Social Security (SGK) Lawyer in Istanbul, Turkey

A social security lawyer in Turkey advises on pension eligibility, brings service-determination actions to correct an unregistered work history, and represents insured persons, survivors and employers in disputes with SGK before the labour court. A foreign employee working in Turkey, or a person with insured service split between Turkey and another country, can be advised on how that service is recognised toward a Turkish pension and how a social security agreement affects it.

Our office is in Istanbul. Files are followed before SGK's provincial units and the labour courts of Istanbul and, where the competent unit or court is located there, in Ankara and other cities through the national judicial network (UYAP) and by attending hearings. On the employer side, the work covers registering foreign staff, premium and administrative fine disputes, and the social security consequences of work accidents.

Turkey has a single social security institution, SGK, which runs both the pension system and general health insurance (genel sağlık sigortası, GSS). The law divides social insurance into short-term branches, which cover work accidents and occupational diseases, illness and maternity, and long-term branches, which cover disability, old age and death (Law No. 5510, Art. 4). General health insurance is a separate scheme that pays for medical treatment.

Every insured person is counted under one status at a time, and the status decides which rules apply. The statuses take their names from the subparagraphs of Article 4: 4/a for employees, 4/b for the self-employed and 4/c for public servants. The same person can move from one status to another over a working life, and the number of days in each status can affect the pension conditions, because the law sets different premium-day requirements for employees and for the self-employed (Art. 28).

As a rule, yes. The law applies the employee (4/a) rules to foreign nationals working in Turkey under an employment contract; for nationals of countries with which Turkey has made a reciprocal international social security agreement, the agreement governs (Law No. 5510, Art. 4). The International Workforce Law adds that foreigners holding a work permit or a work permit exemption, and the employers who hire them, fulfil their social security obligations under Law No. 5510 within the legal time limits, with Turkey's social security agreements reserved (Law No. 6735, Art. 22).

The employer reports the employee to SGK with an employment start notification before the employee starts work (Law No. 5510, Art. 8). Registration gives the foreign employee and dependent family members general health insurance, counts premium days toward a pension and covers work accidents. The employment side of the relationship, including severance pay, notice and the work permit, is covered on our employment lawyer in Turkey page.

According to the list SGK publishes, 35 social security agreements were in force as of January 2024, with: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Libya, Sweden, Norway, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Canada, North Macedonia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Quebec, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, Italy, South Korea, Montenegro, Tunisia, Hungary, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Poland and Iran. SGK's list also shows Spain and Portugal, under the European Convention on Social Security. The United States does not appear on SGK's list.

SGK states that 19 of these agreements also contain provisions on health care: those with Germany, North Macedonia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Belgium, Romania, Serbia, Austria, Czechia, Montenegro, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Albania, Hungary and Tunisia. Agreements are signed and amended over time, so the current text of the relevant agreement is what governs a particular case.

General health insurance (GSS) applies to people whose residence (ikametgâh) is in Turkey. A foreigner employed in Turkey is covered through employment, together with dependent family members. A foreign national who is not working, holds a residence permit and is not insured under another country's legislation is also counted as GSS-insured, with reciprocity taken into account (Law No. 5510, Art. 60). Holders of international protection and stateless persons have a separate category in the same article.

Turkish citizens who fall into no other category and have no right to health insurance in another country are covered by a residual category (Art. 60). For dual citizens and Turkish citizens who return from abroad, whether that category applied in a given period, and therefore whether premiums were due, depends on residence and on documents about foreign cover, and it can become a dispute with SGK.

Voluntary insurance allows a person who is not compulsorily insured to keep paying into the long-term branches and general health insurance, so that pension days continue to build up. It is open to people resident in Turkey, and to certain Turkish citizens in countries with which Turkey has no social security agreement, who do not work in a way that requires compulsory insurance (or work fewer than 30 days, or part-time, in a month), do not receive a pension in their own right, are at least 18 years old, and apply to SGK with a request form (Law No. 5510, Art. 50). Coverage starts on the day after the application reaches SGK's records (Art. 51).

Since 1 January 2026 the premium is 33 percent of a monthly earnings figure chosen by the person between the lower and upper limits: 21 percent for disability, old-age and survivors' insurance and 12 percent for general health insurance (Art. 52, as amended by Law No. 7566). With the 2026 lower limit of TRY 33,030 a month, the minimum monthly premium is about TRY 10,900. A foreign national settled in Turkey for less than a year pays no GSS premium within voluntary insurance and is not GSS-insured through it (Art. 52).

Premiums not paid, with late payment charges, within 12 months from the month they belong to do not count as insured time, and premiums paid after that period are refunded (Art. 52). Voluntary periods count as 4/b (self-employed) insurance time, except where they top up a month of part-time employment, in which case they count as 4/a time up to thirty days (Art. 51). This affects the premium-day requirement for a pension.

Entitlement to an old-age pension requires insured service, the number of premium days and age to be satisfied together. Which combination applies depends mainly on the date the person was first insured, as shown on the service record (Law No. 5510, Art. 28 and Provisional Arts. 7 and 9). Two people in the same job with the same number of days can therefore have different retirement dates simply because they began working at different times. The overview below covers the main rules for employees (4/a); the self-employed and public servants have their own figures.

Days worked before the age of 18 count as premium days, but the insurance period itself is treated as starting on the 18th birthday (Art. 38). Our Turkey retirement calculator gives an estimate from the date of birth, the first insurance date and the premium days. An estimate is not a decision of SGK; the exact date is determined from the person's own record.

Premiums paid in Turkey are not lost when a person leaves. The insured days stay on the record and can be used later, in Turkey or, for nationals of agreement countries, through totalisation. A person who has left work and has reached the pension age but still does not qualify for a disability or old-age pension can instead request a lump-sum payment (toptan ödeme): the disability, old-age and survivors' premiums reported in the person's name are paid back, updated for each year by the official update coefficient (Law No. 5510, Art. 31).

A lump-sum payment closes the service it covers. If the person later becomes insured again, the law allows those services to be revived by paying back the updated amount by the end of the month after notification (Art. 31). Whether a lump sum or a later pension through an agreement is more favourable depends on the whole record, including any service abroad, and can be assessed before a request is made.

Turkish law allows certain periods without insurance to be added to insured service by paying premiums for them, a process called service borrowing (hizmet borçlanması). The person chooses a daily earnings figure between the lower and upper limits, SGK calculates the debt on that figure, and the debt is paid within one month of notification; otherwise a new application is needed, and days not paid for do not count (Law No. 5510, Art. 41).

The cost of buying back military service or maternity periods can be estimated with our military service and maternity buyback calculator.

Law No. 3201 allows Turkish citizens, and people who were Turkish citizens by birth and gave up citizenship with permission (many of whom hold the Blue Card), to have periods spent abroad counted toward their Turkish social security, if no premiums were paid to a Turkish institution for them. The periods covered are documented insured periods abroad after the age of 18 completed as a Turkish citizen, unemployment periods of up to one year each between or after them, and periods spent abroad as a housewife (Law No. 3201, Art. 1). A foreign national who was never a Turkish citizen cannot use this route; for that person, only an agreement can link periods abroad with Turkish ones.

Periods of employment that an employer never reported to SGK, or reported incompletely, can be established in their true nature through a service-determination lawsuit (hizmet tespiti davası) before the labour court (Law No. 5510, Art. 86). SGK then uses the final judgment to add the days and earnings to the record. In court practice, failure to register an employee has also been accepted as a just cause for the employee to resign, so the case is often linked to severance claims; see our guide to severance pay in Turkey for foreign employees.

Disputes arising from the application of Law No. 5510 are heard by the labour courts unless the law provides otherwise (Law No. 5510, Art. 101). Before a lawsuit is filed against SGK, an application to SGK is required. If SGK does not reply within sixty days, the request is deemed rejected, and a lawsuit can be filed only after a rejection or a deemed rejection. The time spent on the application is not counted toward limitation and forfeiture periods (Law No. 7036, Art. 4). The only exception in that article is a claim to establish compulsory insurance periods under an employment contract.

Labour courts apply the simplified procedure (Law No. 7036, Art. 7). Their judgments can be appealed to the regional court of appeal within two weeks of service, and the regional court's appealable final decisions to the Court of Cassation within two weeks (Code of Civil Procedure, Arts. 345 and 361).

A work accident is an event that disables the insured person physically or mentally, immediately or later, and that happens at the workplace, because of work the employer is carrying out, while the employee is sent elsewhere on duty, during nursing breaks, or on transport provided by the employer to and from work (Law No. 5510, Art. 13). Medical treatment after a work accident is covered without the usual 30-day premium condition (Art. 67).

SGK's benefits do not cover every loss. The difference can be claimed from an employer at fault under general rules, and a first estimate can be made with our work accident compensation calculator. These claims do not require mediation (Law No. 7036, Art. 3), and the wider rules are on our compensation lawyer in Turkey page.

An occupational disease is a temporary or permanent illness, or physical or mental disability, that the insured person suffers because of the nature of the work, through a repeated cause or the conditions under which the work is done (Law No. 5510, Art. 14). It is established by the SGK Health Board on the basis of a health board report from an authorised provider and the underlying medical documents and, where SGK considers it necessary, inspection reports on the working conditions (Art. 14).

If the disease appears after the person has left the job, the law requires that the time between leaving and the disease appearing does not exceed the period set for that disease in the regulation. Even where that period has passed, a disease can be accepted as occupational with the approval of the Social Insurance High Health Board, if clinical and laboratory findings and an inspection of the workplace link it to the work. The employer reports an occupational disease to SGK within three working days of learning of it (Art. 14).

Yes, in several situations. If a work accident or occupational disease results from the employer's intent or from a breach of health and safety legislation, SGK recovers from the employer what it has paid and will pay, including the capitalised value of incomes, limited to what the insured person or the survivors could claim from the employer; the principle of unavoidability is taken into account in setting the employer's responsibility (Law No. 5510, Art. 21). If a third party is at fault, half of these amounts is recovered from that person and, where at fault, from that person's employer (Art. 21).

Where the employee was not registered before the accident, SGK pays the benefits and recovers all its costs from the employer even without fault (Art. 23). SGK's recourse and compensation actions are subject to a ten-year limitation period (Art. 93). For employers, these recourse claims can be one of the largest financial consequences of an accident, and they are decided by the labour courts.

An insured person whose loss of working capacity, or of earning capacity in the occupation because of a work accident or occupational disease, is at least 60 percent, as determined by the SGK Health Board, is considered disabled (malul) (Law No. 5510, Art. 25). If that degree of disability already existed before the person was first insured, it cannot be the basis of a disability pension (Art. 25).

When an insured person dies, a survivors' pension (widow's and orphan's pension) is paid on written request to the eligible survivors if the deceased had at least 1,800 premium days or, for employees, had been insured for at least five years, borrowed periods excluded, with 900 premium days. It is also paid if the deceased was already receiving, or had become entitled to, a disability or old-age pension (Law No. 5510, Art. 32).

A survivors' pension is paid directly to the persons listed in the social security law, who are not always the same as the legal heirs. The inheritance of other assets follows separate rules, explained on our inheritance lawyer in Turkey page and in our guide to inheritance in Turkey for foreigners.

SGK collects unpaid premiums under the Law on the Collection of Public Receivables No. 6183, with a few exceptions (Law No. 5510, Art. 88). A payment order (ödeme emri) gives fifteen days to pay or declare assets (Law No. 6183, Art. 55), and an objection that there is no such debt, that it was partly paid or that it is time-barred can be made within fifteen days of service (Art. 58). For SGK debts, disputes arising from collection under Law No. 6183 are heard by the labour court where SGK's creditor unit is located, and applying to that court does not by itself stop collection (Law No. 5510, Art. 88). Collection under Law No. 6183 works in a similar way for tax debts, covered on our tax lawyer in Turkey page.

SGK's premium and other receivables are subject to a ten-year limitation period starting from the beginning of the calendar year after the payment due date; for debts arising from a court judgment or an inspection, the ten years run from the judgment becoming final or the report date (Law No. 5510, Art. 93). Pensions, incomes and allowances cannot be attached except for SGK's own receivables and maintenance (nafaka) debts (Art. 93).

Unemployment insurance is run by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR), not SGK, but it depends on SGK records, and the law does not exclude insured foreign employees. An insured employee whose contract ends on one of the grounds in the law, such as dismissal with notice, resignation for just cause, expiry of a fixed-term contract or closure of the workplace, can receive unemployment benefit; an ordinary resignation and dismissal for misconduct do not qualify (Unemployment Insurance Law No. 4447, Art. 51). The employee also needs to have worked under an employment contract throughout the last 120 days before it ended and to have paid unemployment premiums for at least 600 days in the last three years (Art. 50).

The benefit is 40 percent of the average daily gross earnings of the last four months, capped at 80 percent of the gross minimum wage, about TRY 26,424 a month in 2026, and is paid for 180, 240 or 300 days for 600, 900 or 1,080 premium days (Art. 50). The application is made within thirty days after the contract ends, and except for force majeure any delay is deducted from the payment period (Art. 48). People receiving unemployment benefit are GSS-insured during that time (Law No. 5510, Art. 60). Severance pay is a separate entitlement and can be estimated with our severance pay calculator.

SGK pays for health services within the scope set by Law No. 5510 (Art. 63). The details are set in the Health Implementation Communiqué (Sağlık Uygulama Tebliği, SUT), which lists the medicines, devices and treatments SGK pays for, with their conditions and amounts. A medicine or device outside the SUT, or used outside its conditions, is generally refused at the pharmacy or hospital.

When a doctor considers such a product medically necessary, the refusal can become a social security dispute. The route is an application to SGK and then, after a rejection or sixty days of silence, a lawsuit at the labour court (Law No. 7036, Art. 4; Law No. 5510, Art. 101). In practice, courts examine the medical necessity through expert reports and look at the product's licensing status and SGK's reasons; the outcome depends on the medical evidence in each file and cannot be predicted in advance. Disputes about treatment errors are a different matter, covered in our guide to medical malpractice in Turkey.

An employee who cannot work because of illness receives a temporary incapacity allowance from the third day of incapacity, if at least ninety days of short-term insurance premiums were reported in the year before the incapacity began (Law No. 5510, Art. 18). The allowance requires a rest report from an authorised doctor or health board and is half of the daily earnings for inpatient treatment and two-thirds for outpatient treatment (Art. 18).

An insured woman receives a maternity allowance for each day she does not work in the eight weeks before and sixteen weeks after the birth, with two more weeks before the birth in a multiple pregnancy, if ninety days of short-term premiums were reported in the year before the birth (Art. 18). With her doctor's approval she may work until two weeks before the birth, and the weeks worked are added to the period after the birth. Where several allowances overlap, only the highest is paid (Art. 18).

Several time limits in social security law are short, and missing one can reduce or end a right. The table further down lists the main ones. In addition, unclaimed parts of incomes and pensions due for work accidents, occupational diseases, duty disability and death become time-barred five years after the right arose, unless there was a justified reason for not applying; other rights under the short-term branches and death insurance lapse if not claimed within five years; and claims of GSS-insured persons become time-barred two years after learning of the event and lapse in any case five years after it (Law No. 5510, Art. 97).

For pensioners living abroad, the twelve-month rule matters in practice: a pension or income that is not collected for twelve consecutive months is stopped until SGK checks whether the conditions continue (Art. 97). A change of bank account or a long stay abroad without collecting payments can therefore interrupt a pension.

The length of a social security case depends on the court's workload, the number of witnesses, whether medical or accounting expert reports are needed, and whether the judgment is appealed; no reliable estimate can be given before the file is reviewed. The prior application to SGK alone can take up to sixty days, and disability and work accident cases can take longer because of medical examinations.

Lawyers' fees in Turkey cannot be agreed below the Attorneyship Minimum Fee Tariff, which is prepared each year by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (Attorneyship Law No. 1136, Arts. 164 and 168). In social security files the fee depends on the type of claim, whether it has a monetary value, and whether the work covers only the application to SGK or also a lawsuit and appeals; it can only be quoted after the file has been reviewed.

Disputes with the Social Security Institution (SGK), such as service determination, pension and contribution disputes, are heard by the labour courts. A labour court case is filed at the court of the defendant's domicile on the filing date or of the place where the work or the transaction took place (Law No. 7036, Art. 6), and disputes over premium collection go to the labour court where SGK's creditor unit is located (Law No. 5510, Art. 88). The Institution's headquarters is in Ankara, while many decisions are issued by provincial social security centres. A social security lawyer in Turkey registered with a Turkish bar can act before the labour courts in every city.

We act as a social security lawyer in Istanbul and follow files before the labour courts in Ankara from our Istanbul office, through UYAP and by attending hearings. Someone looking for a social security lawyer in Ankara because the decision or the employer is there can therefore have the file followed from Istanbul. The cost of buying back military service can be estimated with our military service buyback calculator.