Annual leave in Turkey is a statutory employment right governed primarily by the Turkish Labour Law No. 4857 and the Regulation on Annual Paid Leave (Yıllık Ücretli İzin Yönetmeliği).
For foreign companies employing personnel in Türkiye, annual leave is not simply an HR policy or a number of days recorded in a global HR system. Turkish law contains specific rules on when leave is earned, how length of service is calculated, which days count against the entitlement, how leave may be divided, how it should be requested and scheduled, what records the employer must maintain, and how unused leave is treated when employment ends.
These rules are particularly relevant where Turkish employees are managed through global HR, payroll or PTO policies designed for other jurisdictions.
This guide explains the main statutory requirements for annual leave in Turkey and the practical points HR, payroll and finance teams should understand.
Eligibility for Annual Leave in Turkey
Under Article 53 of Labour Law No. 4857, an employee becomes entitled to statutory annual paid leave after completing at least one year of service with the employer, calculated from the date employment began. The probationary period is included in this one-year period.
The statutory entitlement therefore does not normally arise on a pro-rata monthly basis during the employee’s first year. For example, an employee who starts work on 1 October 2026 will ordinarily acquire the first statutory annual leave entitlement on 1 October 2027.
Companies may provide more favourable contractual arrangements. An employer may allow employees to take leave during their first year or operate a more generous leave policy, but this is distinct from the minimum statutory entitlement under the Labour Law.
The right to statutory annual paid leave cannot be waived by the employee.
Statutory Annual Leave Periods in Turkey
The minimum annual leave entitlement depends primarily on the employee’s length of service with the employer.
| Length of service | Minimum annual paid leave |
|---|---|
| 1 year to 5 years, inclusive | 14 days |
| More than 5 years but less than 15 years | 20 days |
| 15 years or more | 26 days |
An employee with exactly five completed years of service remains within the first category. The 20-day entitlement applies after the employee has completed more than five years of service.
For example, an employee who began work on 1 June 2021 acquires the fifth annual leave entitlement on 1 June 2026, still based on the 14-day statutory minimum. After completing the next service year, the entitlement arising on 1 June 2027 is based on the 20-day minimum.
These are statutory minimums. Employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements may provide longer annual leave periods.
Employees Aged 18 or Younger and Employees Aged 50 or Older
Employees who are 18 years old or younger, and employees who are 50 years old or older, must receive at least 20 days of annual paid leave.
The age rule therefore overrides the ordinary 14-day minimum where applicable, but does not reduce a higher service-based entitlement. An employee aged 52 with at least 15 years of qualifying service, for example, would still be entitled to at least 26 days.
How Length of Service Is Calculated
Annual leave entitlement is determined by qualifying service rather than simply calendar years.
Under Article 54 of the Labour Law, periods worked at one or more workplaces belonging to the same employer are combined when determining the employee’s service period. A transfer between offices, branches or workplaces of the same employer should therefore not automatically reset the annual leave service date.
Previous employment with the same employer may also be relevant where an employee leaves and is later re-employed. The treatment of earlier service should be reviewed rather than automatically treating every rehire as having no previous service for annual-leave purposes.
Absences Treated as Service
Not every absence interrupts the calculation of the qualifying service year.
Article 55 identifies a number of periods that are treated as if the employee had worked for annual-leave purposes. These include, subject to the statutory conditions and limits, certain periods of sickness or accident absence, maternity-related periods under Article 74, weekly rest days, national and public holidays, certain other statutory leave periods, leave granted by the employer, and annual paid leave itself.
HR teams should therefore not determine qualifying service solely by counting days of physical attendance.
Conversely, periods that are not treated as service under Article 55 may postpone the date on which the employee completes the relevant service year. This can become relevant in cases involving extended unpaid absence or other lengthy interruptions.
Using and Scheduling Annual Leave
Article 54 provides that annual leave earned for a service year is used during the following service year. The employee has a statutory right to the leave, but this does not mean that the employee may determine the dates unilaterally.
Under the Annual Paid Leave Regulation, an employee should notify the employer in writing at least one month before the date on which the employee wishes to take annual leave. The request should state the requested leave period and whether unpaid travel leave is also being requested.
The employer or, where applicable, the leave committee is not required to accept the exact dates requested. Operational requirements may be considered when scheduling leave. Where several employees request the same period, factors such as workplace seniority and when the employees used leave in the previous year may also be taken into account.
The employer’s scheduling authority does not remove the underlying statutory right. Annual leave must still be administered in a manner that allows employees to use their entitlement.
For international companies, a documented electronic approval process can provide a practical solution, provided it reliably records the request, approval and leave actually taken.
Can Annual Leave Be Split?
Annual leave may be divided by agreement between the employee and employer, provided that at least one portion is no shorter than 10 days.
The previous rule limiting annual leave to a maximum of three separate portions was removed. The balance may therefore be divided into additional periods, provided the requirement for at least one 10-day portion is respected.
For example, an employee entitled to 20 days could, by agreement with the employer, use 10 days, followed by separate periods of 4, 3 and 3 days.
The important distinction is that division requires agreement. The employer should not routinely fragment statutory annual leave into short periods without preserving the required uninterrupted portion.
Travel Leave
Employees who will spend their annual leave somewhere other than the location where the workplace is established may request up to four days of unpaid travel leave for the outward and return journey.
The employee must request the travel leave and document the relevant circumstances. It is not an automatic additional four days of paid annual leave; it is unpaid and limited to the travel time required.
How Annual Leave Days Are Counted
When calculating annual leave in Turkey, the number of days an employee is absent from the workplace is not necessarily the same as the number of days deducted from the statutory annual leave balance.
Under Article 56, weekly rest days (hafta tatili), national holidays and public holidays falling within the annual leave period are not counted against statutory annual leave.
Accordingly, an employee using 14 days of statutory annual leave may be absent from work for more than 14 calendar days where weekly rest days or public holidays fall within the leave period.
This is relevant for international HR systems that deduct every calendar day between the employee’s departure and return dates. The statutory leave balance should instead reflect the days that legally count as annual leave.
The Saturday Issue in a Five-Day Working Week
Saturday requires more careful treatment.
A Saturday is not necessarily a statutory weekly rest day merely because an employee normally works Monday to Friday. Whether a Saturday within an annual leave period should be excluded from the annual leave calculation can depend on the working arrangement and whether Saturday has been established as a weekly rest day or is instead a contractual non-working day.
This distinction has also been considered in Turkish labour-law practice and case law. Employers operating a five-day working week should therefore review the actual contractual and workplace arrangement rather than assuming that Saturday and Sunday always receive identical treatment for annual-leave purposes.
Public Holidays During Annual Leave
National and public holidays falling within annual leave are not deducted from the statutory annual leave balance.
This can have a material effect where leave overlaps with longer holiday periods such as Ramadan Feast (Ramazan Bayramı) or Sacrifice Feast (Kurban Bayramı). HR and payroll teams should calculate the statutory leave actually consumed rather than deducting the entire calendar period.
Other forms of leave should also be recorded separately. Paid or unpaid leave, rest periods and sickness leave cannot simply be offset against the employee’s statutory annual leave entitlement. A global HR system using a single general “PTO” category may therefore require Türkiye-specific configuration.
Employer Administration and Record-Keeping
Proper administration of annual leave in Turkey requires employers to maintain records showing each employee’s annual paid leave entitlement and usage.
The employer should be able to establish each employee’s entitlement, leave taken and remaining balance. In practice, a reliable record should also allow the employer to trace the employee’s service date, relevant previous service, leave requests and approvals, actual leave dates, and any travel leave.
Where weekly rest days or public holidays affect the calculation, the recorded balance should reflect the number of statutory annual leave days actually used.
This documentation becomes particularly important when employment ends and the parties disagree over historical leave balances. Informal manager approvals that are never reflected in the official HR record can create discrepancies between what the employee actually used and what the employer can later demonstrate.
Leave Committees for Workplaces with More Than 100 Employees
Workplaces employing more than 100 employees must establish a three-person leave committee under the Annual Paid Leave Regulation.
The committee consists of one representative of the employer or employer’s representative and two employee representatives. Its functions include assisting with annual leave schedules and considering relevant employee requests and complaints.
Where a leave committee is not required, these functions may be performed by the employer, the employer’s representative or designated persons in accordance with the Regulation.
Payment During Annual Leave
Article 57 requires the employer to pay the remuneration relating to the annual leave period in advance, before the employee starts the leave, or provide it as an advance.
For employees whose remuneration is not based on a fixed daily, weekly or monthly salary — such as certain commission, piece-rate or percentage-based arrangements — the Labour Law contains specific averaging rules for determining annual leave pay.
Items such as overtime pay, premiums and certain social benefits are not treated in the same manner as ordinary salary for the statutory annual leave wage calculation.
For employees receiving a fixed monthly salary, the employee’s use of statutory annual leave should not result in a salary reduction merely because the employee was absent from work during the leave period.
Annual Leave Cannot Be Replaced with Cash During Employment
Statutory annual leave is intended to provide a period of rest. While employment continues, the employer and employee cannot eliminate the statutory entitlement simply by agreeing to make a cash payment instead.
Paying an employee for unused annual leave during continuing employment therefore does not, by itself, extinguish the statutory leave entitlement. The appropriate approach is for the employee to actually take the leave.
Article 58 also addresses paid work during annual leave. If an employee is found to have worked for remuneration during the annual leave period, the employer may recover the annual leave remuneration paid for that period.
Unused Annual Leave and Termination of Employment
Unused statutory annual leave should not simply be deleted because the employer’s internal leave year or calendar year has ended. Although Article 54 contemplates leave being used during the following service year, unused statutory entitlement may remain relevant while employment continues.
This is particularly important for multinational companies operating global “use it or lose it” policies. Such policies should not be applied mechanically to statutory annual leave in Türkiye.
At the same time, employers should manage accumulated balances during employment rather than allowing them to increase indefinitely. Regular balance reviews and actual scheduling of leave reduce both administrative discrepancies and the financial liability that may arise when employment ends.
Payment of Unused Leave Upon Termination
The treatment of unused annual leave in Turkey changes when the employment relationship ends.
Under Article 59, remuneration for annual leave that the employee has earned but not used must be paid to the employee or, where applicable, the employee’s beneficiaries. The rule applies where employment terminates for any reason, including resignation or employer termination.
The payment is calculated using the employee’s wage at the date the employment contract ends. An old salary should therefore not be used simply because some of the outstanding leave was earned in an earlier year.
For an employee receiving a fixed monthly salary, the calculation starts with the applicable termination-date wage and the number of outstanding annual leave days. Annual leave compensation should not automatically be calculated in the same manner as severance pay by adding every fringe benefit to the wage base; the two are legally distinct calculations.
The applicable payroll tax and social-security treatment must then be reflected in the termination payroll under the rules in force at the relevant time. For a broader overview of salary taxation and payroll-related income tax rules, see our related guide on wage taxation in Turkey.
Limitation Period
The right to use annual leave during continuing employment should be distinguished from the monetary claim that arises for unused leave when employment ends.
Article 59 provides that the limitation period for the unused annual leave payment begins when the employment contract terminates. Additional Article 3 of Labour Law No. 4857 provides a five-year limitation period for annual leave pay claims arising from the employment relationship.
It is therefore misleading to treat statutory annual leave as simply “expiring after five years” while employment continues. The five-year limitation period concerns the monetary claim following termination.
Annual Leave and Notice Periods
Where the employer terminates the employment contract, annual leave cannot simply be overlapped with the employee’s notice period or statutory job-search leave.
Article 59 requires these periods to be treated separately. Employers planning a termination should therefore determine notice obligations, job-search leave and outstanding annual leave independently.
Special Employment Situations
Part-Time Employees
Part-time and on-call employees are not excluded from statutory annual leave in Turkey.
Under the Annual Paid Leave Regulation, they benefit from annual leave rights in the same manner as full-time employees and should not receive shorter statutory leave periods or reduced annual leave pay merely because they work part time.
Their leave is used by not working on the days that would otherwise fall within their part-time working schedule during the relevant leave period.
This is an area where international HR systems can produce incorrect results if the statutory number of leave days is automatically prorated according to working hours.
Seasonal and Campaign Work
The Labour Law contains an exception for work that, by its nature, lasts less than one year in seasonal or campaign-based activities.
The description of an employee or contract as “seasonal”, however, should not automatically be treated as sufficient to exclude annual leave rights. The Annual Paid Leave Regulation also addresses employees working continuously at workplaces where seasonal or campaign work is performed.
The actual nature and continuity of the employment therefore need to be considered. Foreign employers using seasonal staffing arrangements should assess the specific employment model rather than relying solely on the title given to the contract.
Collective Annual Leave
The Annual Paid Leave Regulation permits employers to operate collective annual leave between the beginning of April and the end of October.
All or part of the workforce may be included. Employees who have not yet completed the normal one-year qualifying period may also be included in certain circumstances.
Employees whose presence is necessary for security, maintenance, preparation, cleaning or similar operational requirements may remain outside the collective leave period, with their annual leave arranged separately.
Collective leave can therefore be relevant for manufacturing operations, seasonal shutdowns and workplaces that operate coordinated summer closures.
Practical Guidance for Foreign Employers
For foreign companies managing annual leave in Turkey, most practical issues arise when a global policy or HR system is applied without adjusting the underlying rules.
A Türkiye-specific process should establish the employee’s correct service date at onboarding, including any previous service that may need to be recognised. The HR system should calculate entitlement according to service and age and distinguish statutory annual leave from additional contractual leave and other forms of absence.
Leave requests and approvals should be documented consistently. When leave is recorded, the employer should check whether weekly rest days or Turkish national and public holidays fall within the period before reducing the statutory balance. Employers using a five-day working week should also determine how Saturdays are treated under their particular working arrangement.
Outstanding balances should be reviewed periodically, and HR and payroll records should remain aligned. When employment terminates, payroll should receive a verified final leave balance so that any unused entitlement can be calculated using the employee’s termination-date wage.
For companies managing employees across several jurisdictions, a short Türkiye-specific annual leave policy or local supplement to the global policy is often more workable than trying to force Turkish statutory rules into a uniform global PTO model.
Companies using freelancers or contractor arrangements in Türkiye should also distinguish genuine independent contracting from employment relationships, as misclassification can affect the application of employment rights, including annual leave. See our guide on independent contractor misclassification in Turkey.
Conclusion
Annual leave in Turkey involves more than applying the statutory 14-, 20- or 26-day entitlement. Employers must also determine qualifying service correctly, apply the age rules, schedule and document leave, exclude the appropriate rest days and public holidays, preserve statutory entitlements during employment and settle outstanding leave correctly when employment ends.
For foreign employers, the practical objective is straightforward: ensure that the global HR process and the Turkish employment and payroll records produce the same legally supportable leave balance.