Interns in hotels in Türkiye: the 5 percent rule, the July headcount, pay and insurance

Under Vocational Education Law No. 3308, a business with ten or more staff must give vocational and technical education students training places equal to at least 5% of its staff, counted in January, or in July for summer-season businesses, rounded up. Pay floors and the work-accident premium are set by law. Smaller businesses may take students voluntarily.

In July the seasonal hotel is full and the rota is short. That is exactly the month the law uses to count how many students the hotel is expected to train. Hotel internship rules in Türkiye are written for exactly this situation, and the decisions that decide the season are taken in spring, not in the peak week. After reading this you will be able to work out your own number, run the placement on the right documents, and keep the student clearly on the training side of the line.

Who has to take interns in a hotel in Türkiye?#

A business with ten or more staff must provide skills training to vocational and technical education students, and internships or complementary training to vocational and technical secondary students, for at least 5% of its staff, under Article 18 of Law No. 3308 as amended by Law No. 6764 (mevzuat.gov.tr, consolidated text, 7 November 2026). Businesses below ten staff may do so voluntarily.

The duty is a number of training places, not a hiring quota. The school places the student, the hotel trains, and nobody owes the student a job at the end. Fractions are rounded up to a whole number: for example, a hotel with 121 staff owes seven places, not six.

The 5% count is written for vocational and technical education students. Article 18 separately permits a business to take interns from higher-education institutions that give vocational and technical education, so a university intern is welcome but does not fill the 5% figure. The staff threshold is ten today, and the President may lower it to five, so confirm the figure in force for your season with your accountant or legal adviser before you build a plan on it.

Two planning facts matter. Skills training starts at the beginning of the school year, so the placement is agreed in spring, not in the week the season opens. And a business training ten or more students must set up a training unit staffed with a master trainer or a trainer: a real cost that should appear in the season budget.

Why does a summer hotel count its staff in July?#

The staff count that sets the 5% is taken in January of each year, except for businesses operating in the summer season, which are counted in July. In shift or seasonal businesses the staff on the day shift or in the operating season are the ones counted.

The rule exists because a January headcount would flatter a resort. A hotel with a skeleton team in winter would owe almost nothing for a season in which it employs hundreds. The count is a snapshot of the operating season, not an annual average: for example, a hotel with 40 staff in January and 150 in July is counted on 150 and owes eight places.

Every February, provincial labour and employment directorates notify the businesses with ten or more staff to the provincial national education directorates and to the province's higher-education institutions. The hotel therefore appears on a list before the season starts. Check with your provincial directorate that the headcount recorded for you is the July one, because a hotel that added a wing or cut a department changes its number, and the number is the floor.

The count sets how many places you must offer. It does not decide which departments take them, which is a training question, not a headcount question.

Who signs the agreement, and who pays the intern's insurance?#

Agree the placement in writing with the school. The legal items sit elsewhere: a student certificate, and for secondary students a written contract with the parent or guardian. For secondary students the school or the Ministry of National Education pays the work-accident premium, calculated on 50% of the minimum wage under Article 87(e) of Law No. 5510 and Article 25 of Law No. 3308 (mevzuat.gov.tr, consolidated texts, 7 November 2026). The hotel does not pay that premium, but it carries liability for accidents caused by the workplace's fault.

The agreement should fix the dates, the departments and the rotation, the daily and weekly hours, the named supervisor, the training plan and how the student is assessed. A one-page agreement that names a supervisor is worth more than a long one that does not.

For a student who is under 18 and still attending school, the employer obtains a student certificate before employing them and keeps it in the personnel file, informs the parent or guardian about the work, its risks and the measures taken, and makes a written employment contract with the parent or guardian, under Article 12 of the Regulation on Employing Child and Young Workers (Resmî Gazete 6 April 2004, No. 25425).

Insurance scope differs by group. Candidate apprentices, apprentices and students receiving vocational training in businesses are covered for work accident, occupational disease and sickness. Students doing internships in vocational and technical secondary education or in higher education are covered for work accident and occupational disease only. Those who are not dependants of another insured person are also covered by general health insurance, so a student with no family cover is not left outside the health system.

The premium is paid from the budgets of the Ministry and the universities concerned, calculated on 50% of the minimum wage. The hotel's job is the paperwork, the supervision and the safety, not the premium. Agree with the school, in writing, who registers what and who holds the copies. The most common failure is not a missing rule but a missing document on the first morning.

For the surrounding paperwork on seasonal hiring, see how a hotel registers a seasonal hire and closes the season.

What must an intern be paid?#

The contract sets the pay, but it cannot go below the law's floor: 30% of the net minimum wage in workplaces with 20 or more staff and 15% in workplaces with fewer than 20, under Article 25 of Law No. 3308 (mevzuat.gov.tr, consolidated text, 7 November 2026). A temporary article raises the floor to 30% whatever the headcount while it applies.

Article 25 covers students in vocational training in businesses and vocational and technical secondary students in internships or complementary training. Candidate apprentices and apprentices are on a different line, 30% of the minimum wage for their age, and journeyman-qualified 12th-grade vocational education centre students on 50% of the minimum wage.

Temporary Article 12 sets a higher floor while it applies: not less than 30% of the net minimum wage for the students it covers, whatever the number of staff, and 50% for journeyman-qualified vocational education centre students. The same temporary article provides a state contribution paid from the amount set aside under Article 53 of Unemployment Insurance Law No. 4447. For students outside the vocational education centre programme it covers two thirds of the minimum payable amount in businesses with fewer than 20 staff and one third in businesses with 20 or more; public bodies get none.

Payments to candidate apprentices, apprentices and students are exempt from all taxes, so the figure in the contract is the figure the student receives. The temporary article was written to the end of the 2016-2017 school year and lets the President extend the payments for up to ten school years. Which floor applies to your season is therefore a question for your accountant, not for a blog post.

Two groups sit outside the Article 25 rule: internships a secondary student does at school because no business could be found, and internships higher-education students are not required to do.

What may an intern do: hours, nights and supervision?#

The training plan and the school's programme set the work, and for anyone under 18 the young-worker rules cap the hours and bar night work entirely, under the Regulation on Employing Child and Young Workers (Resmî Gazete 6 April 2004, No. 25425).

The theoretical part of skills training is given at the school or in the business's training unit, at least 12 hours a week within working hours, and students count as on paid leave on those days. A rota that ignores theory days breaks the plan.

For a student still at school and under 18, term-time work is capped at 2 hours a day and 10 hours a week outside school hours. In school holidays the limits are 7 hours a day and 35 a week, rising to 8 and 40 for those who have completed 15. Each 24 hours must leave 14 hours of unbroken rest, weekly rest is at least 40 unbroken hours, breaks run 30 minutes for more than 2 and less than 4 hours and one hour for 4 to 7.5 hours, and there is no work on national and public holidays.

Night work is closed: workers under 18 may not work in the period that begins at 20:00 at the latest and ends at 06:00 at the earliest. A 17-year-old cannot cover the late restaurant shift. For the general rules on the working week and night shifts, see the 45-hour week and night shifts in hotels.

Young workers may do only the work listed in Annexes 1 and 2, and those who have turned 16 also Annex 3. Annex 2 covers service-sector work except places serving alcohol and cooking services, which matters for bars and kitchens. Young workers who have turned 16 and graduated from vocational and technical education schools may work in jobs matching their specialisation without the annex limits, provided their health, safety and morals are fully protected. The night rule sits in a different article, so treat it as still applying and confirm with your adviser.

The Ministry of National Education decides which work and which workplaces may host in-business vocational training, internships and apprenticeships. A department that is not approved is not a training place, however short the rota. On the safety side of supervision, start from the safety expert and workplace doctor a hotel must appoint.

When does an intern start to look like an employee?#

When the training plan becomes a rota, the school is no longer in the picture, and the student does the work of a post instead of learning it.

The signs are concrete: the student appears on the service sheet as cover for a named post, works the same shifts as a full-time employee, has no named supervisor, rotates through no department, and is paid as if the post were filled. The duty in Article 18 is to train. A hotel that uses students to close a staffing gap has not met the duty, whatever the paperwork says.

The consequences run in several directions at once. The insurance held for an intern is narrower than the insurance held for an employee, the pay floors are different, and the record of the relationship describes training rather than work. August is when this happens. The fix is made in spring: agree more places than the minimum, plan the rotation, and name a supervisor per department so that nobody improvises in the peak week.

Keep the evidence as you go: the training plan, the rotation record, the supervisor's assessment and the hours. A file assembled in September proves little. If a student is in fact doing the work of a post, treat it as a labour question and take advice before the season, not after it. For the wider induction picture, compare against a first-week onboarding checklist by department.

What goes in a season file for each student?#

One folder per student, opened before day one, holding the agreement, the certificates, the training plan, the hours, the pay records and the closing assessment.

The file holds the agreement with the school, the student certificate for a school-attending minor, the contract with the parent or guardian, the training plan and rotation, the record of the safety briefing, the hours, the pay records, and the school's confirmation that the insurance registration is done. It closes with the supervisor's assessment sent to the school and a short note on what to change next season. That note is what turns a repeated obligation into a better placement.

Keep the file with the personnel records, not in the department, so that a supervisor leaving in August does not take the evidence with them. At season end, confirm with the school that the internship is closed on their side too. The hotel's file and the school's record should tell the same story. For the contracts and social security entry around these placements, see hiring seasonal staff: contracts, social security entry and the end of the season.

What to do next#

Before the school year opens, take your July headcount, work out the 5% floor with fractions rounded up, and confirm the figure with your provincial labour and employment directorate and your school coordinator. Then build one file per student and keep it current through the season. The thresholds, the pay floors and the temporary article's status change, so confirm the numbers that apply to your hotel with your accountant or legal adviser before you sign anything.