Every company registered in Turkey keeps its books under two bodies of law at once: the Turkish Commercial Code (Türk Ticaret Kanunu, TTK), which says which books exist and how they are certified, and the Tax Procedure Law (Vergi Usul Kanunu, VUK), which says how they are written and what happens if they are not. The two do not always line up, and the places where they differ are where foreign-owned companies get caught.
This page sets out the actual requirements, and then the part that is specific to a company with a parent abroad.
Which books a Turkish company must keep
The list depends on the company type. Both forms keep the same three accounting books; the difference is in the corporate books.
| Book | Limited Şirket | Anonim Şirket |
|---|---|---|
| Yevmiye defteri (journal) | Required | Required |
| Defteri kebir (general ledger) | Required | Required |
| Envanter defteri (inventory book) | Required | Required |
| Pay defteri (share register) | Required | Required |
| Genel kurul toplantı ve müzakere defteri (general assembly book) | Required | Required |
| Yönetim kurulu karar defteri (board resolution book) | — | Required |
| Müdürler kurulu karar defteri | Optional | — |
| Damga vergisi defteri (stamp tax book) | If applicable | Required |
Certification: opening and closing
Books have to be certified (tasdik) by a notary or, at incorporation, by the trade registry.
Opening certification must be done before the books are used. For a company already trading, that means by the end of the last month of the preceding fiscal year — the end of December for a calendar-year company. For a newly incorporated company, before it starts operating.
Closing certification applies to only two books:
- the yevmiye defteri, by the end of the sixth month of the following fiscal period — 30 June for a calendar-year company;
- the yönetim kurulu karar defteri of an anonim şirket, by the end of the first month of the following period — 31 January.
Missing the closing certification carries an administrative fine under TTK Article 562. It is not a tax penalty, which is why it is so often overlooked: nothing in the tax filings flags it, and the company only discovers the gap when a court, a bank or a buyer asks to see certified books.
Electronic ledgers and e-invoicing
Turkey's e-document regime is mandatory once turnover or activity thresholds are crossed, and many companies register voluntarily before that. Once you are inside it, the e-defter obligations run on a fixed calendar.
Corporate taxpayers choose between two upload options for the e-defter berat:
- Monthly: by the end of the 14th day of the fourth month following the month in question. January's ledger is due by 14 April.
- Quarterly (provisional tax periods): by the end of the 14th day of the month following the month in which the corporate provisional tax return is due. The first quarter is due by 14 May.
The quarterly option is administratively lighter and is what most companies choose. Deadlines falling on a weekend or public holiday move to the next business day.
The exact turnover figures, the sector groups that are in regardless of turnover and the dates each obligation starts are set out on our e-invoice and e-ledger thresholds page.
The e-invoice side is where foreign-owned companies most often discover a problem late, and it is rarely discovered by the accountant — it is discovered when a Turkish customer refuses an invoice because it was not issued in the electronic form the law required.
How the records must be kept
Language and currency. Books and records must be kept in Turkish and in Turkish lira. Records may additionally be kept in another language, but the Turkish records govern. Foreign currency bookkeeping is permitted only in narrow cases — free zone operations, İstanbul Finance Centre participants, and a small number of companies granted specific permission. Assume your Turkey entity keeps its books in lira.
Timing. Transactions must be recorded without disrupting the order and clarity of the accounts, and in any case within ten days. Where the company uses signed accounting vouchers, prima nota or payroll documents as the intermediate record, transfer to the main books may take up to forty-five days. Cash, retail sales and daily income records must be written day by day. These are not soft targets; late entry is an irregularity in its own right, independent of whether the numbers are correct.
Chart of accounts. Turkish accounts follow the Uniform Chart of Accounts (Tek Düzen Hesap Planı). The account numbers are the same in every company in the country. This is convenient for the tax authority and inconvenient for a foreign parent, which is the subject of the next section.
How long to keep them
Two periods apply to the same documents:
- VUK: five years, running from the beginning of the calendar year following the year the records relate to.
- TTK: ten years, running from the end of the calendar year in which the last entry was made, the inventory drawn up, or the financial statements prepared.
In practice the ten-year period governs, because the shorter tax period expiring does not release you from the commercial obligation. Plan storage — including electronic storage and the ability to actually read the files a decade later — on ten years, not five.
What changes when the parent is abroad
Everything above applies to a Turkish company whoever owns it. What follows is specific to a subsidiary of a foreign group, and it is the part most local providers do not address.
The statutory ledger is a tax ledger, not a reporting ledger. It is built to compute taxable profit under the Tax Procedure Law. It contains no deferred tax, it recognises severance when paid rather than actuarially, it capitalises only leases that qualify as financial leases, and its provisioning rules are tax rules. Your group pack under IFRS or US GAAP is produced on top of it as a conversion. It is not extracted from it. We have written separately on converting Turkish statutory accounts to IFRS or US GAAP, including what changed when the statutory inflation adjustment was suspended for 2025 to 2027 while IFRS continued to require it.
Map the chart of accounts at the start, not at the first reporting deadline. The Uniform Chart of Accounts will not match your group chart. If the mapping is built once, properly, at onboarding, the group pack falls out of the same monthly close. If it is not, somebody rebuilds it by hand in a spreadsheet every month, and the errors are undetectable from either end.
The ledger currency does not decide the functional currency. Your Turkey entity keeps its books in lira because the law requires it. Its functional currency for IFRS is a separate judgement about the primary economic environment — and for a company that prices, buys and funds itself in euro or dollars, the answer may well not be the lira. That judgement changes the accounting materially, and it is one your group auditor will test.
Where it goes wrong
The failures we are called in to fix are consistent:
- Corporate books never opened or years out of date, discovered during a transaction.
- Closing certification missed because the company was on paper books and assumed the e-defter exemption applied.
- e-Defter berats uploaded late, or uploaded but never checked for whether they were accepted.
- Books technically correct under Turkish rules but unusable for group reporting, so the parent maintains a parallel spreadsheet that has quietly diverged.
- A handover from a previous accountant accepted without review, with the incoming firm inheriting an opening balance nobody has verified.
What we do
We keep the statutory books to Turkish requirements — postings, bank and cash, imports, fixed assets and depreciation, the periodic accruals and foreign exchange valuations Turkish tax law requires, supplier and customer reconciliations, and the annual statutory financial statements. We handle e-invoice, e-archive and e-ledger activation, monthly creation and berat certification, and the archiving that follows.
You get a reconciled trial balance on an agreed date each month, in your group's chart of accounts as well as the Turkish one. If the group needs the figures restated under IFRS or US GAAP, that is our reporting service, and it runs off the same close rather than a second exercise.
Frequently asked questions
Which books does a limited şirket in Turkey have to keep?
The yevmiye defteri, defteri kebir and envanter defteri as accounting books, plus the pay defteri and the genel kurul toplantı ve müzakere defteri as corporate books. A müdürler kurulu karar defteri is optional, but if you choose to keep one it must be certified like any other book.
When must books be certified?
Opening certification before the books are used — by the end of December for a calendar-year company already trading, or before operations begin for a new one. Closing certification applies to the yevmiye defteri, by the end of June, and to an anonim şirket's board resolution book, by the end of January.
Do e-defter users still need notary certification?
No. Companies keeping their commercial books electronically are not required to obtain notary approval for the opening, or for the closing of the yevmiye defteri and the board resolution book. The corporate books that are still kept on paper — the share register and the general assembly book — do still require it.
When are e-defter berats due?
Corporate taxpayers on the monthly option upload by the 14th day of the fourth month following the relevant month. On the quarterly option, by the 14th day of the month following the month in which the corporate provisional tax return is due.
Can we keep our Turkish books in euro or dollars?
In almost all cases, no. Books must be kept in Turkish and in Turkish lira. Foreign currency bookkeeping is confined to narrow situations such as free zone operations and İstanbul Finance Centre participants. You can of course keep parallel records in your group currency; they do not replace the statutory ones.
How quickly do transactions have to be recorded?
Within ten days as a general rule. Up to forty-five days where signed accounting vouchers, prima nota or payroll documents are used as the intermediate record. Cash, retail sales and daily income records must be entered day by day.
How long do we have to keep the books?
Five years under the Tax Procedure Law and ten years under the Commercial Code, measured slightly differently. Plan on ten.
Can we change accountants mid-year?
Yes, and it is common. The work is in the handover: opening balances, the certification history of the books, the e-defter berat record and any open reconciliations all need to be verified rather than assumed. We do that review before quoting, not after.