What Is a Liaison Office and How Is One Opened?

Published: 16 September 2026 · Reading time approximately 8 minutes

A company based abroad taking its first step into Turkey meets three options: a liaison office, a branch office or a company. The liaison office is the lightest of the three; it is the easiest to set up and to close, and it carries the least commitment. In return there is a limit: a liaison office cannot carry on commercial activity.

What is a liaison office for?

The purpose is to represent the head office abroad within Turkey. In practice the permitted headings of activity are promotion of the head office, market research, monitoring the supplier and dealer network, technical support, and liaison and communication work. The office works as the head office's eyes and ears; it does not do business in its own name.

What it cannot do

• Selling goods or services, issuing invoices, taking orders.
• Earning income in Turkey; the office's expenses are met with foreign currency brought in from abroad.
• Signing binding contracts on behalf of the head office (authority to represent is limited to the scope of the permit).
• Taking commission, brokerage or consultancy fees.

Exceeding these limits creates the risk that the permit will be revoked. If commercial activity is planned, the right structure is a company formation or a branch office; we compared all three in our the difference between a liaison office, a branch and a company article.

The permit process

1. 1

   Application file

   The head office's certificate of activity, its activity report or balance sheet and income statement, the authorisation document issued to the office's representative, and the application form are prepared.

2. 2

   Translation and certification

   Documents arriving from abroad are submitted with an apostille or consular legalisation and a sworn translation. Commercial translation page explains this set of documents.

3. 3

   The ministry application

   The file is submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Technology; the field of activity and the undertakings are declared here.

4. 4

   Permit and registrations

   Once the permit is granted, registration with the tax office is completed, the lease agreement and the address notification are finalised, and, if staff are to be employed, a social security registration is opened.

5. 5

   Annual notification

   The previous year's activities, and the fact that expenses were met from a source abroad, are reported to the ministry within the prescribed periods.

Duration and extension

The first permit is as a rule granted for a limited period and may be extended according to the nature of the activity. An extension is not automatic: it has to be requested within the period, and the notifications for past periods must have been made regularly. Where an office has let its notification obligation slip, an extension request becomes difficult.

Staff and the tax side

The office may employ staff; for foreign staff a work permit is also required. Because the office earns no income in Turkey, its position as regards corporate tax liability is different; payroll and withholding obligations nevertheless arise. The tax consequences of the structure depend on the concrete activity plan and should be assessed together with a certified accountant.

Who is it the right choice for?

A liaison office makes sense in situations such as these: companies that have not yet measured the Turkish market and want to see demand and competitors before moving to sales; brands that want to inspect their suppliers or contract manufacturers in Turkey on site; manufacturers that want to give technical support to an existing dealer network; groups that want to show a local presence before entering a tender. In any scenario where sales, invoicing, stock or collection is planned, on the other hand, the structure should be set up from the outset as a company or a branch office. Closing the office after two years and then forming a company costs more than forming the company at the start.

Closing and transition

If the office's activity is to be ended, a closure notification is filed with the tax office, exit formalities are completed for any staff, and the ministry is notified. Completing the closure paperwork properly matters, because it comes up as a past record in any new application by the same group. If a move to commercial activity is planned, the order is this: the company or branch office formation is completed, staff are transferred to the new legal entity, and only then is the office closed. Reverse that order and there is a period in which the group has no representation in Turkey.

Common mistakes

Issuing invoices. Even a single sale can remove the basis of the permit. Meeting expenses from income earned in Turkey. The source has to be abroad. Drawing up the authorisation document incompletely. The scope of the representative's authority must be stated expressly in the document. Skipping the annual notification. This is the problem that most often surfaces at the extension stage.

Because application fees and the notary and translation items change every year, we do not quote amounts here; once we have seen the head office's documents we set out the list of papers and the total cost in writing.