Türkiye | Immigration | Changes in work permit application evaluation criteria

Immigration

Türkiye | Changes in work permit application evaluation criteria

Summary

Turkish Ministry of Labour announced significant changes in work permit application criteria applicable as of 1 October 2024, diversifying sector specific criteria and providing specific reliefs to certain sector and job titles.

The detail

• Some highlights from major changes in the work permit application criteria are as follows:
  • The requirement to employ five Turkish citizens per each foreign citizen remain, but the below exceptions are introduced to this rule:
  • If the employer’s last year sales is over 50,000,000 TRY, the criteria will not be applied to the initial 5 foreign employees.
  • For employers in the IT sector, specialist employees in software, database, mobile software, system network security and corporate architecture will be exempt from the quota. For employers operating in other sectors, the exemption will apply for the initial two foreign employees for these specific roles.
  • For R&D and Technology Development Areas, the quota will not be applied for foreign employees approved by the Ministry of Industry and Technology.
  • For the tourism sector, various exemptions from the criteria have been introduced up to certain limits depending on the type of the activity of the tourism facility.
• The financial criteria figures for employers are updated as follows:

• Minimum salary requirements based on the job titles are updated as follows:

Title of the Employee	Until 1 October 2024	As of 1 October 2024
High level executives and pilots	6.5 x min. wage	5 x min. wage
Engineers and architects	4 x min. wage	4 x min. wage
Other executives	4 x min. wage	3 x min. wage
Specialists	3 x min. wage	2 x min. wage
Household and misc. employees	1.5 x min. wage	Minimum wage

What it means

While the recently published work permit evaluation criteria are now more sophisticated than before, the purpose of this change is to support Turkish employers that want to employ foreign employees in strategic sectors like IT, employees to work in technology development and tourism. Employers should make a diligent assessment before submitting a work permit application for their foreign employees.

Contact us

For a deeper discussion on the above, please reach out to your Vialto Partners point of contact, or alternatively:

Cumhur Dulger
Partner

Cagatay Custan
Immigration Manager

Further information on Vialto Partners can be found here: www.vialtopartners.com

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