What the Water Efficiency Regulation means for hotels: the 250-room rule and certificate levels

Türkiye's Water Efficiency Regulation (Su Verimliliği Yönetmeliği, Resmî Gazete 27 December 2024, No. 32765) created three certificates: blue, green and turquoise. Accommodation businesses with 250 or more rooms must apply for the green certificate within at most five years, through the water efficiency information system. Certificates last five years.

For example, a 250-room resort may already keep meter readings for its zero waste file and its sustainability certificate. In June 2026 the Ministry announced the online system that records the file, and it asks for much of the same evidence in a different order. The question is not whether the hotel measures water. It is whether the records can be shown in the form the new certificate expects. After reading this you will know which annex applies to your facility, what the green criteria actually ask for, and what to do in the first month.

What does the Water Efficiency Regulation require of hotels?#

It sets up a voluntary-to-mandatory ladder of water efficiency certificates and makes one rung compulsory for large accommodation businesses. The regulation was issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, published in the Resmî Gazete on 27 December 2024 (No. 32765) (opens in a new tab), and took effect that day. The consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr showed no amendment in the latest available version, so the annexes you read today are the ones that count, but confirm the current text before you file.

Article 7 creates three certificate levels, blue, green and turquoise, and points each level at its own criteria annex: Annex 3 for blue, Annex 4 for green, Annex 5 for turquoise. Article 7(3) is the clause that reaches hotels: accommodation tourism businesses with 250 or more rooms must apply for the green certificate within at most five years. Article 8 says applications go through the water efficiency information system, that the Ministry assesses an application within 60 days, and that the Ministry sets the certificate fee each year. Article 9 sets validity at five years and requires renewal three months before expiry, at which point the certification process starts again rather than being extended automatically.

The regulation is a duty on the facility, not a marketing label. The certificate is issued against annex criteria, and the annexes, not a summary, decide what your building must show.

The three levels at a glance#

What are the blue, green and turquoise certificates?#

Blue is the entry certificate for a facility that builds a water efficiency system, green is the level the 250-room rule points at, and turquoise is a voluntary higher level. Each is judged against its own annex, so the work for one does not automatically satisfy another.

Blue (Annex 3) is mostly about management: enough staff assigned to water efficiency, establishing the current situation, setting targets, planning how to reach them, training activities, water-efficient fittings for individual use such as taps, showers and toilet cisterns, and informative written and visual materials.

Green for accommodation (Annex 4, Table 6) adds hardware and site work. At least 50 percent of water-use fittings must be water-efficient. Rainwater harvesting is assessed under the relevant provision of the Planned Areas Zoning Regulation, and grey-water reuse is required in areas newly designed from the regulation's publication date. Green also asks for the principles of the Drought-Tolerant Landscaping Guide, water efficiency training and promotion, and application of the techniques in the Tourism Sector Water Efficiency Guide.

A TS ISO 46001 Water Efficiency Management System certificate from TSE is part of the green criteria, but it is not required at the first green application; it becomes mandatory at green renewal. Turquoise (Annex 5) is voluntary and sits above green; a hotel should decide on it only after the green file is stable.

Read Annex 1 before telling anyone they only need blue. The annex list decides which facilities the blue certificate covers, and a hotel that assumes otherwise can plan the wrong file for five years.

What the blue certificate asks for#

Which hotels must apply, and by when?#

Two thresholds matter. Accommodation tourism businesses with 250 or more rooms must apply for the green certificate within at most five years of publication, and those with 100 or more rooms must set up a water efficiency system within 21 months of publication.

The 250-room duty is written into Article 7(3) as a maximum of five years, counted from the regulation's publication on 27 December 2024; treat the outer limit as a deadline, not a schedule. The 100-room duty sits in Annex 1 as a requirement to establish a water efficiency system within 21 months of publication; by simple arithmetic that window closes in September 2026, so a hotel in that band should plan to be able to show the system, not a plan for one.

The two duties are different in kind: the system is the management groundwork, the green certificate is the assessed level, and the first is the natural preparation for the second. Renewal is a separate clock: Article 9 requires the application three months before the certificate expires, and the process starts again, so the evidence has to be maintainable, not assembled once. Article 8 gives the Ministry 60 days to assess an application and lets it set the certificate fee each year, so budget for a recurring cost rather than a one-off payment.

Check your own case against the annexes and the current consolidated text, and confirm timing and any consequences of missing a date with your legal adviser or the Ministry; this article describes the duty, not your file.

What does the certificate actually look at?#

It looks at fittings, reuse and management evidence, not at a single water number. The green criteria mix hardware, site practice and documentation, and the sector guide supplies the technique list the criteria refer to.

The Tourism Sector Water Efficiency Guide (NACE 55.10, hotels and similar accommodation, Ankara 2023, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (opens in a new tab)) is the reference the green criteria point at, and it carries a priority-techniques table of 31 sector-specific measures, plus 6 good-management practices and 6 general measures. The guide's measures are operational and cheap to check: watering green areas at low-evaporation hours with timers and rain gauges, weighing laundry so machines run at full load, backwashing filters by filter pressure rather than on a fixed schedule, footbaths to keep sand out of pools, balanced pool chemistry, a pool cover when the pool is not in use, efficient pre-rinse spray valves, tap aerators, dual-flush cisterns, grey water for garden irrigation, and meters in laundries.

The guide gives the sector a reference range of 188 to 507 litres per overnight stay, and 385.4 litres per overnight stay for the activity it analysed, with 36 to 50 percent savings available from applying the measures. Use these as a reading of your own meters, not as a target handed to you. Where the water goes matters for the file: much of it is in guest-room toilets, washbasins and room cleaning, and laundries, kitchens, coffee and ice machines, pools and spas, water softening and reverse-osmosis units, closed cooling systems and steam boilers take the rest.

The 50 percent fittings test needs a count, so the practical first step is a register of water-use points with the fitting type at each one; without that count the criterion cannot be evidenced. Rainwater and grey-water items depend on your site and on the zoning provision the annex names, and grey-water reuse is required in areas newly designed from the publication date, so the answer differs between an existing block and a new one.

From criterion to evidence#

How does the online system work?#

Certificate processes run through the Water Efficiency Information System at csys.tarimorman.gov.tr, which the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry announced on 24 June 2026. The system carries the sector guides as well as the application.

The Ministry's General Directorate of Water Management said the system works with e-Devlet integration and a geographic data layer, so the facility is located and identified rather than described on paper. It also said water efficiency certificate processes are to be carried out only through the system, which means a file kept offline is preparation, not an application. The guides for sector users sit at the same address, so the criteria annex and the sector guide can be read in one place before anything is entered.

The Ministry said it is holding information meetings and training in all provinces for the representatives of, among others, tourism facilities; a technical or quality manager should attend one before the first entry. Article 8 sets the assessment at 60 days and the fee annually, so the system is where you confirm the current fee rather than relying on a figure from a colleague.

Treat the first login as a scoping exercise: identify the facility, open the tourism guide, and note which fields you cannot fill yet. Those gaps are the first month's work.

Can a hotel reuse its zero waste and sustainability records?#

The raw readings can be reused; the certificates cannot. Zero waste, sustainable tourism certification and water efficiency are separate regimes with separate files, but they draw on the same meters, the same invoices and often the same staff.

Build one meter register and let every file read from it: meter name, unit, date, reading, who read it, and the occupied rooms or covers for that day, so the same line serves a consumption figure, a per-guest figure and an audit question. The zero waste file and the sustainability certificate already ask for dated records and named responsibility, which is most of what the blue criteria describe as establishing the current situation and assigning staff.

Daily per-occupied-room readings are the practical bridge: they turn a monthly bill into an operating number a manager can act on, and they answer the guide's litres-per-overnight-stay reference without a separate study. The same habit supports daily energy and water readings per occupied room. Keep the evidence that is not a number: fitting types, photographs of aerators and dual-flush cisterns, the laundry weighing record, the filter pressure log, the pool cover, the training attendance sheets. The green criteria are judged on these as much as on consumption.

Do not assume one certificate substitutes for another. Each is issued against its own annex or program rules, and an auditor for one will not accept the other's certificate in place of the evidence. Put one person in charge of the shared register, because three files maintained by three departments produce three versions of the same month.

What should a 250-room resort do in the first month?#

Read the annexes, count the fittings, list the meters and register in the system. A month is enough to know the size of the file and who owns it.

Week one: read Annex 1 for coverage, Annex 3 and Annex 4 Table 6 for criteria, and Articles 7, 8 and 9 for the duty, the assessment and the renewal clock; write one page of what applies to your facility. Open the tourism sector guide and mark which of its 31 priority measures you already run, which are cheap to start and which need capital.

Week two: walk the building and count water-use points by fitting type, so the 50 percent test becomes a number rather than an impression. List every meter, including laundry, kitchen, pool and irrigation, and start a dated register if one does not exist.

Week three: register in the water efficiency information system with e-Devlet access, open the sector guide there, and record which fields you cannot yet fill. Week four: check the rainwater and grey-water position against the zoning provision the annex names, and decide whether a new block triggers the reuse requirement. Name an owner for the file, book the provincial information meeting or training, and put the renewal date five years out in the calendar with a reminder three months before it.

First-month checklist#

What to do next#

Open Annex 4, Table 6 next to your own building and count the water-use points, because that count decides whether the green file is a documentation exercise or a capital project. The pieces fit together in one order: the annexes define the duty, the fittings and reuse criteria define the work, the online system records it, and one shared meter and fittings register feeds this file along with the zero waste and sustainability files you already keep.