Enforcing Foreign Court Judgments in Turkey: Tenfiz Guide

Enforcing foreign court judgments in Turkey is a court case in its own right, not a formality. A judgment from an English, German, French or American court is a piece of paper here until a Turkish court says otherwise. It does not freeze a bank account, it does not put a lien on an Istanbul flat, and a Turkish bailiff will not act on it. The procedure that changes that is called tenfiz — enforcement — and it is set out in Articles 50 to 59 of the Turkish Code on Private International Law and Procedure (MÖHUK, Law No. 5718).

The good news is that the Turkish court will not retry your case. It does not look at whether the foreign judge was right. It looks at a short, closed list of conditions, and if your file satisfies them, it converts the foreign judgment into a Turkish enforcement title. The bad news is that the list is applied strictly, and most refusals we see are not about the merits at all. They are about paperwork that was assembled in the wrong order.

Recognition and enforcement are not the same thing

People use the two words interchangeably and then file the wrong case. They are separate remedies with separate consequences.

When recognition is enough

Recognition under Article 58 gives the foreign judgment legal effect in Türkiye — it becomes res judicata and can be relied on as proof — but it does not authorise anyone to seize anything. This is the right remedy for status judgments: a divorce decree that has to appear on the Turkish civil registry, an order establishing parentage, a declaration of legal capacity. If your judgment does not require the other side to pay or hand over anything, recognition is what you need. The same logic governs the recognition of foreign divorce decrees in Türkiye.

When you need enforcement

Enforcement under Article 50 creates a title you can actually execute: attach bank accounts, register a lien over Turkish real estate, garnish receivables owed to the debtor by Turkish counterparties. Any judgment that orders payment, restitution, delivery of shares or performance of an obligation needs tenfiz. A recognition judgment will not get a bailiff to move.

The five conditions the court actually checks

Article 54 sets out the substantive conditions; Articles 53 and 55 add the procedural ones. Any single failure defeats the petition, and the court raises most of them on its own motion.

1. The judgment must be final

Final means final in the country that issued it — no ordinary appeal pending, no interim or provisional character. You prove this with a certificate of finality from the foreign court, apostilled under the Hague Convention, or legalised through the Turkish consulate if the issuing state is not a party to it. A default judgment can be enforced, but only if you can also show that service was properly effected.

2. Reciprocity

Article 54(a) requires reciprocity with the issuing state: a treaty, a provision of that state's own law recognising Turkish judgments, or a documented practice of its courts actually enforcing them. Türkiye has treaty reciprocity with Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Russia among others. Common-law jurisdictions are handled differently: reciprocity with the United States is argued state by state on documented practice, and English judgments rest on de facto comity rather than a treaty. Our separate guides deal with enforcing an English High Court judgments judgment in Türkiye and enforcing a German judgment in Türkiye, where the reciprocity question is answered very differently.

3. The dispute must not fall under exclusive Turkish jurisdiction

Where Turkish law reserves a subject to Turkish courts, a foreign judgment on that subject cannot be enforced here. The most common trap is immovable property: disputes over land and buildings located in Türkiye belong to Turkish courts, which is why judgments touching Turkish real estate so often fail at this stage. Certain corporate registry matters and employment questions involving Turkish-based work fall the same way.

4. Public order

The judgment must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public order (kamu düzeni). Turkish courts read this narrowly. The question is not whether a Turkish judge would have decided the same way; it is whether enforcing the result would be irreconcilable with fundamental Turkish legal principles. Ordinary contractual damages pass, even large ones. Punitive damages have historically met resistance, as have judgments obtained by fraud or in proceedings that denied basic procedural fairness.

5. The defendant must have been properly served and heard

Article 54(ç) protects the right of defence. The defendant must have been served in accordance with the law of the issuing state and, where it applies, the Hague Service Convention, and must have had a real opportunity to take part. Defective service is the single most common reason petitions fail, and it is usually discovered years after the fact, when nothing can be done about it.

What the file has to contain

Article 53 is short and unforgiving. The petition must be accompanied by:

• the foreign judgment, in original or in a copy certified by the issuing court;
• a certificate confirming the judgment is final;
• an apostille on both, or consular legalisation where the Hague Apostille Convention does not apply between Türkiye and the issuing state;
• a sworn Turkish translation of every document, certified by a Turkish notary;
• a power of attorney for your Turkish lawyer, itself apostilled if executed abroad.

Missing or defective documents are the ordinary cause of delay. A finality certificate that does not clearly state the judgment is no longer appealable, or a translation done by an uncertified translator, will send the file back and cost months.

Where it is heard, how long it takes

The competent court is the civil court of first instance; for commercial money judgments against a merchant it is the commercial court. Venue follows the defendant's Turkish domicile; if there is none, the place of habitual residence; and failing both, the courts of Ankara, İstanbul or İzmir. This last rule matters more than it sounds — it is what lets a creditor proceed against a debtor who has assets in Türkiye but no address here.

An uncontested petition usually resolves in six to ten months at first instance. A defended one runs twelve to twenty-four months, and the first-instance decision can be appealed, which adds further time before you can execute. Court fees are calculated on the value of the judgment, so a large claim carries a meaningful filing cost that has to be paid up front.

After the judgment: what execution actually looks like

A tenfiz judgment is not itself the recovery. Once it is final, it becomes the title you take to an enforcement office (icra dairesi) and open execution proceedings under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (Law No. 2004) — the same machinery a domestic creditor uses. That is the stage at which accounts are attached and liens are registered. Foreign creditors routinely underestimate this: winning tenfiz puts you at the starting line of collection, not past it, and the debtor can raise objections there that have nothing to do with the foreign judgment.

Most enforcement cases are not lost on the merits. They are lost on the finality certificate, the apostille, or proof of service — documents that had to be obtained abroad, years earlier, while the foreign case was still open.

When we tell people not to bother

Not every foreign judgment is worth enforcing here, and we would rather say so at the start than after the fees are spent.

If the debtor has no identifiable assets in Türkiye, a tenfiz judgment is an expensive certificate. Enforcement is not an asset search. If the judgment is punitive in character, or if the underlying dispute concerns Turkish immovable property, the exclusive-jurisdiction and public-order objections are strong enough that the money is usually better spent litigating in Türkiye from the start — which is a Turkish litigation question, not an enforcement one. And if the defendant was never properly served abroad, the defect cannot be repaired at this stage; the honest answer is that the judgment will not travel.

What to send us

Send the judgment and the finality certificate — those two documents answer most of the question on their own. Add anything you have on how the defendant was served, and tell us what the debtor owns in Türkiye and where. We will tell you whether the file satisfies Article 54, what is missing, and whether the assets justify the case, before you commit to it. If it does not work, we will say that too. Our recognition and enforcement practice handles these files for foreign creditors from first review through execution.

This guide is general information on Turkish law, not legal advice on your own matter. Rules and practice change; check the position before you act.