Accessible rooms in hotels in Türkiye: how many, and which measurements

In Türkiye, the tourism facilities regulation requires accessible rooms equal to 1% of total room capacity, at least one, in facilities of 80 rooms or more and in four- and five-star hotels and holiday villages, plus accessible entrances, lifts, general toilets and one food-and-beverage unit. Room and bathroom dimensions are not printed in that regulation; the building rules come from the zoning regulation and TS 9111.

A 40-room four-star hotel and a 400-room resort are both caught by the same sentence, and they owe very different things. A CAD file or a paper quoting a repealed text is not a source, so the first job is to find out which text is actually in force. After reading this article you will know how many accessible rooms your facility owes, which measurements are printed in law and which are not, and what to walk and photograph before an inspection.

Which texts actually govern an accessible hotel room in Türkiye?#

Three layers apply, and they do different jobs: the tourism facilities regulation sets what a certified facility owes and how many rooms, the communiqués it points to hold the detail, and the zoning regulation with TS 9111 governs the building itself.

The tourism side is the Regulation on the Qualifications of Tourism Facilities (opens in a new tab), Presidential Decision No. 1134, Official Gazette 1 June 2019, No. 30791, consolidated on mevzuat.gov.tr (2026). Article 18(1)(b) creates the duty and the signage rule; Article 44(1)(ğ) hands the detailed principles for persons with physical disabilities to communiqués the Ministry prepares and publishes in the Official Gazette.

The building side is the Planned Areas Zoning Regulation (opens in a new tab), Official Gazette 3 July 2017, No. 30113, consolidated with amendments up to 1 July 2026. Article 30(9) and (10) require buildings and their entrances to comply with TS 9111, the Turkish accessibility standard, and Article 5(22) says doors, corridors, lifts, stairs and ramps must not fall below the regulation's own dimensions.

The two regimes have different triggers. The tourism regulation follows the certificate; the zoning regulation follows the building permit. A renovation can put you under both at once.

Do not cite a number you cannot trace. Read the consolidated text and the current communiqué, not a summary, a CAD block or a lecture slide. A figure that happens to be right is still unusable if the text behind it has been repealed. Ask your architect which revision of TS 9111 the project is drawn to, and keep that answer in the file: the standard is revised, and a detail copied from an older project may not match the copy your inspector holds.

How the certificate itself is granted, and how the class on it is set, is a separate process: see how hotel stars and facility classes are set in Türkiye.

How many accessible rooms does a hotel need?#

Rooms equal to 1% of total room capacity, with a floor of one room, in facilities with 80 rooms or more and in four- and five-star hotels and holiday villages. The two triggers are separate, so a small four-star is caught even with 40 rooms.

Read the sentence as two triggers, not one. The first is size: a total capacity of 80 rooms or more. The second is class: four- and five-star hotels and holiday villages, at any size. A facility that meets either one owes the arrangements. Capacity here is counted in rooms, not beds: take the total room count on the certificate, multiply by 0.01, and apply the at-least-one floor.

For example, clearly hypothetical: 80 rooms gives 0.8, so one room; 150 rooms gives 1.5; 400 rooms gives four. The 1% is a minimum, not a target, and a hotel may build more.

The text states no rounding rule for a fraction. Rounding up is the prudent reading, but write the calculation down and confirm it with the Ministry before the drawings are fixed. The natural reading is that the accessible rooms sit inside the total room capacity, not on top of it; if your project depends on the other reading, get it confirmed in writing.

Day-use facilities, rest stops and entertainment centres are not judged by the 1% rule; they make the arrangements set in their own type's minimum requirements.

What else in the building has to be accessible?#

The facility entrance, the lifts, the general toilets and at least one food-and-beverage unit, and the arrangements must be marked with special signs. These duties do not scale with the room count.

A 90-room hotel with one accessible room still owes an accessible route from the door to that room, an accessible general toilet and one accessible food-and-beverage unit. The room is one item on the list, not the whole list. "General toilets" means the shared ones in public areas, not the bathroom inside the accessible room; guests who are not staying in that room use them too.

The entrance duty covers the approach: the drop-off point, the step at the door, the surface between the two. Signage is a duty in its own right under Article 18(1)(b): a correct room that nobody can find from the lobby has not been delivered. Check the route, not just the room. An accessible room at the far end of the furthest corridor, past a fire door with a raised threshold, is technically counted and practically useless.

What measurements do the texts actually give?#

For the room and the bathroom, the tourism regulation gives none: it delegates the principles to Ministry communiqués. The hard numbers that are printed concern ramps, handrails and the entrance approach, and they sit in the zoning regulation.

Ramp slopes are graded by rise: at most 1:12 (8%) up to 15 cm, 1:14 (7%) for 16 to 50 cm, 1:16 (6%) for 51 to 100 cm, and 1:20 (5%) above 100 cm. A single long ramp at one gradient is not what the text describes. Ramps and intermediate landings need continuous handrails of 32 to 45 mm diameter at 0.90 m and 0.70 m: two heights, both continuous, including around the landings.

At the building entrance the regulation offers three routes: a ramp reaching up to the plot boundary in the front garden, or space for a disabled-access lift beside the stairs with a narrow side of at least 0.90 m and an area of at least 1.20 m², or a mechanical lifting platform. Floor coverings must be non-slip and must not hinder wheelchair or crutch movement; deep pile carpet in a lobby is a measurement problem, not a taste problem.

For the room and bathroom, the answer is to obtain the current Ministry communiqué and the current TS 9111 edition, and to have the architect mark up the plan against them. Confirm the reading with the Ministry or your inspector before construction.

What changes in an old building or a renovation?#

The tourism duty follows the certificate and the building duty follows the permit, so a renovation is where the two meet and where most projects lose time. The count can change without a single new room being built.

Crossing 80 rooms brings a facility under the room rule. A hotel that adds a floor, absorbs a neighbouring block or converts staff space into rooms should recalculate the 1% at the same moment. Converting two standard rooms into one accessible room costs inventory and usually plumbing, so plan the stack early: a room above the boiler room or half a level down a corridor is hard to make work.

Where the site cannot take a ramp at the required gradient, the zoning regulation's other entrance options, the lift space beside the stairs or a mechanical lifting platform, are the routes to examine with the architect. A lift that stops half a floor from the landing does not produce an accessible route; check the levels, not just the presence of a lift.

Keep the calculation and the measured drawings in the project file: total rooms, the 1% figure, the room numbers, the route, the accessible toilet and the food-and-beverage unit. An inspector who can follow the reasoning spends less time on site. Ask the Ministry or the inspector before the drawings are frozen: rebuilding a bathroom after a site visit costs far more than a letter. If a new certificate is part of the project, the sequence is covered in applying for a tourism operation certificate step by step.

From a compliant room to a room a guest can use#

Compliance is a count and a set of measurements; usability is what happens when a guest arrives. The two overlap, but the second needs decisions the regulation does not make for you.

The inspector checks the count, the signs and the presence of the arrangements. The architect has to prove the measurements against TS 9111 and the zoning regulation. Neither of them checks whether the bed height, the reach to the bedside socket or the turning space in the bathroom actually work. Walk the room in a wheelchair, or ask someone who uses one to walk it with you: a bathroom door that opens inward into a small room can be compliant on paper and unusable in practice.

Train the front desk on the room, not just on the code: which room it is, what is in it, and what to do when a guest asks for a different bed configuration. The service side, arrival, breakfast, evacuation and communication, is a separate checklist and worth doing once, properly, rather than room by room; the accessible hotel checklist: rooms, routes and service covers it. Older guests who are not disabled often need the same things, a step-free route, a grab rail, a chair in the shower, as the checklist for older guests in hotel rooms and routes sets out. The same investment serves both groups.

What to do next#

Pull the consolidated tourism facilities regulation and the current Ministry communiqué, count your rooms, and write the 1% calculation and the measured route into one page before you call the architect. The count tells you what you owe; the measurements tell you whether the building can deliver it; only the walk-through tells you whether a guest can use it.