Our article explains how foreign court judgments are recognised and enforced in Türkiye under Law No. 5718: the reciprocity requirement, jurisdiction review, public policy, due process, the bar on merits review and registering foreign divorces without litigation.
A judgment obtained in London, Frankfurt, New York or Dubai has no automatic effect in Türkiye. Türkiye is not part of the European Union's Brussels regime and is not a party to the Lugano Convention, so the streamlined circulation of judgments that European practitioners take for granted does not extend to it. A foreign creditor seeking to attach assets in Türkiye, or a foreign spouse seeking to have a divorce reflected in the Turkish civil registry, must first bring the foreign decision before a Turkish court. The governing rules are found in Articles 50 to 59 of Law No. 5718 on Private International Law and International Civil Procedure. The process is frequently misunderstood abroad as a retrial. It is not; the Turkish court does not review the merits, and its scrutiny is confined to a closed list of conditions. That said, one of those conditions, reciprocity, has no equivalent in many other legal systems and regularly catches foreign counsel unprepared. This article explains the distinction between recognition and enforcement, which judgments qualify, which court hears the application, the documents required, the reciprocity requirement, jurisdictional review, the public policy and due process defences, the bar on merits review, procedure and timing, partial enforcement, the special position of recognition, the administrative route for foreign divorces, and what all of this means for the drafting of dispute resolution clauses.
1. Recognition and Enforcement Are Two Different Applications
Turkish law treats recognition and enforcement as distinct remedies, and choosing the correct one determines what the applicant must prove. Enforcement (tenfiz) gives a foreign judgment executory force in Türkiye. It is required whenever the judgment orders the payment of money, the delivery of property or the performance of an obligation that must be executed against the debtor. Recognition (tanıma) gives a foreign judgment the effect of res judicata or conclusive evidence in Türkiye, without making it executable. It is sufficient for judgments that change or declare a legal status without ordering any performance, such as divorce, annulment of marriage or the establishment of parentage. A single foreign judgment may require both. A divorce decree that also awards maintenance, compensation or costs needs recognition for the dissolution of the marriage and enforcement for the monetary orders. Structuring the application this way from the outset avoids procedural objections and, as explained below, can avoid the reciprocity requirement altogether for the status element.
2. Which Judgments Qualify
Two conditions define the judgments that may be enforced. First, the decision must have been rendered by a foreign court in a civil matter. Decisions of administrative authorities fall outside these provisions, and foreign arbitral awards are subject to a separate regime discussed later in this article. Second, the judgment must be final under the law of the state in which it was rendered. Finality is measured by the law of the rendering state, not by Turkish standards, which means that a judgment treated as final in its home jurisdiction will generally be treated as final in Türkiye. Civil claims for damages decided within foreign criminal proceedings may also be enforced. Interim measures, by contrast, cannot. Freezing injunctions, attachment orders and other provisional measures granted abroad are not final judgments and cannot be enforced against assets in Türkiye under these provisions. Foreign creditors who expect an English freezing order or a French saisie conservatoire to bite on Turkish assets should plan instead to seek interim relief directly from the Turkish courts.
3. Which Court Hears the Application
Subject-matter jurisdiction lies with the civil courts of first instance. Depending on the nature of the dispute, the competent court will be the general civil court, the family court or the commercial court; recognition of a divorce goes before the family court, while enforcement of a commercial money judgment goes before the commercial court. Territorial jurisdiction follows a cascade. The application is filed where the respondent is domiciled in Türkiye. If the respondent has no domicile, it is filed where the respondent resides. If the respondent has neither a domicile nor a residence in Türkiye, the applicant may choose between the courts of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. That last option is the one foreign creditors most often rely on, because their counterparty's only connection with Türkiye is frequently the presence of assets. Territorial jurisdiction is not a matter of public policy, so an objection to venue must be raised within the time allowed or it is lost.
4. Filing and the Documents Required
Any person with a legal interest may apply for enforcement. The documents that must accompany the application are prescribed by statute, and in practice this is where applications most often stall. The applicant must file the original foreign judgment duly authenticated by the authorities of the rendering state, or a copy certified by the court that issued it, together with a certified Turkish translation. The applicant must also file a document, duly authenticated, showing that the judgment has become final, together with its certified translation. Where the judgment itself bears no certificate of finality, a separate certificate must be obtained from the foreign court. For states party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, an apostille is sufficient; for other states, consular legalisation is required. If documents are missing, the court sets a peremptory deadline to complete them, and failure to comply leads to dismissal. Obtaining a certificate of finality and a properly apostilled set of documents before instructing Turkish counsel saves weeks.
5. Reciprocity: The Requirement That Surprises Foreign Counsel
The first condition for enforcement is reciprocity, and it is the requirement that most often surprises lawyers from jurisdictions that enforce foreign judgments without asking what the foreign state would do in return. Reciprocity may be established in any one of three ways. The first is a treaty between Türkiye and the rendering state providing for the mutual enforcement of judgments. The second is a statutory provision in the rendering state permitting the enforcement of Turkish judgments. The third is de facto reciprocity, meaning evidence that the courts of the rendering state actually enforce Turkish judgments in practice. Any one route is sufficient. De facto reciprocity is the most litigated, and it is usually proved by producing judgments of the foreign state's courts that have enforced Turkish decisions, or official information obtained through the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs. Where no form of reciprocity can be shown, enforcement is refused, however sound the foreign judgment may be. Foreign creditors should therefore establish at the outset how their own jurisdiction treats Turkish judgments. Reciprocity is required only for enforcement; it is not a condition of recognition.
6. Exclusive and Exorbitant Jurisdiction
The second condition involves a twofold review of the foreign court's jurisdiction. First, the judgment must not concern a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Turkish courts. Disputes over rights in rem in immovable property located in Türkiye are the principal example, and a foreign judgment on such a matter cannot be enforced. Second, the foreign court must not have assumed jurisdiction on an exorbitant basis, that is, without any genuine connection to the subject matter or the parties. This second limb is not examined by the court of its own motion. It applies only if the respondent raises it. A respondent who does not object loses the defence. The rule is designed to stop judgments obtained in a forum with no real link to the dispute from being imported into Türkiye. Judgments rendered by a court chosen in a valid jurisdiction agreement stand on a different footing, because the parties' choice itself supplies the connection.
7. Public Policy, Narrowly Construed
The third condition is that the judgment must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy. The word "manifestly" signals that the test is narrow. A foreign judgment is not contrary to public policy simply because a Turkish court would have reached a different result under Turkish law; if it were, the enforcement of foreign judgments would be impossible in practice. The review is directed at incompatibility with the fundamental principles of the Turkish legal order, the constitutional protection of fundamental rights and widely shared standards of justice. One long-running question was whether a foreign judgment without written reasons, as is common in certain jurisdictions for default or consent judgments, offends Turkish public policy. The Grand General Assembly of the Turkish Court of Cassation for the Unification of Judgments settled the point in 2012, holding that the absence of reasons does not, by itself, amount to a breach of public policy. Fundamental breaches of the right to be heard, by contrast, remain capable of engaging the public policy exception.
8. The Due Process Defence
The fourth condition protects the respondent's right to be heard, and it operates differently from the others. Enforcement is refused if, under the law of the rendering state, the respondent was not duly summoned, was not represented, or was the subject of a default judgment rendered in breach of that law. However, the defence must be raised by the respondent before the Turkish court. The court does not examine it on its own initiative, and a respondent who stays silent may face enforcement even where service abroad was defective. Two practical points follow. First, proper service is assessed under the law of the rendering state, not under Turkish rules on service. Second, a respondent who claims to have been unaware of the foreign proceedings is expected to substantiate the claim with concrete evidence. For foreign creditors, the lesson is to ensure that service in the original proceedings was effected in a manner that can later be documented, particularly where the debtor was located in Türkiye at the time.
9. No Review of the Merits
The cornerstone of the enforcement procedure is that the Turkish court does not re-examine the merits of the foreign judgment. It does not ask whether the foreign court established the facts correctly, weighed the evidence properly or applied the law accurately. This prohibition on révision au fond preserves the function of the enforcement mechanism, and the court's review is limited to the statutory conditions. In practice, the prohibition is most often tested when respondents attempt to repackage arguments about the correctness of the foreign judgment as public policy objections. Turkish courts are expected to resist this and to assess such objections without entering into the merits. A related consequence is that no new evidence is taken on the substance of the claim, and defences that were not raised in the foreign proceedings are, as a rule, not heard. A respondent who chose not to defend abroad cannot use the Turkish enforcement proceedings as a second opportunity to contest liability.
10. Procedure, Timing and Appeals
Enforcement applications are heard under the simplified procedure of the Turkish Code of Civil Procedure, which limits the exchange of written submissions and reduces the number of hearings. The respondent is served and given the opportunity to object. Objections fall into two categories: that the statutory conditions are not met, or that the judgment has already been satisfied in whole or in part, or that some other circumstance prevents its execution, such as payment, release or set-off. Decisions granting or refusing enforcement are subject to the ordinary appellate remedies. An enforcement decision cannot be executed until it becomes final, and the appellate stage can add considerably to the overall timeline. Foreign creditors should factor this into their recovery strategy and consider, where assets are at risk of dissipation, applying separately to the Turkish courts for interim measures while the enforcement proceedings are pending.
11. Partial Enforcement and Execution
The court may grant enforcement in respect of part of a foreign judgment. This prevents the whole application from failing where only certain heads of the judgment fail to meet the statutory conditions. The most common example is a judgment in which one item is found to be contrary to public policy while the remainder is enforced. The applicant may also seek partial enforcement from the outset. Once enforcement is granted, the foreign judgment is executed in the same way as a Turkish judgment. The creditor may initiate enforcement proceedings based on a court judgment, with all the consequences Turkish enforcement law attaches to domestic judgments. The enforcement decision confers executory force on the foreign judgment in Türkiye; it does not alter its content or add to it. Where the judgment is expressed in a foreign currency, the conversion rate applicable on the date of payment is generally relevant, and the relief sought should be drafted with this in mind.
12. Recognition Without Reciprocity
For a foreign judgment to be accepted as res judicata or conclusive evidence, the court must establish that it satisfies the conditions for enforcement, with one significant exception: reciprocity is not required for recognition. The statute says so expressly. As a result, judgments from states with which Türkiye has no reciprocal arrangement can still be recognised. This is of particular practical importance for divorce decrees obtained in jurisdictions that have no judicial cooperation framework with Türkiye. The same rules apply to the recognition of decisions in non-contentious matters, and to cases in which a foreign judgment is relied upon to obtain an administrative act in Türkiye. The effect of recognition runs from the date on which the foreign judgment became final, not from the date of the Turkish recognition decision. That retroactive effect can be decisive where legal relationships, such as a subsequent marriage or an inheritance, arose in the interval.
13. Foreign Divorces: Registration Without Going to Court
Since 2017, Turkish law has offered an administrative alternative for foreign divorce decrees that avoids litigation entirely. Under a provision added to Law No. 5490 on Civil Registry Services, decisions of foreign judicial or administrative authorities on divorce, annulment, nullity or the existence of a marriage may be entered directly in the Turkish civil registry. Three conditions apply: the foreign authority must have been competent under its own law, the decision must be final, and it must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy. As a rule, both spouses must apply together; a Turkish citizen spouse may apply alone where the other spouse has died or is a foreign national. Applications are made abroad to the Turkish consulate in the country where the decision was rendered, or in Türkiye to the provincial civil registry office where either party resides. The route has clear limits. It covers only the dissolution of the marriage itself. Orders on custody, contact, maintenance or compensation still require court proceedings, as does any case in which one spouse refuses to cooperate.
14. Judgments Versus Awards: What This Means for Your Dispute Resolution Clause
Foreign arbitral awards are recognised and enforced under an entirely different regime, and the contrast should inform the drafting of cross-border contracts involving Turkish counterparties. Türkiye is a party to the 1958 New York Convention, which now counts more than one hundred and sixty contracting states. An arbitral award can therefore be enforced in Türkiye, and a Turkish-seated award abroad, within a predictable and widely shared framework. Court judgments enjoy no comparable network. Outside the Brussels and Lugano systems, and subject to any bilateral treaty, enforcement of a foreign judgment in Türkiye depends on proving reciprocity. For a foreign company contracting with a Turkish party whose assets are in Türkiye, this structural difference is often decisive. An exclusive jurisdiction clause in favour of a foreign court may produce a judgment that is difficult or impossible to enforce where it matters. An arbitration clause, by contrast, leads to an award that benefits from the New York Convention. This assessment is best made at the negotiation stage, not when enforcement becomes necessary.
15. Conclusion: A Checklist for Foreign Creditors and Families
The recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Türkiye is governed by a limited but rigorously applied set of conditions. The key points may be summarised as follows. Enforcement is required where the judgment orders performance; recognition is sufficient where it only declares or changes a legal status. The judgment must be final under the law of the rendering state, and finality must be documented. Reciprocity is required for enforcement only, and may be established by treaty, by statute or by actual practice; foreign creditors should verify it before filing. Exclusive jurisdiction is reviewed by the court of its own motion, while exorbitant jurisdiction and due process are reviewed only on the respondent's objection. Public policy is construed narrowly, and the absence of reasons alone is not a ground for refusal. The merits are not reopened. For foreign divorces, the administrative registration route should be considered before litigation. Documents should be apostilled or legalised, and translated, before proceedings begin. Above all, where a Turkish counterparty's assets are in Türkiye, the choice between litigation and arbitration should be made with enforcement in mind from the outset.
This topic is closely connected with other aspects of international dispute resolution. Our analysis of the 1958 New York Convention and the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in Türkiye, our article on setting aside arbitral awards under Turkish law, our note on determining the law applicable to international contracts under Turkish law and our frequently asked questions on international child abduction cases in Türkiye address related matters.
For advice on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards in Türkiye, the registration of foreign divorce decrees, the recovery of cross-border claims and the drafting of international dispute resolution clauses, you may contact us at info@guzeloglu.legal.