Bookkeeping and tax filing

Why a licensed Turkish CPA signs your returns

Turkish law does not require a company to sign a contract with an accountant as such. What it requires is a signature. Under repeated article 227 of the Tax Procedure Law, companies below annual size thresholds must have their annual corporate tax return, VAT returns and withholding and social security returns signed by a licensed Turkish CPA (SMMM). Large companies above those thresholds are outside the rule, so a new or growing foreign-owned company needs an SMMM in practice.

That is why bookkeeping sits at the centre of both packages. Your returns are prepared and signed by ETITAX, a firm of licensed Turkish CPAs whose roots go back to 1980. Our own software also checks our clients’ e-invoices and, where we have access, their e-Tebligat inbox automatically and regularly.

The filing year at a glance

• Every month: the VAT return by the 28th of the following month, and the withholding and social security return by the 26th. The withholding return covers tax the company withholds on certain payments, such as rent paid to an individual landlord, and — once you have staff — salaries and social security premiums.
• Every quarter: a provisional corporate tax return, filed and paid by the 17th of the second month after the quarter. From the 2025 period there are four a year again; guides that mention three are out of date.
• Every year: the annual corporate tax return in the fourth month after year-end (April for a calendar-year company). The tax is paid by the end of the month in which the return is filed.

Two rules shape the numbers. The general corporate tax rate is 25%, and since 2025 corporate tax cannot be less than 10% of corporate income before deductions and exemptions (the domestic minimum corporate tax, article 32/C of the Corporate Tax Law). A company starting activity for the first time is exempt from this minimum for its first three accounting periods. Separately, no inflation adjustment of the tax balance sheet is made for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 accounting periods.

We also flag other yearly items for foreign-owned companies, such as the Activity Information Form filed through E-TUYS by the end of May. For a fuller picture, read our guide to Turkish taxes for foreign-owned companies.

Transaction limits

Basic covers up to 100 transactions a year and Professional up to 500. A transaction is each accounting entry we record: a sales or purchase invoice, a bank movement, a payroll entry. A holding company, or one that has not started trading, usually stays within 100; a trading company often needs more. You can add 2,000 transactions a year for USD 500 or 5,000 for USD 1,000 — see extra bookkeeping volume.

What sits outside the package

• Payroll for your employees, with a monthly fee by headcount — see Payroll.
• The one-time e-ledger set-up. After that, the monthly e-ledger files are part of your bookkeeping.
• The financial seal and e-invoice registration.
• The bank account application and the lease agreement stamp duty filing, including the filing for the virtual office agreement in Professional.
• Notifications for large multinational groups: the CbCR notification and the global minimum tax notification.

Moving an existing company to us

Basic is designed for companies that are already registered. We take over from your current accountant: opening balances, recent returns and a check of your e-ledger set-up. Before the first month we also check two year-end deadlines. A company that must use e-Tebligat but has not yet joined has to do so by 30 November 2026 — see e-Notification. And a company whose capital is below the new minimum (TRY 50,000 for an Ltd. Şti., TRY 250,000 for an A.Ş.) must increase it by 31 December 2026, or it is deemed dissolved; no extension had been announced as of 16 October 2026. Both are covered in our year-end deadlines guide.