Branch and liaison offices in Türkiye

A foreign company can be present in Türkiye without forming a Turkish company, either through a branch or through a liaison office. They are different things with different permissions, and the choice is made before any document is ordered.

The difference that matters

A branch is part of the foreign company and can carry on commercial activity here. A liaison office generally cannot: its permitted activities are defined and commercial trading is not among them.

⚠ Choosing the wrong one is not a paperwork problem, and it is not corrected by translation. Take advice on which fits what you actually intend to do.

⭐ Everything rests on the parent

Because neither structure creates a new company, the file is built from the foreign parent’s own documents:

• Registry extract or certificate of incorporation
• Articles of association
• A resolution deciding to open the branch or office and appointing a representative
• Documents evidencing the parent’s activity where these are required

Each is apostilled in the parent’s country and then translated with notarial certification. This is the whole certification cost of the exercise, and it is concentrated in one batch.

Send them together

Corporate documents share terminology — company organs, officer titles, share classes — and translating them piecemeal produces a file where the same term appears three ways. Send the set as one batch.

The representative

Both structures need a representative in Türkiye, appointed by the parent’s resolution. That person’s own identity documents follow the ordinary rules, and their authority is exercised under a power of attorney or the resolution itself.

Freshness and renewal

Registry extracts are expected to be recent, and liaison office permissions are granted for defined periods and renewed. Renewal generally means fresh parent documents, so keep the originals and expect the exercise to repeat.

Where this fits

The certification detail is on company documents issued abroad, and the alternative structure on setting up a company with foreign shareholders.

Staff and permits

Neither structure carries any automatic right for foreign staff to work here. Employees sent from the parent need work permits in the ordinary way, and that file starts from its own document list with its own timetable.

Plan the two together. Establishing the office and then discovering that the person meant to run it cannot yet work here is a sequencing failure rather than a documentary one, and it is entirely avoidable.