Stamp tax on hotel contracts: agency agreements, leases and addenda explained

Stamp tax (damga vergisi) is a tax on signed papers of the kinds listed in the table attached to Law No. 488. The taxpayer is whoever signs. Leases are a separate item from general contracts, and a letter that extends or changes a taxable paper is taxable in its own right. Confirm your case with an accountant.

The agency agreement comes back signed with a one-page annex that moves the rate review to June, and nobody in the hotel asks whether that page is a taxable paper. Under the stamp tax law, it usually is. Hotels sign agency agreements, leases, management agreements, supplier contracts and their addenda every season, and the question of stamp duty on hotel contracts in Türkiye rarely reaches the finance office in time. After reading this article you will know which papers raise the question, who the taxpayer is, and what to put in front of your accountant.

Which hotel papers are contracts in the stamp tax law's sense?#

The law does not tax every document a hotel signs. It taxes papers of the kinds named in the table attached to Law No. 488, so the first question about any hotel paper is which line of that table it falls under.

The law works from a list, not from a general idea of agreement. The attached table names paper types, and contracts (mukavelename, taahhütname) and leases appear as separate items (Source: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Damga Vergisi Kanunu No. 488, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). What matters is a written text with a signature whose content fits a listed item. A signed annex, side letter or protocol can be a paper on its own, not an attachment to something else.

The hotel papers that raise the question most often are travel agency agreements and their annexes, building and outlet leases, management and operating agreements, supplier and service contracts, group and corporate rate agreements, and software contracts. The law looks at who signed, not at who negotiated. An annex signed by a general manager under authority is a signed paper like any other.

In a group, the signing company is the one to watch. A contract signed by one entity and filed by another leaves a gap the finance team cannot see. Whether a specific paper fits a listed item is a legal question about your text. This article describes the mechanism; it does not classify your contract for you.

Who pays stamp tax on a hotel contract?#

Under Article 3 of Law No. 488, the taxpayer is whoever signs the paper. In a two-party hotel agreement, that means both signatories.

The law names the signatory, not the party who benefits most, who drafted the text or who holds the budget (Source: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Damga Vergisi Kanunu No. 488, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). A clause saying the agency, the tenant or the supplier bears all taxes is a commercial allocation between the parties. Ask your accountant how such a clause interacts with the taxpayer the law names; the two are different questions.

Because both sides sign, both sides should know the paper exists. The annex signed by the manager and filed without the finance office is the classic gap. Keep every signed paper in one place with its date and signing entity, so the finance team can see what was signed in the period without chasing departments.

In a group, the signing company is the taxpayer for that paper. So record which entity signed each paper, and let your accountant decide how a shared services arrangement that signs for several hotels is treated. The practical habit that prevents most surprises: no signature without a copy to finance in the same week.

Do addenda, extensions and renewals carry stamp tax again?#

Yes, in principle. Article 2 brings letters and annotations that renew, extend, change, transfer or terminate the provisions of a taxable paper into the tax.

The list is broad on purpose: renew, extend, change, transfer, terminate. A protocol, a side letter, a printed and signed email or a numbered annex can all qualify (Source: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Damga Vergisi Kanunu No. 488, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). The trigger is the effect, not the label. The question is whether the page changes what the original contract says, not whether someone called it an addendum.

A renewal that repeats the same terms for another season is a paper that renews a taxable paper, so it belongs on the list even though nothing new was negotiated. Termination and release letters are on the same list, which surprises hotel teams who treat them as paperwork rather than as papers.

How the base is computed for a particular addendum, whether the whole contract value, the change or a difference, is not something this article decides. That is an accountant's call on your text. The habit that keeps this manageable: number every annex, date it, sign it, and route it to finance the same week it is agreed.

Are contracts and leases taxed the same way?#

No. The attached table lists general contracts and lease contracts as separate items, and the lease item is taxed on the rent over the contract period.

Contracts (mukavelename, taahhütname) carry a statutory rate of 7.5 per thousand and an applicable rate of 9.48 per thousand in the table (Source: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Damga Vergisi Kanunu No. 488, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). Leases are a separate item and the base is the rent across the whole term, so a five-year lease is not assessed like a one-year lease: the base itself is larger.

That makes the term of a hotel lease a tax-relevant decision, not only a commercial one. A short renewal and a long first term are not the same paper. Mixed papers are where this gets hard: a management agreement with a revenue share, a lease with a service component, or a hasılat kirası, a lease priced as a share of revenue, may not sit cleanly on one line. The same question comes up when leasing out a hotel and choosing between an ordinary lease, a hasılat kirası or a management agreement.

The "may fall here" column is illustrative. Which line a specific paper falls under is a legal question about your text, and the rates above are the table's own figures at the date of reading. Do not carry them into a calculation for your own contract without your accountant confirming what applies to your paper and period.

How are penalty clauses, earnest money and withdrawal compensation treated?#

Article 6 keeps them out of the tax when they are a sanction attached to a contract: earnest money, withdrawal compensation, penalty clauses and similar commitments are not taxed unless they are the subject of a contract in their own right.

The test is placement. Does the commitment live inside a signed agreement, or does it stand alone as its own signed paper with its own date (Source: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Damga Vergisi Kanunu No. 488, 11 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)). A penalty clause in an agency agreement is part of that agreement. A separate letter in which a party promises a sum if it withdraws is a paper in its own right, and Article 6 does not shelter it.

Earnest money (pey akçesi) paid under a preliminary agreement follows the same logic: the commitment is not a second taxable item, but the paper it sits in may be. Article 6 does not remove the tax on the main contract. It only says the sanction is not taxed as a second item on top of it.

A practical check before signing: does the penalty text have its own signature block and its own date, separate from the agreement? If yes, treat it as a paper and put it in front of your accountant. Do not read Article 6 as a reason to move penalties into separate letters. That changes the paper, and the paper is what the law looks at.

Which hotel contracts should you take to your accountant?#

Take every paper signed in the period that creates, changes, transfers or ends an obligation, not only the ones with contract in the title.

The list below is a review list, not a tax computation. Its purpose is to put the signed texts, their dates and their signing entities in one place so a professional can classify them. Sort by table line, not by department: agency papers, leases, management agreements and addenda answer to different items in the law. Attach the signing entity to each item, because a paper signed by the management company and a paper signed by the owning company are different taxpayers. Ask for a written answer on the two questions that recur: which line a mixed paper falls under, and how the base is computed for an addendum.

Include the papers nobody thinks of as contracts: rate sheets signed under an agency agreement, allotment letters, pre-opening service agreements, and renewals agreed by email. The same review habit pays off when you read hotel software contracts before signing them.

What this article does not decide#

It does not compute your tax, list your exemptions or give you a deadline. It reads five provisions of Law No. 488 in hotel terms and stops there.

No amount is computed here. The rate that applies to your paper, the base and whether an exemption, a cap or a special rule applies to your situation all depend on your text, your period and your taxpayer status. No deadlines and no penalties are stated here. Those follow from procedural provisions this article does not open, and from general tax procedure.

The rates quoted are the table's own figures as read on the source date. They change, and the figure in force for your period is the one that matters. For the wider set of taxes and levies that sit around this one, the glossary of hotel taxes and levies in Türkiye is the better starting point.

What to do next#

Collect every paper signed in the last twelve months into one folder, with its date and the entity that signed it, and book an hour with your accountant to sort them by table line. Start with the agency agreement and the lease: they are the two papers a hotel usually signs without asking, and the two where the line in the table changes the answer.