Tourism share (turizm payı) in Türkiye: what lodging businesses pay and report

Turizm payı is a levy on the net sales and rental income of listed tourism businesses, including accommodation facilities. It funds the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency. The rate, the filing period and the deadline depend on your business and can change, so confirm the current figures for your own case with your accountant before you file.

A finance manager sees a line called turizm payı on the month-end list and assumes it is the accommodation tax the front desk already adds to guest bills. The two duties share a vocabulary and nothing else, and the mistake shows up as a wrong base, a wrong period and a charge on the wrong person's account. After reading this article you will be able to place turizm payı correctly: who pays it, on what base, at which rate, by when, and how it differs from the guest-facing accommodation tax.

What is turizm payı in Türkiye?#

Turizm payı is a levy created by Article 6 of Law No. 7183, the law that established the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency, and the money funds that Agency's promotion and development work. The consolidated text of the law on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab) (read 2 November 2026) is the primary source for every rate and rule in this article.

The duty sits on the business, not on the guest. It is calculated on the revenue the business earns from listed tourism activities, so it comes out of the hotel's own margin rather than being added to a bill. It has its own return, separate from the value added tax return and the corporate tax return, and its own period and deadline.

Article 6 states that the share paid is deductible when computing income or corporate tax, which is why the accountant needs the paid figures, not only the declared ones. The scale is per mille, not percent: 0.5% means five per thousand of the base, which reads small on a single invoice and large across a year of room revenue.

Readers meet the term in two forms, turizm payı and turizm katkı payı. The law's own term is turizm payı, and the return carries that name. It is not one of the four steps of every stay in Türkiye, payment, fiscal document, guest identity notification and personal data; it is an obligation that runs alongside them on the business's own books.

Who has to pay turizm payı?#

The law places the duty on the natural or legal persons who invest in or operate the businesses it lists, so the first question is not whether you are in tourism but whether your business is one of the listed types.

The list in Article 6 covers compound facilities, accommodation facilities and places holding a tourism-purpose rental permit; Ministry-certified food, drink and entertainment facilities; marine tourism facilities; travel agencies; airlines' commercial passenger transport; and airport and terminal operators other than the State Airports Authority. The duty attaches to the person who invests in or operates the business.

Where a hotel is leased, managed or run under a management agreement, which party files is a contract and practice question. Read the agreement and settle it with your accountant before the first return. Certification and classification matter too, because the law names Ministry-certified categories and sets different rates for different types. Confirm which category your facility is registered under, not which category it markets itself as.

Travel agencies sit at a much lower rate and carry a carve-out for individual plane ticket sales, which shows the law is written per business type rather than per sector. Being close to tourism is not enough: a restaurant that is not Ministry-certified, or a shop that merely sells to travelers, is not automatically inside the list. Groups should decide early which legal entity files for which facility, since the return is filed per taxpayer, not per brand.

How is turizm payı calculated?#

The base is the total net sales and rental income the business earns from its activities in the listed business, multiplied by the rate that applies to that business type.

The law's wording is short and broad: total net sales and rental income from those activities. It is not limited to room revenue, so restaurant, bar and other sales made inside the facility sit in the same base. Rental income is named explicitly. For example, rent a hotel receives from a shop, a spa operator or a tenant inside the building is income connected to the facility's activity; whether a particular lease belongs in the base is a question for your accountant, not a guess.

Source: Article 6 of Law No. 7183, consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr, read 2 November 2026.

The rate is cut by 50% for tourism types the Ministry of Culture and Tourism chooses to encourage, such as winter, thermal, health, rural and qualified sports tourism. The reduction follows the Ministry's choice of types, so confirm your facility's classification rather than assuming it. Do the arithmetic in per mille once and keep the working: for example, 0.5% of 1,000,000 lira of net sales is 5,000 lira, and the same hotel with an encouraged-type classification would compute 2,500 lira on the same base.

Items the law does not spell out, such as how discounts, service charges or foreign-currency sales enter net sales, should be agreed in writing with your accountant before the first return, so the method stays the same every period.

When is the turizm payı return filed and paid?#

Corporate taxpayers file monthly and everyone else quarterly, and the return must reach the tax office electronically, with the share paid, by 23:59 on the last day of the month after the period.

The law's own default is to declare by the end of the 24th and pay by the evening of the 26th of the month after the taxpayer's value added tax period. Article 6 also lets the Treasury and Finance Ministry, after consulting the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, set monthly or quarterly periods and move the deadlines up to one month later. The Ministry has used that power: the Tourism Share Return General Communiqué, Serial No. 1 (opens in a new tab) (Resmî Gazete, 2 November 2019) sets monthly filing for corporate taxpayers and quarterly filing for others, on calendar quarters.

The competent tax office is the one you are attached to for income or corporate tax; taxpayers outside that arrangement file where the individual resides or where the entity's legal seat or workplace is. Filing is electronic, so the practical risk is not the form but the calendar: the deadline lands in the same week as the night audit close and the accommodation tax work.

A period with no net sales or rental income still needs a return. The filer ticks the statement that there is no turizm payı to declare, which keeps the record complete for the periods that follow. Keep the declaration receipt and the payment record together, because the share paid is what the income or corporate tax computation will refer back to.

Turizm payı and accommodation tax: what is the difference?#

Turizm payı is a levy on the business's own net sales and rental income, while the accommodation tax is charged to the guest on accommodation services and appears on the guest's bill. Confirm your own case with an accountant.

Who bears it is the cleanest test. The share reduces the hotel's revenue; the accommodation tax is collected from the guest and passed on. Where it appears follows from that: turizm payı is not a line a hotel adds to a guest invoice as a separate charge, while the accommodation tax is a charge on the guest's account and has its own return.

The bases differ. The share reaches the facility's total net sales and rental income, so it also touches restaurant and other sales inside the building; the accommodation tax is tied to the accommodation service. Both can apply to the same stay: paying one does not discharge the other, and neither is a substitute for the fiscal document issued for the sale. The periods can differ too, which is why the two deadlines belong in one month-end calendar rather than two separate reminders. For the accommodation tax base, rate and return mechanics, use the dedicated accommodation tax explainer; for the surrounding vocabulary, the hotel compliance glossary covers KBS, KVKK, e-Arşiv and ÖKC.

What should you confirm with your accountant before the first return?#

Confirm four things in writing: your facility's category and rate, whether an encouraged-type reduction applies, your filing period, and which line items enter the base.

Category and rate come first: which listed business type your facility is registered under, and therefore whether you compute at 0.5%, 0.05% or 0.2%. Then the reduction: whether your facility falls in one of the tourism types the Ministry of Culture and Tourism encourages, which halves the rate, and what evidence supports that position. Period and office: monthly or quarterly, and which tax office is competent for your entity. Base method: how discounts, service charges, foreign-currency sales and rental income from tenants inside the building are treated, agreed once and applied consistently.

Also settle who files where the hotel is operated by someone else under a lease or management agreement. Keep a dated copy of the law article and the communiqué you relied on, because rates, periods and deadlines can be changed by the powers in Article 6. On penalties, this article states no amounts: a late or missing return is a tax procedure matter, so ask your accountant about exposure for your own case rather than working from a general figure.

What to do next#

The next step is a single page agreed with your accountant: your facility's category, your rate after any encouraged-type reduction, your filing period and the line items in the base, with the deadline written into the month-end calendar next to the accommodation tax work. Turizm payı is a small percentage of a large number that the business pays on its own revenue, so getting the category and the base right once is what keeps every later period simple.