Severance and notice pay for seasonal hotel staff: what an employer should plan for

Severance pay (kıdem tazminatı) is 30 days' wages for each full year with the same employer, after at least one full year of service, still governed by Article 14 of former Law No. 1475. A worker with six months behind them has no severance entitlement yet. Seasonal work is not a separate contract type, so a worker who returns each April keeps adding service. Whether a given season end triggers payment depends on how the relationship ends.

Every April the same team comes back, and every return adds a year to a number that appears nowhere in the season budget. The question arrives in October, when the season closes and someone asks what the hotel actually owes. This article separates what the labour law texts say about severance pay for seasonal workers in Türkiye from what depends on your contracts, your records and the way each relationship ends, and shows you how to turn that into a planning figure per returning worker.

Why does severance come up every autumn in a seasonal hotel?#

Because the end of the season is when the employment relationship is tested: whether it ended, on what ground, and what the hotel wrote down at the time.

The returning team is the hotel's operational strength. The same continuity that makes service good in July is what makes service time accumulate by October. Severance never arrives as an invoice during the season, so it is rarely in the season budget. It becomes visible when a worker leaves for good, or disputes how the exit was handled.

The trigger is the end of the relationship, not the end of the season. A worker who is coming back next April has not ended anything yet. When a claim appears, two records are read together: the reason written on the termination notice, and the reason reported to social security at exit. A mismatch between them is the first thing a lawyer will ask about.

Most arguments are decided on documents the hotel either wrote or failed to write: the contract, the call-back letter, the season-end notice, the payroll. The practical work is therefore unglamorous: count seasons per worker, keep the letters, and ask the questions before the next hiring round rather than after a claim. The starting point is how the season-end relationship is set up in the first place, covered in our guide to hiring seasonal staff: contracts, social security entry and the end of the season.

What do the texts actually say about severance pay?#

Severance is still governed by Article 14 of the former Labour Law No. 1475 (Resmî Gazete 1 September 1971, No. 13943), which Labour Law No. 4857 repealed in full except for that single article. Article 120 of Law No. 4857 repealed every article of Law No. 1475 except Article 14, and Temporary Article 6 of Law No. 4857 preserves workers' severance rights under that article until a law on a severance fund takes effect. The consolidated text is published by the T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi (mevzuat.gov.tr) (opens in a new tab), read 7 November 2026.

Article 14 lists the endings that create the right. Severance is due on termination by the employer for reasons other than those in Article 17(II) of Law 1475; termination by the worker under Article 16 of Law 1475; compulsory military service; leaving for an old-age, retirement or disability pension or a lump-sum payment; leaving after completing the insurance period and premium days required for an old-age pension, with all conditions except age met; a woman ending the contract of her own wish within one year of marriage; or the worker's death.

The amount is 30 days' wages for each full year of service from the start date, at the same rate for the period beyond a full year. The basis is the last wage. Where pay is not fixed, such as piece rate, commission, lump sum or the percentage method, the average of the last year is used, and money and money-measurable benefits given under the contract or the law are added.

The annual amount may not exceed the maximum retirement bonus paid for one service year to the highest-grade civil servant, though a contract or collective agreement may raise the 30 days in the worker's favour. If severance is paid late, the court awards the highest interest rate paid on deposits for the delay.

Is seasonal work a separate contract type in Turkish labour law?#

No. Labour Law No. 4857 (Resmî Gazete 10 June 2003, No. 25134) does not define seasonal work and does not create a seasonal contract type; it mentions seasonal and campaign work in only a few places. The consolidated text is on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab), read 7 November 2026.

Contracts are fixed-term or indefinite (Article 9). A contract is indefinite unless the relationship is tied to a period. A written fixed-term contract, or one made on objective conditions such as finishing a specific job or a specific event occurring, is fixed-term. It may not be made several times in a row without an essential reason; otherwise it counts as indefinite from the start (Article 11). This chaining rule is the one most seasonal hotels should read twice.

The notice periods in Article 17 apply before an indefinite contract is terminated; the calculation itself is a matter for counsel and payroll.

Seasonal work appears in Article 53, which keeps workers in seasonal or campaign work that by its nature lasts less than a year outside the annual paid leave provisions. Article 29 disapplies the collective dismissal rules when seasonal or campaign workers are dismissed because of the nature of that work. Article 7(2) covers temporary agency work. Article 10 defines work that by its nature lasts at most thirty working days as non-continuous work, and a list of articles, including Article 17 and Temporary Article 6, does not apply to it. A hotel season normally runs far longer than thirty working days, so this route is narrow.

The consequence for the owner: writing the word "seasonal" on a contract does not by itself change severance. What matters is the term type, the objective reason behind it, and how the relationship ends. For the surrounding vocabulary, see our glossary of labour law terms for hotel employers: denkleştirme, puantaj and yüzde usulü.

One season or ten: what changes for a returning worker?#

Every period with the same employer counts, so a worker who has returned for six seasons stands behind the last wage with six years of service.

Article 14 counts seniority over all periods with the same employer, at one or different workplaces, whether the contract continued or was made again after breaks. That is the mechanism that turns a stable team into a growing figure: the exposure rises with retention, which is exactly what a well-run seasonal hotel is trying to achieve operationally.

The last wage is the basis, so a raise in the final season raises the whole calculation, not just the final year. Money and money-measurable benefits provided under the contract or the law are added to the basis. Housing, meals and transport are the usual candidates in a hotel, and they need to be documented to be argued about.

What the adviser decides, not this article: how the breaks between seasons are characterised, whether the relationship was continuous or renewed each year, and whether a chain of fixed-term contracts had an essential reason behind it. The hard cases sit in court practice. Counsel will look at the decisions; no outcome should be assumed from this article.

Three ways a season ends: what happens to severance and notice?#

The ending decides, not the calendar: not calling a worker back, a resignation and a return next April are three different events with three different consequences.

Not called back. In substance this is a termination by the employer. Severance is due where the termination rests on reasons other than those in Article 17(II) of Law 1475, so the ground has to be written and defensible, not implied by silence.

Resignation. A plain resignation does not create severance. The right arises only in the Article 14 cases, which include termination by the worker under Article 16 of Law 1475, military service, a pension or lump sum, a woman leaving within one year of marriage, and death.

Called back later. Nothing has ended, so nothing is triggered, and service keeps accumulating. A written call-back letter and a written season-end notice keep that clear for both sides.

Notice pay is a separate question from severance. The Article 17 periods apply before an indefinite contract is terminated; whether a given contract is fixed-term or indefinite is an Article 11 question. The exit reason reported to social security and the reason in the termination letter are read together. Do not treat "the season ended" as an answer in either direction. It is the beginning of the question, and the exit code you report is part of it: see SGK exit codes at season end: which code a hotel reports.

How do you size the exposure per returning worker?#

Multiply completed years by 30 days of the last wage, cap each service year at the ceiling in force, then carry notice pay as a separate column.

Build the list from payroll, not from memory: every worker with more than one season at the hotel, with start and end dates for each season. Count completed years across all seasons, following the Article 14 rule on breaks and re-made contracts. Take the last wage and add the money-measurable benefits the contract or the law provides.

Apply 30 days per year, then cap each year's amount at the ceiling in force for the period. The cap works per service year, not on the total. Keep notice pay in its own column: it follows Article 17 and a different logic, and mixing the two produces a number nobody can defend. Re-run the list each autumn and whenever the ceiling changes, so the figure stays a planning tool rather than a shock.

For example, with invented figures:

All figures are invented for illustration. The ceiling shown is the 1 July to 31 December 2026 figure, 73,729.87 TL per service year, from the Ministry of Treasury and Finance circular of 3 July 2026; Worker C's nine years are capped at 73,729.87 TL each. Notice pay is excluded from the table.

The result is a planning figure, not a legal determination. It tells the owner what the returning team would cost if everyone left at once, which is the number the budget has been missing. To place it inside your cost structure, see hotel labor cost: payroll per occupied room and hours per room.

Which records matter, and what should you ask counsel before the next hiring round?#

The records that decide a severance argument are the ones written before it: the contract, the call-back and season-end letters, the exit notice and the payroll.

A written contract should state the term type and the objective reason behind it, not just the word "seasonal". A call-back letter each season, with dates, documents the start of each period rather than leaving it to memory. A season-end notice should say what happens next: return expected, or relationship ended, and on what ground. An exit notice should carry a reason that matches the social security exit code, signed and dated. Payroll should show the wage and every money-measurable benefit, because the last-wage basis is built from them.

Questions for counsel: how our inter-season breaks are characterised; whether our fixed-term chain has an essential reason; what our standard season-end letter should say; how housing and meals enter the last-wage basis; and what to do about workers already at five or more seasons. The contract and record side is covered from the hiring angle in the end of the season: contracts, entry and exit records.

What to do next#

Build the returning-worker list this month, with seasons counted and the last wage beside each name, and take it, together with the contracts and the season-end letters, to your labour counsel and your accountant before the next hiring round. The article's parts fit in one order: the text sets 30 days per year and a ceiling, the contract decides the term type, the ending decides whether anything is triggered, the list turns that into a figure, and the records decide whether the figure can be defended.