Outplacement in Turkey

Outplacement in Turkey is a professional career transition programme that an employer buys and pays for so that a departing employee is better prepared for the next role. Three separate matters must not be merged when it is used: termination of the employment contract, calculation and payment of the employee’s statutory entitlements, and the career transition support itself. This page sets out what the programme covers, how it interacts with the collective redundancy rules, and how the fee is treated for corporate tax, VAT and payroll purposes.

What outplacement is

Outplacement is a consultancy service arranged by the employer, and paid for by the employer, to help an employee whose employment has ended or is about to end prepare for a new career opportunity.

The service is bought for the employee’s benefit but not by the employee: the contract is between the employer and the provider, the scope is set by the employer, and the invoice is issued to the company. The employee is not a party to that contract; the employee is the beneficiary of the programme.

Outplacement carries no placement undertaking. It gives the employee the methods, tools and professional support needed during a job search, while the move to a new position still depends on the employee’s experience, specialisation and the positions open in the market. Providers generally undertake a number of sessions and a programme duration in their contracts, not an outcome.

When outplacement is used

The programme is used where employment ends for a reason unrelated to the employee’s conduct. Common triggers are:

• Corporate restructuring or organisational downsizing
• Closure of a department, branch or position
• Collective redundancy
• Removal of duplicated functions after a merger or acquisition
• Winding down operations in Turkey or in a particular region
• Senior executive departures

In international groups outplacement is applied as part of a wider employee offboarding process under group policy, often through a provider appointed centrally. Where that happens, whether the Turkish company books the fee as its own expense or as an intra-group service charge is a separate transfer pricing question.

How outplacement relates to collective redundancy in Turkey

Collective redundancy is the situation in which outplacement most often arises, and it triggers the notification duty in article 29 of Labour Law No. 4857. Career transition support does not replace that duty: outplacement offered without the notification being made does not render a defective redundancy process valid.

Dismissals made on the same date or on different dates within a period not exceeding one month count as collective redundancy if they exceed the following thresholds, measured against the headcount of the workplace:

Once a threshold is exceeded the employer must give written notice at least thirty days before the dismissals. The notice goes to the union representative at the workplace, to the relevant regional directorate of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and to the Turkish Employment Agency. It states the reason for the redundancy, the number and groups of employees affected and the period in which the dismissals will take place.

The notice is not a permission to dismiss; it is a waiting period. In return, an employer that wishes to recruit for the same type of work within six months must give priority to the dismissed employees who have suitable qualifications. Recruitment planning after a collective redundancy therefore needs to be kept separate.

What a programme covers

Scope varies with the employee’s position and seniority and with the provider’s model. The common components are:

1. Career assessmentThe employee’s experience, strengths, competencies and objectives are reviewed, and the sectors and positions that may suit the next step are identified.
2. Rewriting the CVThe CV is rewritten for the current market and the target positions, bringing forward seniority, scope of responsibility and measurable results.
3. Updating the professional profileContent and presentation on professional networking platforms are reworked to improve visibility to recruiters and hiring managers.
4. Job search strategyInstead of applying to advertised vacancies alone, a plan combines professional networking, recruitment firms, sector platforms and direct applications to companies.
5. Interview preparationWork focuses on presenting effectively: likely questions, how to explain the departure, and salary discussions. Some programmes include mock interviews.
6. Career coachingRegular sessions over a set period review progress and update the strategy where needed.

Outplacement compared with recruitment

The two services are often confused, but the client, the audience and the measure of success differ:

In both services the employer pays. The difference is whose need the service meets: in recruitment the company’s vacancy, in outplacement the departing employee’s transition.

Outplacement is not a severance payment

Outplacement is entirely separate from the statutory entitlements that arise when employment ends. A departure should be handled as three independent workstreams:

Severance pay is calculated on the all-inclusive gross wage, covering every payment made to the employee, and is limited by the severance pay ceiling. For 2026 the ceiling is TRY 64,948.77 in the first half of the year and TRY 73,729.87 in the second half. Notice periods follow the employee’s length of service:

An employer may offer an outplacement programme alongside these payments. What it must not do is create the impression that the programme stands in place of a statutory payment: reducing severance or notice pay and offering a support programme in exchange produces an underpayment.

Tax and payroll treatment of outplacement in Turkey

The tax outcome depends on whose benefit the service is bought for. Two different results can arise in practice in Turkey:

Where the service is bought for the employer’s own needs — running a restructuring in an orderly way, protecting the productivity of the remaining team, reducing the risk of disputes — it is an expense connected with earning commercial income and is deducted from the corporate tax base. Because no benefit convertible into cash is provided to the employee, no payroll obligation arises.

Where the programme is instead promised to a named employee as a component of a severance package, and recorded in the settlement protocol as consideration owed to that employee, it risks being treated as a benefit in kind within the definition of wages in the Income Tax Law. The fee is then grossed up, carried on the payroll and subjected to income tax withholding and social security premiums.

• Recording the programme as consideration in the settlement protocol. This creates the risk that the service is treated as a benefit provided to the employee. Keep the wording separate from the statutory payments and avoid framing it as an undertaking.
• Having the invoice issued in the employee’s name. The fee is then liable to be seen as a personal expense met on the employee’s behalf and treated as wages.
• Paying cash instead. Giving the employee cash for outplacement is not a purchase of services; it is a wage payment and carries the full payroll burden.
• Booking an intra-group charge without support. Where the fee is recharged from the parent, the company must document that the service was actually received and that the charge is at arm’s length.
• Setting the cost against severance pay. Offering the programme by reducing statutory entitlements produces an underpayment.

Use alongside a mutual termination agreement

Outplacement most often arises together with a mutual termination agreement, under which the parties agree to bring the employment contract to an end. One reason is that a valid mutual termination does not entitle the employee to unemployment benefit: the exit declaration is filed under the other reasons code, and that code does not give rise to benefit. Employers frequently offer an additional payment and career transition support together to offset that loss.

In payments made under a mutual termination agreement, the part corresponding to severance and notice pay is exempt from income tax up to the severance pay ceiling; the excess, and any additional amount paid in return for giving up job security claims, is treated as wages and subject to withholding. Keeping the outplacement fee out of that calculation matters for determining the exempt amount correctly.

The validity of the mutual termination is assessed separately. The Court of Cassation treats agreements that give the employee no reasonable benefit, and that conceal a dismissal by the employer, as invalid. Career transition support does not on its own satisfy the reasonable benefit test and does not take the place of a monetary additional payment.

Transferring employee data to the provider

Running a programme means transferring the employee’s CV, contact details, length of service and sometimes performance appraisals to the provider. That transfer falls within Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698, in which the employer is the data controller and the provider is the data processor.

• Establishing the lawful basis for the transfer and meeting the duty to inform
• Signing a data processing agreement with the provider and taking a confidentiality undertaking
• Limiting the data transferred to what the programme requires
• Meeting the conditions for transfers abroad where the provider is outside Turkey
• Deleting or anonymising the data when the programme ends
• Reflecting the activity in the processing inventory and the retention policy

Sending the whole personnel file to the provider is contrary to the data minimisation principle. The transfer should be confined to the data the programme actually needs.

How long programmes run

There is no standard duration. Short programmes of a few sessions may be used depending on the employee’s level and needs, while fuller programmes running one, three or six months are also common.

Programmes for senior executives are longer and built around the individual. Alongside career planning they may cover professional network management, contact with executive search firms, personal brand work and assessment of the offers received.

The fee is usually set per programme and paid in advance, rising with duration. Recording the number of sessions, the programme period and the treatment of unused sessions in the contract matters for documenting that the service was actually received.

Why employers use outplacement

A departure affects not only the employee leaving but the team that stays. Outplacement is accordingly treated as part of an employee relations approach:

• It can ease the employee’s career transition
• It contributes to running the departure more predictably
• It can affect positively how the remaining team reads the process
• It can help protect the employer brand
• It may reduce the inclination to litigate

These are not results the programme delivers on its own. Where statutory payments have been miscalculated, notifications filed late, or a dismissal rested on no valid reason, career transition support will not produce an outcome by itself.

Frequently asked questions