Interim Management in Turkey

Interim management means appointing an experienced senior executive from outside the company for a defined period and a defined objective. The interim manager does not write a report and leave: the role is taken on, authority and responsibility are assumed, the work is carried out, and the manager departs when the assignment ends. This page covers how a company chooses between a permanent hire, a consultant and an interim manager, how the day rate is built, and how an interim appointment in Turkey is structured — invoiced service or payroll, and what personal liability comes with signing authority.

What interim management is

Interim management is also described as temporary or transitional management. Its distinguishing feature is that the manager does more than advise: the position is actually run, line authority is held, decisions are taken and the manager answers for the outcome.

The main situations in which it is used are:

• Sudden departure of a general manager or finance director, bridging the gap to a permanent appointment
• Restructuring and crisis management
• Transformation projects: system migration, post-acquisition integration
• Setting up a company in a new country and building the first team
• Generational handover in a family business

In the IIM 2026 survey in the United Kingdom, 37 per cent of recent assignments were transformation and change management and 13 per cent were restructuring. The average assignment ran 10 months, and 78 per cent of assignments were priced on a day rate.

The part-time version of the same model is called fractional management: the executive works on set days of the week. In the same survey about a quarter of recent assignments were run this way. No regularly published interim management survey for Turkey was available, so the market figures on this page are European and are given to indicate scale.

Choosing between a permanent hire, a consultant and an interim manager

The choice turns on three questions: is the work continuous or time-limited, is what is missing advice or execution, and how urgent is it? The four options compared on authority, cost and fit:

A consultant analyses and recommends; an interim manager runs the position for a period, takes the decisions and implements them. The difference lies in what is delivered: a report in one case, a completed assignment in the other.

Three practical tests sharpen the decision:

1. DurationIf the work has a known end date, a permanent hire leaves an employment relationship that has to be unwound once the work is finished, with severance and notice costs at that point.
2. ExecutionWhere the problem is already understood but nobody is available to carry out the fix, a consultant’s report will not be enough. An interim manager takes the decision and answers for the result.
3. SpeedA senior permanent appointment usually takes months. An interim manager generally starts within days or weeks.

The options are not mutually exclusive. An interim manager often serves while a permanent executive is being recruited, and prepares the handover.

Cost and how the day rate is set

The cost is the day rate multiplied by the days actually worked; days not worked are not paid. Average day rates in Europe, given to indicate scale:

A rule of thumb common in Germany puts the day rate at roughly 1 per cent of the annual gross salary of a comparable permanent position. On that basis an assignment of five days a week over six months comes to about 120 working days and 1.2 times the annual gross salary of the permanent position.

The figure should be compared not with salary but with the full cost of the position: employer social security premiums, benefits, severance and notice exposure, and executive search fees. On the manager’s side, an average of 148 days a year is invoiced, with an average of 3.2 months between assignments.

What drives the day rate:

• Seniority of the role and nature of the assignment: gap cover, transformation, crisis
• Duration and the number of days worked each week
• Personal liability assumed through signing authority and registration
• Which side bears travel and accommodation costs
• Channel: a margin is added to the day rate where an agency is used

In Turkey the items added on top of the fee depend on the model. Under the invoiced model, value added tax of 20 per cent is charged and recovered by the company, and stamp duty at 0.948 per cent arises where the contract states a definite amount. Under the payroll model, employer social security and unemployment insurance contributions are added.

Consultancy contract or employment contract

What governs is not the title of the contract but whether the manager is in fact working under the direction of the company. Where that dependency exists the relationship is an employment contract and the payment is a wage; article 8 of Labour Law No. 4857 and article 61 of the Income Tax Law produce that result.

Under the invoiced model no withholding arises where the manager invoices through a company of their own; withholding applies only to payments made to an individual acting as a self-employed professional.

Under the payroll model a fixed-term employment contract must be in writing and requires an objective reason: work of a fixed term, completion of a particular task, or the occurrence of a particular event. Renewed without a substantial reason, the contract counts as indefinite from the outset (article 11). That creates severance and notice liability at the end of the assignment, and exposure to a reinstatement claim.

Reclassification risk

The indicators that lead an invoiced arrangement to be treated as employment:

• Working hours and place set by the company. Working under daily instruction and supervision is an indicator of dependency.
• Full-time, long-term work for a single client. Providing no services to other clients weakens the presumption of independence.
• A fixed monthly payment tied to time rather than objectives or deliverables. Payment that resembles a salary pattern makes the nature of the contract arguable.
• Employee-specific practices such as leave, bonuses and benefits. Granting annual leave and paying a bonus points to a wage relationship.

Where an arrangement is reclassified, retrospective social security premiums, late payment charges and administrative fines, the shortfall in wage withholding, and employment claims all follow.

An interim manager works inside the company by the nature of the role. The features that establish independence therefore need to be visible both in the contract and in practice: a defined objective, a day rate, a limited term, and freedom to serve other clients.

Signing authority and registration

The lowest level of authority the assignment requires should be chosen: registered representation authority brings personal liability with it.

At the first level the existing authorised signatories sign, and the manager runs internal operations only. At the second level, appointing a commercial agent with limited authority rests on article 371/7 of the Turkish Commercial Code, and on article 629/3 for a limited company; the appointing board is jointly liable alongside the appointee.

That second-level route is, on the wording of the statute, available only for board members who do not hold representation authority and for persons engaged by the company under an employment contract. A manager working on an invoiced basis falls outside that provision; for such a manager the options are a power of attorney limited to specific transactions, or the third level.

Two structural rules apply at the third level:

• In a limited company a non-shareholder may be a managing director, but at least one shareholder must hold management and representation authority (article 623/1)
• In a joint stock company representation authority may be delegated to a third party as managing director, but at least one board member must remain authorised to represent the company (article 370/2)

Personal liability of a legal representative

Once the third level is accepted, the manager becomes personally liable with their own assets for the company’s public debts:

• Taxes and other public receivables. Amounts that cannot be collected from the company are collected from the personal assets of the legal representative (Law No. 6183, repeated article 35, and article 10 of the Tax Procedure Law).
• Changing periods give no protection. Where the representatives in office when the debt arose and when it fell due are different, all are jointly liable. A debt that arose in an earlier period but matures during the new representative’s term binds the new representative as well.
• Social security premiums reach further. For premium debts liability is not confined to legal representatives; it extends to senior managers and authorised officers (article 88 of Law No. 5510).

For that reason the company’s tax and social security debt position is documented at the start of the assignment, an indemnity clause is included in the contract, and directors’ liability insurance is considered. When the assignment ends, removal of the authority is registered, and access rights at the bank and in the electronic signature, tax office and social security systems are closed.

Registration also affects how payment is made. A payment to an individual board member in that capacity is a wage and goes through the payroll (article 61 of the Income Tax Law). Where the board member is a legal entity, the payment is that company’s income and is invoiced with value added tax (article 359/2 of the Turkish Commercial Code).

Who becomes an interim manager

Interim managers are mostly people in the second half of a corporate career, coming from senior roles. In the IIM 2026 survey the average age was 55.2 and the average time spent working as an interim was 10.8 years; 47 per cent of respondents had worked this way for more than ten years. C-suite roles accounted for 38 per cent of assignments and project and programme management for a quarter.

Interim management is not a licensed profession; competence is measured by completed assignments and references. What is looked for:

• Having done the same work at a comparable or larger scale
• Experience matching the type of assignment: crisis, restructuring, integration, start-up
• Ability to diagnose and produce results in the first weeks
• Ability to decide without an internal career interest, and to prepare the handover
• Verifiable references

The most common fields are transformation and change management, general management, finance, human resources and information technology. In foreign-capital companies in Turkey, language skills, group reporting experience and knowledge of local legislation are looked for together.

The selection question is not whether the person fits the position for the long term, but whether they have done this particular job before.

The manager’s side: own company or self-employed

At the top income bracket the tax burden of the two structures is close; the choice is driven by the limit of liability and the ability to retain profit in a company.

Value added tax is charged at 20 per cent under either structure. Where a company distributes its whole profit, the combined burden at the withholding stage is 36.25 per cent: 25 per cent corporate tax, then 15 per cent withholding on the remaining 75 per cent. Half of the dividend is exempt from income tax (article 22 of the Income Tax Law). Where total taxable income stays below the declaration threshold, the withholding is the final tax.

Above the threshold, half of the dividend is declared and the withholding already deducted is offset. On the part falling in the top bracket the combined burden reaches 40 per cent, the same as the top rate for a self-employed professional. The company’s tax advantage lies in undistributed profit staying taxed at 25 per cent.

Other points that bear on the choice:

• Self-employed status requires the work to be done without subordination to an employer and under personal responsibility (article 65 of the Income Tax Law); income from working for a single client under instruction may be treated as a wage
• A company limits contractual risk to its capital, but does not remove the personal liability of a manager registered as a legal representative of the client company
• A company suits working with several clients and building a team
• A company can itself hold office as a corporate board member or managing director of the client company (articles 359/2 and 623/2); the fee is then invoiced

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Market data: IIM Interim Management Survey 2026 (Institute of Interim Management, United Kingdom, June 2026); DDIM Marktstudie 2026 (Dachgesellschaft Deutsches Interim Management, Germany); INIMA Report 2025 (International Network of Interim Manager Associations, 2024 data).

Legislation: Turkish Commercial Code articles 359, 370, 371, 623 and 629; Turkish Code of Obligations articles 393 and 502; Labour Law No. 4857 articles 7, 8 and 11; Income Tax Law articles 22, 61, 65, 86 and 94; Tax Procedure Law article 10; Law No. 6183 article 35 and repeated article 35; Law No. 5510 article 88; VAT General Implementation Communique.