paid capital must be bigger than 100.000 TRY or gross sales must be bigger than 800.000 TRY or previous year’s export sales must be bigger than 250.000 USD.
- State owned foreign airline companies’ representative offices, companies which operate in education business and normal home services are not subjected to first two criteria.
In addition to above points, foreign employees subject to following minimum wage scales by the Ministry:
| Occupation | Minimum Wage Amount |
| Senior executives, pilots, engineers and architects requesting preliminary permit | > 6,5 times NMW |
| Branch or unit managers, engineers and architects | > 4 times NMW |
| Teachers, psychologists, physiotherapist, musician, artist and persons work in jobs require expertise and proficiency | > 3 times NMW |
| Maids, salesmans, marketing staffs and others | > 1,5 times NMW |
| Masseurs and masseuses, SPA therapists and occupations require expertise in tourism business | > 2 times NMW |
NMW: Normal Minimum Wage. Gross minimum wage is 2.558 TRY for 2019 in Turkey.
