Turkey Advertising Regulation Changes: What Foreign Brands Need to Know

What changed in the Turkey advertising regulation?

The Turkey advertising regulation change is a 16 article amendment to the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices. Turkey's Ministry of Trade published it in the Official Gazette No. 33297 on 1 July 2026, and it took effect on 1 August 2026. It adds rules for influencers, discounts, AI, targeting and reviews.

I have managed ad accounts since 2012, and many of my clients sell into Turkey from abroad. For them, this amendment matters more than most local updates. It targets digital channels directly: Instagram posts, discount banners, product reviews and AI generated creatives.

This guide reads the amendment from the point of view of a foreign brand. First, I summarise what each article says. Then I explain what you should change in your campaigns. It is not legal advice; however, it gives your marketing team a practical map before the next launch.

Which official text should you rely on?

The primary source is the amending regulation in the Official Gazette. It has 16 articles. The last two set the effective date of 1 August 2026 and give enforcement authority to the Minister of Trade.

On the same day, the Ministry also released a press statement that summarises the changes under ten headings. In addition, the consolidated regulation sits in Turkey's official legislation database. All three sources are in Turkish, so a professional translation for your legal team is worth the cost.

One pattern stands out when you read the text. Many principles that the Ministry used to explain in non binding guides now sit inside the regulation itself. For example, influencer disclosure, green claims and consumer reviews moved from guidance into binding articles. In other words, the "it was only a recommendation" defence no longer works.

The Ministry states its goal plainly: to protect consumers who see more ads because of digitalisation against misleading advertising. So the updated Turkey advertising regulation focuses on online advertising, which is exactly where most foreign brands reach Turkish buyers.

Does the Turkey advertising regulation apply to foreign brands?

In practice, yes. The regulation governs commercial advertising and commercial practices aimed at consumers in Turkey. If your ads target Turkish users, your products ship to Turkey, or you pay Turkish creators to promote you, your campaigns fall inside its scope.

The new definitions also point this way. The amendment defines a social media influencer as any real person or legal entity that shares content to promote a product or service. It does not mention follower counts or nationality. Therefore a creator in Istanbul with 3,000 followers and a global brand account both count.

Enforcement, of course, is easier against companies with a local presence. However, many foreign brands sell through Turkish marketplaces, local distributors or agencies. Those partners carry direct exposure, and they will expect you to deliver compliant creatives and prices.

My advice is simple: treat Turkey as a market with its own disclosure rules, not as an extension of your EU or UK playbook. The differences look small on paper, but they decide whether a campaign passes a review.

Which new definitions does the amendment add?

Article 1 of the amendment adds four definitions to the regulation. These matter because every later obligation builds on them.

• Environmental claim: any statement or visual that suggests a product or service benefits the environment or harms it less, across its components, production or placing on the market.
• Social media: platforms where users create and share text, images, audio, location and similar content.
• Social media influencer: a real or legal person who shares content on social media to promote a product or service as marketing communication.
• Consumer reviews: any online statement, approval or rating that describes a consumer experience.

Note that the review definition includes ratings, not only written text. So your average star score on a product page also falls under the new review rules. Likewise, the influencer definition covers brand owned "face" accounts, because it includes legal entities.

How must influencers label ads in Turkey?

The new Article 23/A turns influencer advertising into a stand alone topic. The core principle: these ads must be clear, understandable and distinguishable. If a creator receives any benefit, followers should recognise the post as an ad at first glance.

The benefit concept is broad. It covers payment, free products, discounts, invitations to events the advertiser organises, and participation in campaigns. For instance, "they only sent me the product" does not remove the duty to label.

Paragraph 3 sets a two part wording rule:

1. The post must contain one of the Turkish words "Reklam" (advertisement) or "Tanıtım" (promotion).
2. Alongside that word, the post must name the advertiser or its trade name, or use a statement such as "Provided by @[advertiser]".

The regulation also lists sample statements that thank the advertiser for sending the products. Still, these thank you lines never replace the required "Reklam" or "Tanıtım" label. For foreign brands, this is the key difference: an English "#ad" on its own does not match the wording the text names. When my team and I run influencer marketing campaigns for Turkey, we put the exact Turkish label into the brief as copy the creator can paste.

Where should the label appear and how should it look?

Writing the label is not enough; placement and design also count. Paragraph 4 of Article 23/A lists six concrete conditions. I recommend checking each one during creative approval.

• The label must stand out from the colours and background of the post and use a readable size.
• Viewers must understand the post is an ad the moment they see it, without scrolling or opening another area.
• If the post includes other tags, the ad label must come first and stay clearly separate.
• The label must not overlap text or icons, given the interface of each platform.
• If content spreads over several posts, each post needs the label.
• If content appears in different formats or someone quotes it from one format into another, each version needs the label.

The most common mistake I see: the label hides at the end of a caption, behind "more" and between dozens of hashtags. Under the new rule that placement fails, because the viewer must notice the ad without expanding the caption.

Stories need extra care. The platform interface covers the top of the frame with the username and progress bar. So place the label just below that zone, in a contrasting colour.

What about podcasts, audio and multi part content?

Audio only content has its own rule. In podcasts or audio streams, the creator must say that the content "contains advertising or promotion about [advertiser]" at the start of the broadcast and again right before the ad segment.

This affects sponsorship formats that many international brands use. Hosts often mention sponsors casually in the middle of an episode. From now on, the Turkish rule requires a spoken notice both at the opening and before the sponsor read.

Multi part content deserves attention too. For example, if a creator splits one campaign across five story frames, each frame needs a label. Similarly, if the creator reshares a Reel as a story, the label must appear there as well.

Because of this, add a "label check" line to your content calendar for every Turkish campaign. In our social media management work, this line is mandatory in the pre publishing checklist. That way, reposted content also passes the check.

How does the 10 day discount rule compare with EU rules?

For e-commerce, the most concrete change sits in Article 14. When you advertise a discount on goods, the reference price must be the lowest price you applied during the ten days before the discount started. For perishable goods such as fruit and vegetables, and for services, the reference is the price immediately before the discount.

Foreign sellers often assume the EU approach applies. In the EU, the Price Indication Directive, as amended by the Omnibus Directive, uses the lowest price of at least the prior 30 days. Turkey's window is ten days. As a result, you cannot simply copy your EU price history logic; you need a separate check for Turkey.

The amendment adds three more paragraphs. First, if you sell through several channels, you set the reference price only from the channel that runs the discount. So a marketplace campaign cannot cite the higher price on your own website. Second and third, the same rules apply to loyalty programme ads and to conditional sale ads such as "buy two, pay for one".

Marketplace sellers feel this immediately. If you sell on Trendyol, my guide to Trendyol discount types explains the campaign formats; combine them with the ten day window before you publish any strikethrough price.

How can you apply the ten day rule step by step?

The rule is easy to understand, but applying it requires clean price history. Here is a hypothetical example; the numbers only illustrate the method.

1. Fix the discount start date. Say the campaign starts on the 20th.
2. Export the selling prices for that channel from the 10th to the 19th.
3. Find the lowest price in that window. If the product dropped to 900 TRY for one day on the 15th, your reference is 900 TRY.
4. Calculate the discount against that reference. Moving from 900 to 720 TRY is a 20 percent discount; you cannot show 28 percent against an old 1,000 TRY list price.
5. Keep screenshots or system logs of the price history. If a complaint arrives, you have evidence.

To check the percentage quickly, use the discount calculator. Enter the reference price and the new price, and it shows the real rate you can advertise.

Watch out for one trap. Raising the price shortly before a campaign to inflate the discount is now both risky and pointless. The lowest price in the ten day window becomes the reference anyway, so artificial inflation only adds the risk of an unfair practice finding.

What must you disclose when ads use AI?

The amendment contains two separate AI provisions. First, a new paragraph 8 in Article 18 applies when an ad uses AI or other software in a way that significantly affects consumers' economic behaviour. In that case, you must disclose the use clearly, understandably and distinguishably.

The same paragraph covers digital characters that AI creates and that people cannot tell apart from humans. For example, if a fully synthetic "brand ambassador" presents your product, viewers must know it is AI.

The second provision is stricter. A new paragraph 12 in Article 27 bans ads in which an AI generated digital copy of a real person falsely appears to have used, experienced or recommended a product. In short, a deepfake endorsement is simply off the table.

Does every AI edit need a label? The text uses the phrase "significantly affects economic behaviour". Therefore a background retouch differs from a synthetic image that shows a feature the product does not have. Still, when the line feels unclear, adding a disclosure is the safer choice.

For the wider picture of AI rules and adoption in the country, see my article on generative AI in Turkey.

What information does targeted advertising now require?

The new Article 25/A defines targeted advertising for the first time. It covers sellers, providers and intermediary service providers that analyse online behaviour, past preference records, location, demographic data or similar personal data to show ads to specific people or groups.

Paragraph 2 sets the condition. Targeted ads are allowed only if the consumer gets direct and easily accessible information on two points:

• which criteria led to the ad appearing for that person,
• how the consumer can change those criteria.

Large platforms such as Meta and Google already offer "why am I seeing this ad" panels. However, if you personalise campaigns on your own site, app or email system, you need to provide this information yourself. A short note such as "based on items in your basket" with a link to preference settings is a good start.

If you upload customer lists to build Meta custom audiences, make the data source and the opt out route clear in your privacy notice too. For the data protection side, my guide to building a GDPR compliant website covers the basics that also help with Turkey's KVKK.

Why is profiling based targeting of children now banned?

Paragraph 3 of Article 25/A contains a clear ban. If you know, or should reasonably know, that a consumer is a child, you cannot target that person with ads based on personal data profiling.

The Ministry's statement lists this rule first. Children are less able to recognise advertising, and sectors such as games, education and toys rely heavily on data driven targeting.

The phrase "should reasonably know" matters. You cannot escape responsibility simply because you never asked for age. For instance, personalising ads with behavioural data inside an app that clearly speaks to children is a risky choice.

In practice, I suggest the following:

• For products aimed at children, use contextual targeting instead of personal data.
• Check age limits and sensitive category settings on every ad platform.
• Remove users with a known child age from personalisation flows in your own systems.

This approach aligns with the regulation and also with the platforms' own policies. Moreover, contextual placements often perform better than expected, because the ad sits next to content that already matches the viewer's interest.

What are the new rules for consumer reviews?

Article 28/B now has entirely new wording, and it creates the most work for online shops. First, if you open a review area, only people who bought the product or service may review it. In addition, you cannot publish reviews from channels where purchase verification is impossible.

The article also sets publishing rules. The main ones:

• Show your review policy in the review area or in a window that opens through a link.
• Your policy cannot block reviews or limit them to certain topics.
• Show reviews on product, delivery and seller together, in one clearly accessible area.
• Keep reviews live for at least one year, without separating positive from negative, sorted by an objective criterion such as date or rating.
• Tell the reviewer immediately if you decide not to publish a review.
• Do not publish reviews with health claims that breach the relevant rules.

The last two paragraphs hit advertising directly. You cannot use unverified reviews in ads. Moreover, buying fake reviews, or paying anyone to write untrue ones, is explicitly banned. For honest ways to build credibility, read my guide on e-commerce trust signals.

What does the 48 hour rule mean for complaint sites?

Article 28/C covers platforms that publish consumer complaints. The amendment cuts the time the seller gets to reply before publication from "at least seventy two hours" to forty eight hours.

It also adds a new sentence: if the seller does not reply within that time, the platform publishes the complaint directly. In other words, silence now has a visible cost.

For foreign brands, time zones make this harder. A complaint that arrives on a Friday evening in Istanbul may use up most of the window before your support team starts on Monday. So route complaint site notifications to a shared inbox with weekend coverage, not to one person's email.

Article 28/B also offers an upside. Once you resolve a consumer's problem, either side can report it; after verification, the platform shows the resolution next to the original review without delay. Fast fixes therefore protect both the customer and your reputation.

On third party platforms such as Google, the platform's own reporting process applies to reviews that break its policies. I explain that route on the Google review removal page.

Is "eco friendly" still allowed in environmental claims?

Not without context. New paragraphs in Article 17 put green marketing inside a tight frame. First, you must prove any certificate or approval you mention with documents from competent authorities, relevant university departments, or accredited or independent testing bodies.

Second, you cannot use general terms such as "eco friendly", "nature friendly" or "green" without explanation or in a way that leaves consumers unsure about the real impact. The Ministry's statement singles out exactly this example.

Third, the ad must state which part, component or life cycle stage the claim covers. For instance, "80 percent of our packaging is recycled cardboard" is far safer than "sustainable product".

Finally, you need to explain your measurement method, either in the ad itself or on a linked page. That makes the claim stronger in an audit and more credible to customers. International brands often have this data already from EU reporting; the task is to surface it in Turkish, next to the ad.

What else changed for supplements, titles and banned products?

Several sector specific changes also apply. First, food rules in Article 8 now explicitly cover food supplements. In addition, a new paragraph in Article 27 bans supplement ads that suggest the product replaces a normal diet.

Second, Article 7 now mentions academic titles, and the Ministry stresses that ads must not use them in a misleading way. Health and beauty brands that quote "professor recommended" style messages should review them.

Third, Article 27 adds direct advertising bans:

• illegal games of chance join illegal betting on the banned list,
• ads for human medicinal products, electronic cigarettes, tobacco products and alcoholic beverages are not allowed,
• consumer ads cannot mention awards that someone grants for a benefit and without objective criteria announced in advance.

The last point matters for award badges. If you plan to show a "brand of the year" style award, make sure it came from transparent criteria and not from a paid scheme.

How does the Turkey advertising regulation look in one table?

The table below groups the Turkey advertising regulation changes from an advertiser's perspective. Article numbers refer to the main regulation as the amendment changes it.

The table is a summary and does not replace the legal text. Before you approve a campaign, read the full article that applies.

What should a compliance checklist for foreign advertisers include?

Memorising each article of the Turkey advertising regulation works less well than building them into your campaign flow. Here is a simplified version of the checklist my team uses; adapt it to your own process.

1. Brief: put the Turkish label text, its placement and the repeat rule into every creator contract.
2. Creative: disclose AI generated people or voices; never use a fake copy of a real person.
3. Pricing: check the lowest price of the last ten days on the same channel before any discount goes live.
4. Targeting: prepare the criteria note and the preference link for personalised ads.
5. Reviews: tie reviews to purchase verification and remove filters that hide negative ones.
6. Support: set up a reply process for complaint sites that stays under 48 hours, including weekends.
7. Green claims: keep documents, scope and measurement method for each claim in one folder.

It also helps to see how competitors handle the rules. With the ad library search tool, you can review active ads and compare how others use labels and discounts.

What happens if you ignore the rules?

The regulation rests on Turkey's Consumer Protection Law No. 6502. Under that law, the Advertising Board within the Ministry of Trade can order a misleading or unlawful ad to stop, require a correction and impose administrative fines.

Fine amounts change every year in line with the revaluation rate. For that reason I do not quote a fixed Turkey advertising regulation fine here; always check the current amount in official sources.

The real cost is often reputational. A campaign that receives a stop order wastes its budget. Moreover, news of fake reviews or misleading discounts spreads on social media faster than any fine.

Platforms add another layer. Meta and Google enforce their own branded content and misleading claims policies. So an ad that breaks local law may also fail platform review. In practice, run a short audit every quarter: active ads, creator agreements and review areas. That way you catch both legal changes and platform updates in time.

How should you update campaigns under the Turkey advertising regulation?

The rules have applied since 1 August 2026, so they cover live content today. Review older content too, not only new campaigns. Pinned influencer posts and evergreen discount pages carry the most risk.

For the first week, I suggest this order. First, list all active ads and pinned posts. Then mark each one for label, discount rate and AI disclosure. After that, update permanent processes such as the review area and the complaint reply routine.

For brands that use our e-commerce consulting, my team and I place this audit at the top of the campaign calendar. As a result, every new discount or collaboration passes the same check before it goes live.

In short, the amendment does not make advertising in Turkey harder; it makes transparency the standard. Clear labels, real discounts and verified reviews also pay off in trust and conversion. If you want us to review your Turkish campaigns against these rules, you can reach us through the services page.