How does unpaid leave (ücretsiz izin) work in Turkey?
Ücretsiz izin (unpaid leave) suspends a Turkish employment contract without ending it: no work, no pay, no social security premium days. Only two unpaid leaves are statutory: travel leave up to four days and up to six months following maternity leave. Everything else requires mutual written consent, and imposing it unilaterally counts in court practice as a de facto dismissal.
A suspension by consent — not a cost lever
During unpaid leave the contract survives but sleeps: the employee's duty to work and the employer's duty to pay are both suspended, seniority-linked side duties such as loyalty continue, and the job resumes on the same terms when the leave ends. Because no wage is paid, no SGK contribution days are reported for the period — which is why unpaid leave shows up most visibly in payroll and social security records rather than in the personnel file.
What unpaid leave is not, in Turkey, is a unilateral instrument. Outside the two statutory cases, it exists only by agreement: the offer — from either side — should be made in writing, and the employee's acceptance must be written too, mirroring the essential-change mechanics of Labor Law No. 4857, Article 22, with its six-working-day window for written acceptance. The Court of Cassation's settled line is blunt: sending an employee on unpaid leave without their written consent is a de facto (constructive) termination by the employer, exposing the company to severance and, where conditions are met, notice pay and reinstatement claims. Using unpaid leave to cut costs without consent does not buy a compensation-free pause: it buys a compensated dismissal.
The two statutory unpaid leaves
Travel leave (yol izni): an employee who will spend their annual leave somewhere other than where the workplace is located is entitled, on request and with supporting documentation, to up to four days of unpaid leave in total to cover the outbound and return journeys (Labor Law No. 4857, Article 56). It sits on top of the annual leave rather than being deducted from it — the point is that travel should not eat the vacation itself. The employer must grant it when the conditions are met.
Post-maternity unpaid leave: on her request, a female employee is entitled to up to six months of unpaid leave after the sixteen-week maternity leave ends (eighteen weeks for multiple pregnancies), and the same right belongs to one of the spouses or to the adopter when a child under three is adopted (Article 74). The statute spells out one consequence itself: this six-month period is not counted when calculating the qualifying year for annual paid leave — the leave anniversary shifts accordingly.
Payroll, SGK and seniority effects
On the contribution side the rule is clean: no earnings, no premium base. The employer reports the period through missing-day declarations, and the days do not count toward the employee's pension record. General health insurance has a statutory bridge: for documented unpaid leave, GSS coverage continues for up to one month in total per calendar year, and the two statutory leaves of Articles 56 and 74 sit outside that one-month cap (Law No. 5510, Article 67). Access to care also requires 30 reported premium days within the year preceding the treatment, so long unpaid stretches deserve a coverage check before they start.
Seniority runs on the same suspension logic: under settled Court of Cassation case law, time spent on unpaid leave is excluded from the service period used for severance pay and from the one-year qualifying period for annual leave — and for the six-month post-maternity leave the statute says so expressly. Employers should reflect this in records rather than improvising at exit: the suspension dates, the written consent and the return date belong in the personnel file, because years later they decide what the severance calculation looks like.
| Travel leave | Up to 4 days unpaid, on request with documentation, for annual leave spent elsewhere (Art. 56) |
| Post-maternity leave | Up to 6 months unpaid on request after maternity leave, also for adoption of a child under three (Art. 74) |
| All other unpaid leave | Only by mutual agreement, offer and acceptance in writing, never unilateral |
| Imposed unilaterally | Treated as de facto dismissal by settled case law — severance and notice exposure |
| SGK premiums | No premium days reported. The month carries missing-day declarations |
| GSS coverage | Continues up to 1 month of documented unpaid leave per calendar year, with Art. 56 and Art. 74 leaves excluded from the cap (Law No. 5510, Art. 67) |
Frequently asked
Not unilaterally. Outside the two statutory cases, unpaid leave in Turkey exists only by mutual consent given in writing. The Court of Cassation treats sending an employee on unpaid leave without their written acceptance as a de facto termination by the employer. The employee can then claim severance pay and, where conditions are met, notice pay, and may pursue reinstatement. A lawful cost-driven pause therefore starts with a written offer and the employee's written acceptance.
No wage means no contribution base: the employer reports the period via missing-day declarations and no SGK premium days accrue toward the pension record. General health insurance continues for documented unpaid leave up to one month in total per calendar year, and the statutory travel and post-maternity leaves are excluded from that cap (Law No. 5510, Article 67). Using health services also requires 30 premium days reported within the preceding year, so long leaves warrant a coverage check.
No. Under settled Court of Cassation case law the contract is suspended, so time on unpaid leave is excluded from the service period used to calculate severance pay and from the one-year qualifying period for annual paid leave. For the six-month post-maternity leave, Labor Law No. 4857 states the annual-leave exclusion expressly in Article 74. In practice the employee's seniority clock pauses and resumes, which is why the leave's start, end and written consent belong in the personnel file.
Two cases. Travel leave: up to four days unpaid, on request and with documentation, for an employee spending annual leave away from where the workplace is located — granted on top of the annual leave (Labor Law No. 4857, Article 56). Post-maternity leave: up to six months unpaid on the employee's request after the sixteen-week (eighteen for multiple pregnancies) maternity leave, also available to one spouse or the adopter when a child under three is adopted (Article 74). Everything else requires agreement.
The contract stays alive during the suspension, so the employee's duty of loyalty continues. Working for a competitor, or taking up work incompatible with the stated purpose of the leave, can damage the relationship of trust and open a termination dispute, but there is no bright-line statutory rule. The clean solution is contractual: state in the written leave agreement whether outside work is permitted, in what scope, and what the return terms are.