Reciprocity in Turkey: Enforcing a Foreign Judgment

If you are trying to enforce a foreign court judgment in Türkiye, reciprocity (mütekabiliyet) is the first condition MÖHUK Article 54 lists for enforcement. A Turkish court will not enforce your judgment unless the country that issued it would, in principle, enforce a Turkish one. If that condition fails, nothing else in your file saves the case. Clean paperwork, a final judgment, a solvent debtor with a flat in İstanbul: none of it matters.

The relief is that this condition attaches to enforcement (tenfiz) only. It is not required for recognition (tanıma). If what you need is for Türkiye to accept that your divorce, your custody order or your status judgment is real, the reciprocity question never arises at all. That one distinction decides whether the reciprocity question arises at all.

What MÖHUK Article 54(a) actually requires

Article 54 sets out four conditions for enforcement. The first, subparagraph (a), is satisfied by any one of three routes:

• a treaty between Türkiye and the state where the judgment was given, resting on reciprocity;
• a provision in that state's own law that permits Turkish judgments to be enforced there;
• de facto practice, meaning that state's courts have in fact enforced Turkish judgments.

You do not need all three. You need one, proved to the satisfaction of the judge. Two practical points follow from the wording.

First, Article 54(a) looks at the state where the judgment was given. For a federal country whose states or provinces have their own recognition rules, prepare the evidence for the unit whose court gave the judgment: a judgment from a Texas court and one from a New York court can call for different evidence.

Second, subparagraph (a) is not framed as a defence. Subparagraph (ç), on service and the right to be heard, applies only if the person against whom enforcement is sought objects on that ground, and the second limb of subparagraph (b) also depends on the defendant's objection. Subparagraph (a) carries no such condition, so it does not fall away because your opponent stays silent.

Treaty reciprocity, and the trap in the word treaty

Türkiye has bilateral treaties on judicial cooperation in civil matters with a number of states. Which states they are, and what each one covers, changes over time, so check the current position for the state that gave your judgment rather than relying on any published list, including this article.

Here is the trap. A treaty titled "judicial assistance" or "legal cooperation" may cover only the service of documents, the taking of evidence and access to courts, and say nothing at all about enforcing judgments. What counts is what the operative articles say, not the title.

Two more things people assume and should not. There is no European shortcut: the EU enforcement regime does not extend to Türkiye, so an EU judgment gets no automatic passage and stands or falls on the same Article 54 analysis as any other. And the 1954 Hague Convention on Civil Procedure, to which Türkiye is a party, provides for enforcement only of orders for costs and expenses made against a claimant who was exempted from giving security (Articles 18 and 19). It does not deliver your damages award.

Legal and de facto reciprocity: where the argument actually happens

Outside the treaty list, everything turns on the foreign state's own law and its actual practice.

Germany and Switzerland

German civil procedure refuses recognition of a foreign judgment where reciprocity is not guaranteed (§ 328(1) no. 5 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, ZPO). German law therefore makes the effect of a Turkish judgment in Germany turn on reciprocity as well, and the Turkish court will need evidence of how that question is answered in Germany. The practical work in a German file also covers service, finality and the debtor's assets, which is why the country-specific detail is set out separately in our guide on how to enforce a German judgment in Turkey. For a Swiss judgment, the evidence has to address Swiss recognition law in the same way.

England and Wales

For a judgment from England and Wales, the argument rests on the second or third route in Article 54(a): a rule of English law that allows a Turkish judgment to be enforced there, or English courts actually doing so. Either has to be proved with evidence, and the evidence should match the kind of order you hold, because an order to pay a sum and an order to deliver property or to do something else do not necessarily stand on the same footing. Our guides on English High Court judgments and the UK-specific guide deal with the rest of the sequence.

The United States

There is no single American answer to look up. Plan the evidence around the recognition law of the state whose court gave the judgment or, for a federal court judgment, the recognition law that would apply to it. What persuades a Turkish judge is evidence rather than commentary: the text of that recognition statute and, where you can find one, a real example of a Turkish judgment given effect there.

Other countries

For some states the text of the law itself shows where the difficulty lies. Under Article 431 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure, foreign judgments can be enforced in the Netherlands only as provided in Articles 985 to 994, which cover judgments made enforceable by a treaty or by statute; otherwise the dispute can be heard and decided afresh by a Dutch court. Whether that is enough for Turkish purposes has to be argued on the evidence. For other states, including Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Russia and the Gulf states, do not assume anything: research that country's own recognition rules and its courts' actual practice for your matter, rather than inheriting an answer from a blog.

The uncomfortable version: if reciprocity with the state of origin is doubtful, the judgment is worth a modest sum and the debtor's only Turkish asset is a car or a small bank balance, we will usually tell you not to file. The court fee, the sworn translations, proof of foreign law and an appeal cycle can cost more than you recover, and reciprocity may still go against you at the end.

Recognition needs no reciprocity, and divorce is where you feel it

MÖHUK Article 58 says that a foreign judgment can be recognised in Türkiye on the conditions in Article 54, except subparagraph (a). Reciprocity is expressly excluded. Everything else still applies: the matter must not fall within Türkiye's exclusive jurisdiction, the judgment must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy (kamu düzeni), and the losing party must have been properly summoned and given the chance to defend.

This is why a divorce from a country with no treaty and no established practice can still be entered on the Turkish civil register, while a commercial judgment from that same country goes nowhere. Recognition also carries a fixed court fee rather than a proportional one, and under MÖHUK Article 59 the recognised judgment's effect as res judicata or conclusive evidence runs from the date it became final abroad, not from the date of the Turkish decision; the civil registry likewise records that date as the date of divorce (Population Services Implementing Regulation, Article 27). For remarriage, inheritance and the marital property timeline, that backdating matters. The mechanics are set out in our guide to the recognition of a foreign divorce in Turkey.

In a foreign divorce decree that also orders payment, the status half and the money half can end differently. The divorce is recognition and needs no reciprocity. The maintenance or property award is enforcement and needs it. You can end up divorced in Turkish eyes and unable to collect a single lira of the same decree.

The registry route that skips court entirely

Article 27/A of Law No. 5490 on Population Services allows a foreign divorce, annulment or nullity decision to be entered directly in the Turkish civil register, without a court case, through a Turkish consulate in the country where the decision was given or, in Türkiye, a provincial population directorate. The conditions are strict. The former spouses apply together, in person or through an attorney; the implementing regulation asks for a notarised special power of attorney with a photograph and allows the two applications to be made separately, no more than ninety days apart. The decision must come from the competent authority of that country, must be final and must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy. One spouse can apply alone only where the other has died or is a foreign national, and the applicant is the Turkish citizen. The registry decides the divorce only: custody, maintenance, matrimonial property and compensation in the same decision still need a recognition or enforcement case. If your former spouse has to join the application and will not, this route is closed and you are back in the family court, which is one of several reasons a contested file belongs with a family and divorce lawyer from the start rather than after a refused application.

How reciprocity gets proved in the courtroom

The court examines the point itself, but in practice you carry the work. What helps:

1. The text of the foreign statute or treaty provision, translated by a sworn translator and, where required, apostilled or legalised.
2. An opinion on that state's law, from an academic or practitioner, addressing whether and how a Turkish judgment would be enforced there.
3. Evidence of an actual case in which a Turkish judgment was enforced in that country. This goes straight to the de facto route in Article 54(a), and is worth real effort to find.
4. The court may also make its own enquiries into the foreign law and practice.

The case is heard under the simplified procedure, with your opponent served and given a hearing date. If enforcement is granted, MÖHUK Article 57 provides that the foreign judgment is executed like a judgment given by a Turkish court. Our recognition and enforcement practice handles this sequence end to end.

If reciprocity is not there, what is left

Three options, in descending order of usefulness. You can sue on the merits in Türkiye, treating the foreign judgment and its file as evidence rather than as a binding decision. This is slower and reopens everything, but it is not hopeless, particularly where the underlying documents are strong. You can enforce elsewhere, in any country where the debtor holds assets and where reciprocity is not an obstacle. And where the underlying relationship was commercial, look hard at whether an arbitration clause existed or could still be agreed, because a foreign arbitral award is enforced under MÖHUK Articles 60 to 63 and, where it was made in another state party, under the 1958 New York Convention, and neither contains the Article 54(a) test, as explained in our guide on enforcing foreign arbitral awards in Turkey. For contracts still being drafted, that is the whole lesson of this article in one line: an arbitration clause today avoids the Article 54(a) question tomorrow.

Send us the foreign judgment with its finality certificate, the name of the exact court and, for a federal country, the state or province, plus the service records showing how the defendant was notified and anything you know about the debtor's assets in Türkiye. We will tell you which of the three reciprocity routes is available for that country, whether your matter is recognition, enforcement or both halves of the same decree, and where we think the file will fail. If we think it will fail, you will hear that first, before any fee is discussed.

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.