Official Gazette / September 8-14, 2025

By Presidential Decree;

- As of January 1, 2026, it has been decided that taxpayers involved in all types of construction-related transactions, those engaged in the manufacturing and trading of commodities, operators of restaurants, entertainment, and leisure facilities, those providing urban passenger transport, and those performing maintenance and repair of motor vehicles will be taxed under the actual method. With this decision, the tax office and accounting expenses of these taxpayers will increase significantly.

- The international departure fee has been raised to 1,000 TL.

- Technology development zones have been established in Istanbul Ümraniye, Finanskent (finance and technology base), as well as in Antalya, Alanya, Telatiye; Amasya, Merkez, Şehycui; and Antalya, Aksu, Çalkaya.

- The strike decision taken by the Öz Büro İş Union at the Turkish Standards Institution and its affiliated workplaces has been postponed for 60 days, as it was deemed to be detrimental to national security.

- The Medium-Term Program (2026-2028) has been adopted, incorporating goals such as flexible employment models for working days and hours, incentives for the employment of qualified foreign labor, alignment of the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the third quarter of 2026 at the latest, and the implementation of the e-Notification service via e-Government.

Amendments have been made to the Regulation on Land and Plot Arrangements. Structures built in accordance with regulations in areas allocated for public services may be demolished upon payment of their value. The portion of a parcel remaining outside the 1/1000 scale implementation zoning plan may be separated without any conditions. No plan changes that would convert areas transferred to the municipality into private property functions can be made. In areas formed by public partnership shares, for service areas that could not be transferred to the public despite land/plot arrangements, and for areas allocated to the public through zoning plan changes after parceling but which could not be transferred to the public because a second arrangement partnership share could not be collected, a transfer of zoning rights may be performed; that is, an equivalent parcel may be given to the rights holder.

The Court of Cassation's Grand General Assembly for the Unification of Judgments has issued a precedent-setting decision stating that the competent courts for lawsuits filed due to violations of the non-compete clause under Articles 444-447 of the Turkish Code of Obligations are the civil courts of commerce. (2023/1 Basis, 2025/3 Decision, dated 13.06.2025). The content of the decision states that the employee's duty of loyalty to the employer is a secondary obligation arising from the employment contract and ceases upon the termination of the contract; it further specifies that the non-compete clause is an independent contract, and that for its validity, it is a requirement that the concepts of customer base and production boundaries be clearly understood.