The salary a foreign employer agrees with a candidate in Turkey is rarely the figure it ends up paying, and rarely the figure the employee ends up receiving; in my files the gap surprises the employer more often than the employee. Between the two sit the social security premiums, split between the parties and capped by a ceiling that changed this year, the unemployment insurance premium, an income tax that starts at fifteen per cent and climbs during the year, a stamp tax on the payslip that most foreign employers have never met, and a set of discounts and supports that reduce the employer's share if the filings are made on time. This page sets out the 2026 figures from the statutes and the decisions that fix them, and then prices two hires, one at the minimum wage and one at a salary of 100,000 TL a month, so that a budget prepared abroad matches the payslip produced in Turkey.
Sources, checked 9 September 2026. Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law No. 5510, Articles 81 and 82 and Provisional Articles 108 and 112, as amended by Laws Nos. 7566 (Official Gazette 33112, 19 December 2025), 7573 and 7590; Unemployment Insurance Law No. 4447, Article 49; Income Tax Law No. 193, Articles 23(18) and 103, with the 2026 amounts of Income Tax General Communiqué Series No. 332 (Official Gazette 33124 (5th repeat), 31 December 2025); Stamp Tax Law No. 488, table (1) IV/1-b and table (2) IV/34; the Minimum Wage Determination Commission decision for 2026 (Official Gazette 33119, 26 December 2025); the Social Security Institution's 2026 table of earnings subject to premium.
The minimum wage and the premium ceiling for 2026
The Commission fixed the daily minimum wage for 1 January to 31 December 2026 at 1,101 TL, which gives a monthly gross of 33,030 TL and, after the employee's premiums and with the income and stamp tax exemptions described below, a monthly net of 28,075.50 TL. The same figure is the floor of earnings subject to premium under Article 82 of Law 5510, which sets the daily floor at one thirtieth of the minimum wage. The ceiling is a multiple of the floor, and Law 7566 raised the multiple from 7.5 to 9 with effect from 1 January 2026, so the 2026 ceiling is 9,909 TL a day and 297,270 TL a month; premiums are not charged on the part of a salary above it, which matters for senior hires, and the 2026 change raised the employer's cost of anyone earning between the old and the new ceiling. Employees paid less than the floor are reported at the floor, and the difference in premium is the employer's to pay.
Social security premiums, and who pays which part
Article 81 of Law 5510 sets the rates as percentages of earnings subject to premium. The disability, old age and survivors' premium is 21 per cent, of which the employee pays 9 and the employer 12, the employer's point having been added by Law 7566 from 1 January 2026, when the total rose from 20 to 21. The general health insurance premium is 12.5 per cent, 5 from the employee and 7.5 from the employer. The short-term branches premium, covering work accidents, occupational disease, sickness and maternity, is 2.25 per cent, paid entirely by the employer since Law 7524 raised it from 2 per cent. Article 49 of Law 4447 adds the unemployment insurance premium of 1 per cent from the employee, 2 per cent from the employer and 1 per cent from the state, and since April 2026 the President may raise or lower the state share by up to half. The employee's deductions therefore total 15 per cent of gross pay up to the ceiling, and the employer's gross premium burden is 23.75 per cent before any discount.
| Premium (2026) | Employee | Employer |
|---|---|---|
| Disability, old age, survivors (Art. 81(a), Law 7566) | 9% | 12% |
| General health insurance (Art. 81(f)) | 5% | 7.5% |
| Short-term branches (Art. 81(c), Law 7524) | 0 | 2.25% |
| Unemployment insurance (Law 4447 Art. 49) | 1% | 2% |
| Total before discounts | 15% | 23.75% |
The discounts and the support that reduce the employer's share
Article 81(ı) has the Treasury pay part of the employer's disability, old age and survivors' premium for private sector employers, provided the monthly premium and service documents or the combined withholding and premium return are filed on time, the employee's share and the undiscounted employer's share are paid on time, there are no overdue premiums, administrative fines or related surcharges, or they have been rescheduled and the schedule is kept, and the workplace is not one excluded by the article, which covers public tender and public procurement works among others. Law 7566 reduced the general discount from four points in 2025 to two points from 1 January 2026. Provisional Article 108 keeps the discount at five points for employers operating in the manufacturing sector, section C of the statistical classification, until 31 December 2026, with power for the President to extend it to the end of 2027. An employer found to have employed unreported workers, or reported workers who did not in fact work, loses the article's support for a year. Provisional Article 112, added in January 2026, then gives a minimum wage support for the 2026 months: for employees who were reported in the same month of 2025 at a daily earning of 1,300 TL or less, and for all employees of workplaces first registered in 2026, an amount of 42.33 TL per premium day, roughly 1,269.90 TL for a full month, is set off against the employer's premiums and financed by the Unemployment Insurance Fund; the earnings threshold is 2,600 TL a day for workplaces bound by a collective agreement. The support requires the same discipline of timely and accurate reporting as the discount, and both are lost, not merely suspended, for the months in which the conditions fail.
Income tax on wages, and the minimum wage exemption
Wages are taxed by withholding under the progressive tariff of Article 103, applied to the cumulative taxable wage of the calendar year, so that an employee moves up the brackets as the year passes. For 2026 the brackets, as fixed by Communiqué Series No. 332, are 15 per cent up to 190,000 TL, 20 per cent on the part up to 400,000 TL, 27 per cent on the part up to 1,500,000 TL for wage income, 35 per cent on the part up to 5,300,000 TL, and 40 per cent above that. The taxable wage is the gross wage less the employee's social security and unemployment premiums. Article 23(18), added in 2021, exempts from income tax the part of every employee's wage that corresponds to the minimum wage net of those premiums; the exemption is calculated within the brackets, so that the tax on the excess is computed as if the exempt part had been taxed and the tax on the exempt part is then deducted, and it applies to every employee, not only to those on the minimum wage. A minimum wage earner therefore pays no income tax; an employee on a higher salary pays income tax only on the part above the minimum wage, at the bracket rate the cumulative total has reached.
Stamp tax on the payslip
Law No. 488 charges stamp tax on documents that evidence the payment of wages at 7.59 per thousand of the gross amount under table (1) IV/1-b, and table (2) IV/34, as amended in 2021, exempts the part of every wage that corresponds to the gross monthly minimum wage. The tax is withheld by the employer with the income tax and declared in the same combined return, and it is the item most often missing from a foreign group's payroll model. For an employee on the minimum wage the stamp tax is nil; for everyone else it is 7.59 per thousand of the part of the gross wage above 33,030 TL.
Two hires priced for 2026
For an employee on the minimum wage of 33,030 TL gross, the employee's deductions are 4,624.20 TL of social security premium at 14 per cent and 330.30 TL of unemployment premium at 1 per cent; income tax and stamp tax are nil under the exemptions; net pay is 28,075.50 TL. The employer adds 7,184.03 TL of social security premium at 21.75 per cent and 660.60 TL of unemployment premium at 2 per cent, and deducts the two-point discount of 660.60 TL, for a total cost of 40,214.03 TL; a manufacturing employer with the five-point discount pays 39,223.13 TL; and where the Provisional Article 112 support applies, a further 1,269.90 TL comes off for a full month. For an employee on 100,000 TL gross in January 2026, the employee's premiums are 14,000 TL and 1,000 TL, the taxable wage is 85,000 TL, the income tax at 15 per cent is 12,750 TL less the exempt 4,211.33 TL on the minimum wage portion, so 8,538.68 TL, the stamp tax is 7.59 per thousand of the 66,970 TL above the minimum wage, so 508.30 TL, and net pay is 75,953.02 TL. The employer's cost is 121,750 TL with the two-point discount and 118,750 TL with the manufacturing discount, and it stays there through the year while the employee's net falls as the cumulative taxable wage crosses 190,000 TL in the third month and 400,000 TL in the fifth, when the withholding rate becomes 20 and then 27 per cent. Salaries above the 297,270 TL ceiling carry no premium on the excess, so the employer's marginal cost of a very senior hire is the salary plus the stamp tax alone.
Who files, and the employer without a Turkish entity
Premiums and withheld taxes are reported by the employer on the monthly combined withholding and premium return, and the discounts depend on that return being filed and paid within the legal period. A foreign company that employs someone working in Turkey must first decide what it is in Turkey: a subsidiary or branch, formed under the rules on the company formation page and compared on the liaison office, branch and subsidiary page, is an ordinary Turkish employer for all of the above; an employer with no Turkish presence cannot withhold Turkish tax, and its employee resident in Turkey declares the wage in an annual return, while the social security position depends on whether a posting exemption or a bilateral agreement applies, as set out on the social security agreements page. The employment law side of the same hire, including the severance and notice liabilities that accrue alongside the payroll, is on the employment law page, the work permit a foreign employee needs on the work permit page, and the income tax exemption available for wages in a free zone on the free zone page.
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
The payroll provider runs the numbers it is given and does not audit your eligibility for the discount. The recruiter quotes gross. The candidate quotes net. None of them is paid to tell you, before the offer letter goes out, that the ceiling rose this year, that your discount fell from four points to two, or that a late return in one month costs you the support for that month.
We take no commission or referral fee from payroll providers, accountants or recruiters, in any form, on any file. The fee you pay us is our only income from your matter, and it does not depend on headcount or salary levels. Because our position does not move with the size of the payroll, telling you that a discount does not apply to your workplace, or that a support you were counting on ends in December, costs us nothing to say.
One boundary, stated plainly. We are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers and not your payroll bureau. We do not process salaries. What we protect is the Turkish legal position: the correct split of premiums, the eligibility conditions for the discounts and the support, the exemptions in the income and stamp tax, the employer's registration and filing duties, and the defence when the Institution or the tax office disputes a month.
Before the offer letter
Send us the gross salary you intend to offer, the sector of the Turkish entity, whether the role is new or a replacement, and whether the employee is a Turkish resident or a foreign national with or without a work permit. We will tell you the employee's net, the employer's total cost with and without the discounts and the support, the filings that keep them, and the changes to expect during the year. Our corporate and employer work is described on the corporate law page.
What this page does not settle
Sector-specific premium incentives beyond the general discount, the taxation of benefits in kind, equity and expatriate allowances, severance and notice pay calculations, the employer's obligations under occupational health and safety law, foreign nationals' social security exemptions in detail, and the accounting for payroll accruals are separate subjects. The minimum wage is fixed for the calendar year and the Commission may reconvene; the figures above are those in force on the date checked.
