Is a hotel deposit refundable? Deposits, cancellation money and the Code of Obligations

It depends on what the money was agreed to be. Under the Turkish Code of Obligations (Law No. 6098), money paid when a contract is made is presumed to be earnest money (bağlanma parası), deducted from the price; agreed withdrawal money (cayma parası) lets either side walk away, forfeiting it or repaying double. Your written terms decide.

A guest calls reception and asks the question in the form every small hotel hears: kapora geri alınır mı. The receptionist looks at the confirmation mail, which says only "deposit received, thank you", and has nothing to answer with. After reading this article you will know what your confirmation actually created in law, what happens when the guest cancels, what happens when you cancel, and how to check your wording before the next phone call. This is general explanation, not legal advice; confirm your own case with a legal adviser.

What did your booking confirmation actually call the money?#

The word on the confirmation decides which legal rule applies, and most small hotels never chose that word. "Kapora" is a guest's word; it is not a legal category.

Turkish guests and staff use kapora for at least three different things: a payment on account of the price, a sum given as proof that the contract was made, and a sum given for the right to walk away. The Code of Obligations gives the second and third of these separate names and separate consequences: earnest money (bağlanma parası) in Article 177 and withdrawal money (cayma parası) in Article 178, as published in the consolidated text of the Türk Borçlar Kanunu on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab) (7 November 2026).

Silence favours earnest money. Article 177 presumes that money paid when a contract is made is earnest money, unless the contract or local custom says otherwise. Earnest money is not extra money: it is deducted from the main claim, so it is part of the price already paid, not a separate fee. A hotel that wants a sum it may keep on cancellation must therefore say so in the terms, because the default rule does not give it that right.

The same bank transfer can be described differently in the confirmation mail, the rate plan and the invoice, and the guest will quote whichever version suits. Use one word everywhere. If you are still deciding how to take money at the booking stage, see how to take prepayments and deposits at the booking stage.

General explanation, not legal advice; confirm your own wording with a legal adviser.

What do Articles 177 and 178 of the Code of Obligations say?#

Article 177 makes earnest money the default and deducts it from the price; Article 178 lets the parties agree a sum that buys either of them the right to withdraw, at a price.

Article 177 says money given when a contract is made is presumed to be earnest money, given as proof that the contract was made, not as withdrawal money; unless the contract or local custom says otherwise, it is deducted from the main claim. Article 178 says that where withdrawal money has been agreed, each party may withdraw: the party who gave it and withdraws forfeits it, and the party who received it and withdraws returns double what it received.

The double return is the part small hotels miss. Agreeing withdrawal money is not a one-way protection: it hands the guest a right to cancel and hands the hotel a doubled liability if the hotel is the one that backs out. The presumption in Article 177 can be overturned, but only by the contract or by local custom, which is why an unwritten practice at your hotel is a weak defence.

Both articles concern the money, not the whole dispute. They say nothing about a guest who cancels because of illness, or about a hotel that cannot give the room. Quote the article numbers in your internal notes so that staff, your accountant and your lawyer discuss the same rule.

The guest cancels: what decides whether you refund?#

The terms the guest accepted when paying, read together with the rules on penalty clauses, decide it. The label on the money starts the analysis; it does not end it.

A clause saying the deposit is kept if the guest cancels is treated like a penalty clause (ceza koşulu): Article 181 of the Code of Obligations applies the penalty rules to contracts providing that, on withdrawal, the part already performed stays with the creditor. Under Article 179, where a penalty is agreed for the contract not being performed at all, the creditor may claim either performance or the penalty unless the contract shows otherwise; the debtor keeps the right to prove it was entitled to end the contract by paying the penalty.

Under Article 180 the penalty is owed even if the hotel suffered no loss, and a hotel whose loss exceeds the penalty can claim the excess only by proving the guest was at fault. Under Article 182 the parties set the amount freely, but a judge reduces on its own motion a penalty it considers excessive; that protection belongs to the debtor, so in a cancellation fee it is the guest who can ask for it. Because a hotel company is a merchant under the Turkish Commercial Code, it cannot ask a court to reduce a penalty it owes on the ground that it is excessive (Code of Obligations, Article 182; Turkish Commercial Code, Article 22), as set out in the consolidated texts on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab).

The practical consequence: a cancellation deadline written clearly and applied consistently is easier to defend than a large flat fee kept from every cancellation. Keep the arithmetic. If you keep part of the money, show the guest in writing what was kept, on what basis, and what is being returned and when. For the wording itself, see writing cancellation terms a guest can actually read before paying.

The hotel cancels or overbooks: who owes what then?#

If the hotel cannot give the room, the guest can generally claim back what was paid, and a clause letting the hotel cancel freely will not carry the weight owners expect.

Here the hotel is the party that failed to perform, so the analysis runs the other way: the question is not whether the hotel may keep the money but what it owes on top of returning it. If the hotel agreed withdrawal money, Article 178 applies directly and the hotel returns double what it received. If the hotel simply cannot perform for a reason it is responsible for, the guest's claim is for the money back plus the loss the failure caused, and the earnest money is deducted from the price rather than added to it.

If the cause is not the hotel's responsibility, Article 136 of the Code of Obligations ends the obligation and requires the hotel to return what it received under the unjust enrichment rules. Walking a guest to another property is a commercial fix, not a legal shield: the original contract still has to be accounted for, and the guest's consent to the move should be recorded in writing. Overbooking is usually a system problem, not a staff problem, and this article cannot fix it from the legal side; the operational side is covered in how to walk a guest to another hotel when you are overbooked.

Illness, closed roads, a death in the family: who carries the loss?#

The Code has one rule for impossibility and a separate one for extreme difficulty, and which applies is a legal judgment, not a reception decision.

Article 136 says that if performance becomes impossible for reasons the debtor is not responsible for, the obligation ends; in a contract with duties on both sides, the released party returns what it received under the unjust enrichment rules and loses the right to claim the other side's performance not yet made. The same article adds a duty hotels forget: a party that does not promptly tell the other side about the impossibility, and does not take the measures needed to stop the loss growing, must compensate the resulting loss.

Article 137 handles partial impossibility: the debtor is released only from the impossible part, unless it is clear the parties would not have made the contract at all had they foreseen it. Article 138 handles excessive difficulty of performance (aşırı ifa güçlüğü): an extraordinary event nobody foresaw, not attributable to the debtor, that changes the facts so much that demanding performance would breach good faith, lets the debtor ask a judge to adapt the contract or, if that is not possible, to withdraw from it. Article 138 is not a self-service exit: it is addressed to a judge, and in continuing contracts the debtor as a rule terminates rather than withdraws.

What a small hotel can do without deciding the law: answer in writing the same day, offer a date change or a partial refund as a commercial proposal, say clearly that the offer is goodwill and not an admission, and put the file in front of your legal adviser. Do not reuse pandemic-era postponement habits as if they were current rules; they were responses to a specific situation, not a standing regime.

Why can a clause the guest accepted still be questioned?#

Because consumer protection rules sit on top of the contract, and a term that unfairly shifts the loss to the guest can be challenged even after it was accepted and paid.

A guest who books online or by phone is usually a consumer, and consumer rules add duties that the Code of Obligations alone does not contain. The right of withdrawal in distance contracts is its own question with its own exceptions, and it is not the same thing as withdrawal money under Article 178; the two are constantly confused by both sides, and the distance-contract side is covered in the right of withdrawal and hotel bookings in Türkiye.

A term is easier to defend when the guest saw it before paying, in plain language, next to the price, and when the same term was applied to every guest rather than invented at the counter. The burden of showing that the terms were presented falls in practice on the hotel, so keep the version of the confirmation the guest actually received. A guest who says the stay was not as promised raises a separate claim about the service itself, not about the deposit; that path is covered in when a guest says the stay was not as promised. None of this tells you how a particular dispute would end. Terms and facts decide, and only your legal adviser can read your file.

A wording check for small hotels#

Seven lines to check in your own confirmation, in the order a guest meets them. Fixing the wording is cheaper than arguing about it later.

Have your legal adviser read the final wording once, and your accountant read how the kept money is invoiced; this article does neither.

What to do next#

Open your current confirmation mail and rewrite the one sentence that describes the money, then have a legal adviser read it and an accountant check how a retained sum is invoiced. The parts of this article fit together in that order: the label on the money sets the rule, the rules on penalty clauses decide a guest cancellation, the impossibility rules decide the events nobody caused, and consumer protection decides whether your wording survives contact with a guest who disagrees.