Personal Injury Lawyer in Turkey

A personal injury claim in Turkey is governed by written rules with fixed numbers: how long you have to file, whom you must write to before you sue, which court hears the case, and what an insurer must pay within how many days. Most English-language pages on this subject describe the process in general terms and stop there. This page does the opposite — it gives the article numbers, the deadlines and the thresholds, because those are what decide whether a claim succeeds.

The starting point is Article 49 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (Law No. 6098): a person who causes damage to another through fault is liable to compensate it. Around that principle sit the rules that matter in practice — Article 109 of the Highway Traffic Act (Law No. 2918) for road accidents, Article 5/A of the Turkish Commercial Code for the mandatory mediation step against insurers, Article 30 of the Insurance Act (Law No. 5684) for arbitration, and Articles 34, 40 and 48 of the Act on Private International and Procedural Law (Law No. 5718) for anything involving a foreign claimant.

Two points are worth stating at the outset, because they are the ones most often reported incorrectly. First, the widely repeated "two-year limitation period" is only the general rule; where the same act is also a criminal offence — which is the case in virtually every traffic accident causing injury — the longer criminal limitation period applies instead, and that is eight years for injury and fifteen years for a fatality. Second, a foreign national filing a claim in a Turkish court may be required to post security for costs under Article 48 of Law No. 5718, unless a reciprocity exemption applies. Neither point appears on most competing pages, and both change how a case should be planned.

What a Personal Injury Lawyer in Turkey Handles

A personal injury lawyer in Turkey deals with cases where a person suffers physical, psychological or financial harm because of another party's fault, negligence or unlawful conduct. The legal purpose is not only to identify who was responsible. It is to quantify the full extent of the damage — treatment already paid for, treatment still needed, income lost during recovery, earning capacity lost permanently, and the non-financial harm the injury caused — and to recover it from the party who must answer for it.

The statutory basis is Article 49 of the Turkish Code of Obligations: whoever causes damage to another by an unlawful act committed with fault must compensate that damage. Article 51 gives the judge discretion over the extent of compensation according to the circumstances and the degree of fault; Article 52 allows a reduction where the injured party's own conduct contributed to the harm. These three provisions decide most of what happens in a file.

In practice the work divides into four stages, and each has its own failure points:

Not every file needs all four. A straightforward soft-tissue injury with an undisputed accident report and a cooperative insurer can be resolved at stage three. A spinal injury with a disputed disability rating and a contested fault assessment will occupy all four for a considerable time.

Types of Personal Injury Claims and the Law Behind Each

Turkish law does not treat all injury claims under one regime. The category a case falls into determines the limitation period, the competent court, whether mediation is mandatory, and who can be sued. This is the single most useful table on this page.

Car Accident Claims: The Most Common Injury Case in Turkey

Road traffic accidents account for the majority of personal injury files in Turkey, and they are the only category with a complete statutory framework of their own. If you were injured as a driver, passenger, pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist, the rules below apply to you directly.

Every motor vehicle in Turkey must carry compulsory motor third party liability insurance (Article 91/1 of Law No. 2918). The obligation is not limited to Turkish-registered vehicles: under Article 91/6, where a foreign-plated vehicle has no insurance valid in Turkey, compulsory liability cover is issued at the border when it enters the country. The practical consequence matters for anyone injured by a tourist's or a foreign carrier's vehicle — the fear that "the car had foreign plates, so there is nothing to claim against" is unfounded.

The injured party has more than one route, and they are not mutually exclusive:

• Against the insurer of the vehicle at fault, up to the policy limits. This is the primary route and does not require the driver to be sued.
• Against the driver, the keeper (işleten) and, where applicable, the operator, for any loss exceeding the policy limits. Under Article 85 of Law No. 2918 the keeper's liability is strict — fault does not have to be proved.
• Against the Guarantee Account (Güvence Hesabı), where the vehicle is uninsured, cannot be identified, or the insurer's licence has been withdrawn (Article 108 of Law No. 2918). A hit-and-run is precisely the case this account exists for.

Fault is assessed by expert examination, but the accident report prepared at the scene sets the initial position and is frequently the document that decides the case. Where the report is incomplete — no sketch, no measurement, the pedestrian's position not recorded — that gap is very difficult to fill afterwards.

Which Law Applies When a Foreigner Is Injured in Turkey?

This is the first question a foreign client asks, and the answer is given by a single provision. Under Article 34/1 of Law No. 5718 (the Act on Private International and Procedural Law), obligations arising from a tort are governed by the law of the country where the tort was committed. An accident that happened in Turkey is therefore governed by Turkish law — the nationality of the injured person, the nationality of the driver and the country where the vehicle is registered do not change that.

Three refinements of the same article matter in practice:

• Article 34/2: where the place of the act and the place where the damage occurred are in different countries, the law of the country where the damage occurred applies.
• Article 34/3: where the relationship is more closely connected with another country, that country's law may apply instead. This is the exception, and it is argued rather than assumed.
• Article 34/4: where the law applicable to the tort or to the insurance contract permits it, the injured party may bring the claim directly against the insurer. Turkish law does permit it, which is why the direct action against the insurance company described above is available.

Article 40 completes the picture for jurisdiction: the international jurisdiction of Turkish courts is determined by the domestic rules on territorial jurisdiction. In other words, if a Turkish court would have territorial jurisdiction under the Code of Civil Procedure, it also has international jurisdiction over a case with a foreign element.

Time Limits: Why "Two Years" Is Usually the Wrong Answer

Almost every page on this subject states that a personal injury claim in Turkey must be brought within two years. That is the general rule, and in a case involving physical injury caused by a road accident it is usually not the applicable one.

Article 72/1 of Law No. 6098 sets the general rule: two years from the date the injured party learns of the damage and of the person liable, and in any event ten years from the date of the act. The same paragraph then adds the sentence that changes the outcome: "However, if the compensation arises from an act requiring punishment for which the criminal laws provide a longer limitation period, that period shall apply." Article 109/2 of Law No. 2918 repeats the rule for traffic accidents in identical terms.

So the question becomes: what is the criminal limitation period? Article 66 of the Turkish Criminal Code ties it to the maximum sentence for the offence:

Two further rules attach to the traffic accident regime and are worth knowing. Under Article 109/3 of Law No. 2918, interruption of the limitation period against the person liable also interrupts it against the insurer, and vice versa — so a written application to the insurer protects the position against the driver as well. And under Article 109/4, the mutual right of recourse between those liable is subject to its own two-year period running from the date the payment was made.

Who Actually Pays: Driver, Insurer, or the Guarantee Account

Identifying the correct defendant is not a formality. Suing the wrong party costs time and, where the limitation period is close to expiry, can cost the claim itself.

Social security benefits are handled with more care than is usually assumed. Article 55/1 of Law No. 6098 provides that benefits which cannot be recovered from the person liable — in whole or in part — may not be taken into account when the loss is assessed and may not be deducted from the award. Where the institution does hold a right of recourse, the position is different: that benefit is set off, and the institution pursues the person liable itself. Treating every payment received from the social security institution as an automatic deduction understates the claim.

The Two Steps You Must Complete Before Filing

Turkish procedure places two conditions in front of a personal injury action, and neither is discretionary. Filing without them does not weaken the case — it ends it, because the court dismisses the action on procedural grounds without examining whether the claim was good.

Written application to the insurer (Article 97 of Law No. 2918)

Before going to court, the injured party must apply in writing to the insurance company concerned, within the limits of the compulsory motor liability policy. The insurer then has 15 days to answer in writing. If it does not answer, or answers in a way that does not meet the claim, the injured party may either bring an action or apply to insurance arbitration under Law No. 5684.

The corresponding obligation on the insurer is in Article 99: once the claimant has delivered the documents specified in the general conditions to the insurer's head office or one of its branches, the insurer must pay the amounts falling within the compulsory policy limits within eight working days.

Mediation where the defendant is an insurance company (Article 5/A of Law No. 6102)

A claim against an insurance company is a commercial claim. Under Article 5/A of the Turkish Commercial Code, in commercial actions for a sum of money — claims for payment, compensation, objection to enforcement, negative declaratory relief and restitution — applying to a mediator before filing is a condition of the action. The mediator must conclude the process within six weeks of appointment, extendable by a maximum of two further weeks.

Insurance Arbitration: The Faster Route and Its Cost Ceiling

Where the dispute is with an insurer, there is an alternative to the courts that most foreign claimants are never told about: the Insurance Arbitration Commission, established under Article 30 of Law No. 5684 within the Insurance Association of Türkiye.

Access does not depend on the insurer having agreed to arbitration. A person in dispute with a company that is a member of the arbitration system may use it even where the policy contains no arbitration clause, and — for disputes arising from insurance that legislation makes compulsory, which includes motor third party liability — the right exists even if the company is not a member.

The mechanics are set out in the same article and they are what make the route attractive:

• Precondition (Art. 30/13): the applicant must have applied to the insurer and be able to document that the claim was rejected in whole or in part. If the insurer does not reply in writing within 15 working days, that is itself sufficient to apply.
• Speed (Art. 30/16): the arbitrator must decide within four months of appointment, failing which the dispute passes to the competent court. The period can be extended only by the express written consent of both parties.
• Cost exposure (Art. 30/17): where the claim is rejected in whole or in part, the attorney fee awarded against the applicant is one fifth of the fee in the Minimum Attorney Fee Tariff. This single provision is the reason arbitration is often the rational first move: the downside is capped at a fifth of what a court would award against a losing claimant.
• Not available (Art. 30/14): where the same dispute has already been taken to a court or to a consumer arbitration committee.

Awards below a monetary threshold are final; above it, a single objection may be made to the Commission within ten days of notification, and above a further threshold the decision may be appealed to the Court of Cassation. The thresholds themselves are the point to check: the figures written into Law No. 5684 in 2013 have been revalued repeatedly since, and the current amounts are set by decision of the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency. The figures in circulation on most websites — five thousand, fifteen thousand, forty thousand Turkish lira — are the original statutory ones and no longer reflect the applicable limits.

What Compensation Can Be Claimed and How It Is Calculated

Turkish law divides the claim into pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, and it lists the heads of each. This is not a matter of practice or convention — the heads are written into the Code.

Article 55 governs how these are calculated: loss of support and bodily damage are assessed according to the Code and the principles of liability law, and the resulting figure may not be increased or decreased on grounds of equity once calculated. That constraint is what makes the calculation method decisive.

Two technical points that change the figure substantially

The mortality table and the discount rate. The remaining-life expectation used in Turkish actuarial calculations is taken from the TRH 2010 table. For the future period, the established approach applies a progressive annuity — a ten per cent uplift and a ten per cent discount — without applying the 1.8 per cent technical interest rate that older reports use. The basis for that technical rate fell away when the Constitutional Court annulled the reference to the general conditions in Article 90 of Law No. 2918 (decision of 17 July 2020, published on 9 October 2020), because the rate derived from tables annexed to those conditions. Reports still built on a 1.8 per cent technical rate produce materially lower figures over a long active period, and the presence of that rate in an expert report is in itself a ground for objection.

Claiming when the final figure is not yet known. This is the practical problem in every serious injury case: the permanent disability rating is not established until treatment stabilises, so the claim cannot be quantified when the limitation period is running. The procedural answer changed very recently. Article 107 of Law No. 6100, which allowed an action for an indeterminate claim, was repealed on 31 July 2026 by Article 19 of Law No. 7589. In its place, Article 20 of the same Law added a fourth paragraph to Article 109: in a partial action, the claim may be increased once, free of the prohibition on extending the claim, at any time until the conclusion of the investigation phase — and the limitation period is deemed interrupted from the date of the action for the increased part as well.

How Liability and Injury Are Proven

Article 50 of Law No. 6098 places the burden on the injured party to prove both the damage and the fault of the person who caused it. The same article then adds an important qualification: where the precise amount of the loss cannot be proved, the judge determines it fairly, having regard to the ordinary course of events and the measures taken by the injured party. The burden is therefore real, but it is not a requirement of arithmetical certainty.

Two categories reverse or soften that burden and are worth identifying early:

• Strict liability of the vehicle keeper (Art. 85 of Law No. 2918) — fault does not have to be proved; the keeper answers for the damage caused by the vehicle's operation.
• Liability of the building owner (Art. 69 of Law No. 6098) — the owner is liable for damage caused by defective construction or inadequate maintenance, again without proof of fault.
• Liability for animals (Art. 67) and liability of the employer for employees (Art. 66) — the defendant escapes liability only by proving that all due care was taken. The burden is on the defendant, not on the injured person.

In road traffic cases the assessment of fault is carried out by expert examination and forms the backbone of the file. In workplace cases it centres on safety measures, supervision, training and equipment. In medical cases it turns on whether the treatment followed accepted standards, whether informed consent was properly obtained, and whether the harm was avoidable.

Medical Reports and the Disability Rating

In an injury claim the medical evidence does two separate jobs, and they are often confused. One is to establish the causal link between the event and the condition. The other is to fix a permanent disability percentage, which is the multiplier in the actuarial calculation.

Two distinctions are worth stating plainly, because they are the source of most misunderstanding:

• The forensic "degree" of an injury is a criminal law concept, not a compensation multiplier. The classification used in criminal proceedings to grade the severity of an injury has no direct arithmetical relationship to the compensation figure. What drives the civil calculation is the permanent disability percentage.
• The report does not state the rate; the institution determines it. Under the Regulation on Health Reports published on 19 May 2026, the medical board report is issued through the electronic reporting system and the disability rating is decided by the social security institution on the basis of it. A report that purports to state a definitive percentage is not the final word on the matter.

Where the injury has not stabilised, fixing the rate too early works against the injured person. This is precisely the situation the partial action described above is designed for.

Which Court Hears the Case, and Where

Two questions arise: which type of court, and in which city. The first depends on the defendant, and is set out in the table under "The Two Steps You Must Complete Before Filing". The second is governed by Article 16 of Law No. 6100:

"In actions arising from tort, the court of the place where the tort was committed, or where the damage occurred or is likely to occur, or of the domicile of the injured party, also has jurisdiction."

The phrase that matters to a foreign claimant is the last one. In addition to the defendant's domicile (the general rule in Article 6), an injured person may sue where the accident happened, where the damage occurred, or at their own place of domicile. For a foreign national resident in Turkey, that last option is often the most practical.

For a case with a foreign element, Article 40 of Law No. 5718 completes the analysis: the international jurisdiction of Turkish courts is determined by the domestic rules on territorial jurisdiction. If Article 16 gives a Turkish court territorial jurisdiction, that court also has international jurisdiction.

Security for Costs: The Rule Most Foreign Claimants Never Hear About

This is the provision that most often surprises a foreign client, and it is rarely mentioned on English-language pages about claiming in Turkey.

Article 48/1 of Law No. 5718 provides that foreign natural and legal persons who bring an action, intervene in an action, or initiate enforcement proceedings before a Turkish court must provide security, in an amount determined by the court, to cover the costs of the proceedings and the other party's loss.

Article 48/2 provides the way out: the court exempts the claimant, intervener or enforcement applicant from security on the basis of reciprocity. Reciprocity may arise from an international convention to which both states are party or from the practice between the two states. Whether an exemption is available in a given case therefore depends on the claimant's nationality, and it is one of the first things to establish — before filing, not after an order for security has been made.

A parallel rule governs legal aid. Article 334/1 of Law No. 6100 allows a person who cannot meet the costs of proceedings without seriously affecting the livelihood of themselves and their family to apply for legal aid, provided the claim is not manifestly unfounded. Article 334/3 adds that foreigners may benefit from legal aid subject to the further condition of reciprocity.

Running the Case From Abroad: Power of Attorney and Apostille

A foreign client does not need to remain in Turkey while the case proceeds. What is needed is a valid power of attorney authorising a lawyer to act, and there are two ways to obtain one:

• At a Turkish consulate in your country of residence. The consulate issues the instrument in Turkish and no further authentication is required.
• Before a notary in your own country, with a Turkish translation and an apostille under the 1961 Hague Convention. Türkiye is a party to that Convention, so an apostille removes the need for consular legalisation for documents from other contracting states. For a document from a state that is not a party, consular legalisation is still required.

A power of attorney for litigation should expressly cover the acts that carry a separate authority requirement — settlement, waiver, acknowledgement, submission to arbitration, receipt of money, and the mediation process. A general instrument that omits these creates avoidable delay at exactly the point where a decision must be taken quickly.

What can be done before the power of attorney is in place is worth noting: securing the medical records, obtaining the accident report, preserving photographs and witness details, and having the file assessed. None of these requires the injured person to be in Turkey, and all of them are easier to do soon after the event than months later.

What to Keep After an Accident

Cases are decided on documents, and the documents that matter are generated in the first days. The list below is what a file should contain by the time it is assessed:

One practical point about time: camera recordings — municipal, commercial and residential — are overwritten within a period measured in days or weeks. A written request to preserve the footage, made early, is often the difference between a disputed fault assessment and a settled one.

Legal Fees in Turkey: How They Are Set

Legal fees in Turkey are regulated, and the regulation sets both a floor and a ceiling.

The floor is the Minimum Attorney Fee Tariff issued annually. A fee below the tariff cannot validly be agreed for the work it covers.

The ceiling is in Article 164 of the Attorneyship Act (Law No. 1136): where the fee is agreed as a percentage of what is recovered, it may not exceed twenty-five per cent of the value of the dispute. An arrangement expressed as a share of the outcome is therefore permissible in Turkey, but only within that limit. It is worth stating this clearly, because clients arriving from jurisdictions with unrestricted contingency arrangements often assume either that no such agreement is possible or that any percentage may be agreed. Neither is correct.

Separately, the fee awarded against the losing party under the tariff belongs to the winning party's lawyer. In insurance arbitration that exposure is reduced to one fifth of the tariff figure where the claim is rejected, as set out above — which is the main reason the arbitration route carries a materially lower cost risk than a court action.

The Mistakes That Weaken an Otherwise Valid Claim

• Assuming the two-year period has expired. In an accident that also constitutes a criminal offence, the applicable period is eight years for injury and fifteen for a fatality. A claim written off years ago may still be live.
• Signing a release for an early payment. A settlement signed while the medical position is still developing is very difficult to reopen, and the sum offered at that stage rarely reflects loss of earning capacity.
• Filing without the mandatory step. No written application to the insurer, or no mediation where the defendant is an insurance company, means dismissal on procedural grounds.
• Building the claim on receipts alone. Treatment costs are usually the smallest head of damage. Loss of earning capacity and damage to economic future are where the substance of a serious claim lies.
• Accepting an expert report without reading its assumptions. A calculation built on a 1.8 per cent technical rate, or on an outdated mortality table, produces a figure that is materially too low.
• Leaving the security for costs question until after filing. The reciprocity position should be established before the claim is issued, not in response to an order.
• Inconsistent accounts of the event. A description in the emergency department record that differs from the accident report is the first thing the opposing side will use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Three things decide an injury file: the date, the defendant and the route

The date determines which limitation period applies, and it is rarely the two years most people are told. The defendant determines whether a written application or mediation must come first, which court hears the case, and whether the claim can be brought against an insurer directly. The route — court or insurance arbitration — determines how long it takes and what the cost exposure is if the claim fails. Those three questions can be answered from the accident report, the medical records and any correspondence with the insurer. If you are outside Turkey, none of this requires you to travel.

Call: +90 530 084 71 41 Message on WhatsApp

Av. Arb. Handan SAYAN ÖZGÜL Attorney at Law & Mediator · Ankara Bar Association Reg. No: 26867 Kızılırmak Mah. 1450. Sk. No:16/5 Hayat Plaza Kat: 2, Çankaya / Ankara

Legal notice: This page is provided for general information about Turkish law and does not constitute legal advice or create a lawyer-client relationship. Every injury claim depends on the facts of the event, the medical evidence and the documents in the file, and must be assessed individually. Legislation and the amounts fixed under it change; the position stated here reflects the law as at the date of last update shown above. For advice on a specific case, please contact the office.