Service charges in hotels after the 2026 ban: price label rules, Labour Law Article 51 and tips

Since 30 January 2026, food and beverage businesses in Türkiye may not charge a service, table or cover fee under any name; the rule is without prejudice to Article 51 of Labour Law 4857, which still sends service money collected in hotels and restaurants to staff in full. This article reflects the text of the amendment published in the Official Gazette on 30 January 2026. Always verify the current consolidated text with your legal counsel, and confirm your own outlets with the Ministry of Trade or counsel.

A guest finishes dinner in the hotel restaurant, the bill arrives with a service line, and the manager has to decide three things at once: whether that line may still be printed, where the money goes, and who can prove it went there. Since 30 January 2026 those are three separate questions with three separate answers. This article reads the two texts side by side, marks what is clear and what needs confirmation, and gives you a tip-handling routine that keeps every lira traceable to a named worker.

What did the 30 January 2026 amendment to the Price Label Regulation ban?#

It stopped food and beverage businesses from asking consumers for any extra payment called a service charge, table charge, cover charge or similar, under any name. The rule sits in Article 8 of the Price Label Regulation, first published on 28 June 2014 and amended on 11 October 2025 and again on 30 January 2026, per the Official Gazette amendment regulation of 30 January 2026, No. 33153 (opens in a new tab).

The instrument is an amendment regulation, not a new regulation. It changes Article 8 of the Price Label Regulation of 28 June 2014, No. 29044, which had already been amended on 11 October 2025, No. 33044. It addresses restaurants, cafés, patisseries and similar food and beverage businesses, not accommodation as such.

The banned items are extra payments described as service, table or cover. The text adds "or similar", so a new name for the same fee does not escape the rule. The amendment keeps one sentence of reservation: the ban applies without prejudice to Article 51 of Labour Law No. 4857.

Two older permissions survive. Table price lists may be shown by QR code, but a separate price list must be given when a consumer asks for one. One older duty survives too: any fee charged beyond the listed prices must appear in the tariff and price list. With service-type fees now barred, that duty covers the charges the ban does not name.

Read the two texts side by side. The Price Label Regulation governs what a business may ask a consumer for; Article 51 governs what happens to money once it has been collected.

Does the ban reach hotel restaurants, bars, beach outlets and room service?#

The text names food and beverage businesses, and a hotel restaurant, café or bar that serves food and drink is one. The text does not name hotels, room service, minibars or beach outlets, so those need a written answer from the Ministry of Trade or your counsel.

Clear on the wording: a hotel's à la carte restaurant, café, patisserie and a bar serving food and drink to be eaten on the spot are food and beverage businesses selling to a consumer. Not settled by the wording: room service, minibar charges, pool and beach outlets, banquet and event menus, and extras sold inside an all-inclusive package.

The test worth applying: is this a food and beverage sale to a consumer at a listed price, or is it part of the accommodation price? A half-board supplement inside the room rate is priced as accommodation, not as a table charge. Treat that as a reading to be confirmed, not a ruling. This is where the question of a service charge in Türkiye hotels splits into outlet-level questions, and each deserves its own answer on paper.

Ask in writing, twice: once to the Ministry of Trade's consumer protection contact, once to your counsel. Keep both replies with the price lists they apply to. Do not build a position on a competitor's practice or on press reports of enforcement; neither is a text you can defend.

An interim rule that costs nothing: stop printing service, table and cover lines on every food and beverage price list now, and price the menu so that the listed price is the price.

What does "without prejudice to Article 51" leave in place?#

It leaves Article 51 of Labour Law 4857 exactly where it was: money collected as a service charge in hotels, restaurants and similar workplaces belongs to the workers in full, and the employer must be able to show it was paid. The consolidated text is on the Presidency's Legislation Information System (mevzuat.gov.tr), Articles 51 and 52 (opens in a new tab).

Article 51 applies to workplaces using the percentage method, and it names hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and places serving food and drink to be eaten on the spot. It lists three kinds of money: amounts added to customers' bills as a percentage, as a service charge or under other names, or collected in other ways; money customers leave to the employer of their own accord; and money pooled under the employer's control.

The duty is to pay all of it in full to all workers, and to document that the money the employer received was distributed in full. A Ministry of Labour and Social Security regulation sets the principles and the ratios for sharing it among workers according to the nature of their work. Article 52 adds a second document: the employer gives a document showing the grand total of each bill to a representative the workers elect among themselves, or to the union representative where a collective agreement applies.

In percentage-method workplaces the employer also pays weekly rest and public holiday pay under Articles 46 and 47, a point covered in more detail in our guide to overtime in hotels: consent, the 270-hour cap and pay.

The apparent contradiction resolves cleanly. The ban removes the business's right to add the charge; it does not remove the worker's right to money that was collected. If nothing is collected, Article 51 has nothing to distribute.

Who signs each of these is an organisational question, and our piece on the hotel organisation chart: departments, roles and who decides what gives a way to assign them.

How is collected service money shared under the percentage-method regulation?#

By points, on days actually worked, from the total collected across all services in the workplace. The regulation of 28 February 2004, No. 25387, sets five job groups and a scale inside each group, per the consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab).

The base is the total collected from all services in the workplace, plus the work each worker actually does; each worker then shares according to days actually worked and their points. Group I, which includes the head waiter, the maître d'hôtel and the reception manager, scores 26 to 30. Group V, which includes cleaning attendants, porters, messengers, dishwashers, commis, watchmen, gardeners, general workers, cleaners and trainees, scores 10 to 14.

A worker starts at the lower limit of their group and gains one point for every three years of successful service in the same group, up to the group's upper limit. Workers outside the service departments receive 25% of the points for their job on top of the wages the employer pays them. First-level department managers, their deputies and staff above them receive 5% of the points set within Group I on top of their wages.

Two protections matter. Shares from percentages may not be used to cut the wages, social benefits or other rights of workers outside the service departments, and the minimum wage may not be made up from the percentage share. Points for overtime are added to normal points, and the employer pays the difference up to the premium overtime rate.

How should a hotel collect and distribute tips traceably?#

Decide one route for every lira before the first guest leaves one: what is collected, who holds it, how it is recorded, who approves the split, and where the proof lives.

Separate the three streams, because they behave differently: cash handed to a named worker, cash left in a box or pooled, and tips added to a card payment or a bill. Cash a guest hands directly to a named worker is not money the employer received, and Article 51's wording about money left to the employer does not describe it. Treat that as a question for counsel, not as a settled exemption.

Pooled cash and card tips pass through the hotel's accounts. They need a ledger line, a named custodian and a signed distribution sheet, or the record will show the house holding money it cannot account for. A card tip arrives in the hotel's bank account with the rest of the bill; the hotel must be able to show the same amount leaving to staff, dated and signed, or the paper trail points the wrong way.

Never let a tip sit in a till: it mixes with the float and the day's drops and becomes impossible to separate later. The mechanics of floats and drops are covered in our guide to front desk cash handling: float, drops and shortages.

Publish the split rule in writing, in the languages your staff read, and apply it to every outlet the same way. Do not net tips against breakages, cash shortages or service errors. That turns a worker's money into a buffer for the hotel's losses.

What should menus and price lists show now?#

The listed price is the price. Remove service, table and cover lines from food and beverage price lists, and make sure every other charge that survives is printed in the tariff.

QR code table lists remain allowed, but a separate price list must be handed over when a consumer asks for one. The general duty still stands for charges the ban does not name: if a fee is charged beyond the listed prices, it must appear in the tariff and price list.

Reprint everything that carries the old line: menu footnotes, "service not included" notes, cover charge lines, banquet proposals, room service cards, minibar cards and the QR PDFs. Check the digital copies too: the hotel website menu, the guest app menu, delivery platforms and any printed card still in a drawer. How to rebuild menu pricing so it carries its own cost is a separate discipline, covered in our guide to food and beverage cost control in hotels.

Reprice rather than relabel. If the service charge was funding payroll, the menu price has to carry it. Give the front of house one sentence to say when a guest asks, so the answer is the same at every table.

What should you ask your accountant about tips and payroll?#

Neither text in this article settles how a tip is taxed or declared, so put the questions in writing and keep the answers with your records.

Ask how a card tip is recorded between receipt and payment to staff, and whether it appears on the payroll at all. Ask which withholding and other payroll treatment applies to a distributed tip, and whether the distribution sheet counts as a payroll document. Ask how the five-year retention rule for percentage records interacts with your other record-keeping duties, so one file satisfies both.

Treat any reported draft on tip taxation as unconfirmed until you hold an official text. Do not change payroll on the strength of a press report. Keep the two questions apart: who is entitled to the money is a labour law question; how it is declared is a tax question. One answer does not settle the other. Revisit the file when the Ministry of Trade or the Ministry of Labour publishes guidance, and date every answer you receive.

What to do next#

Read the two texts side by side this week: strike every service, table and cover line from your food and beverage price lists, then write down how each lira collected reaches a named worker and who can prove it. Put the outlet questions to the Ministry of Trade and the payroll questions to your accountant in writing, and keep both answers in the same five-year file as your distribution records.