Employee benefits, insurance & workspace: What EORs provide in Turkey
- Gegidze • გეგიძე | Marketing
- Jul 16
- 9 min read
Table of contents:
Introduction
Hiring in Turkey is smart.
Doing it without local HR? That’s where it gets tricky.
Because it’s not just about payroll or contracts anymore. Top talent wants more benefits, private insurance, remote setup support, and a decent laptop that doesn’t scream “2015 startup budget.”
But building a full internal HR function just to offer those things? That’s expensive, messy, and takes time you don’t have.
That’s why more companies are skipping the in-house team and hiring through an Employer of Record (EOR) like Team Up.
It’s a full-stack solution that goes beyond compliance. You get:
A legal way to hire in Turkey without opening an entity
Localized benefits that actually attract Turkish talent
Workspace and equipment support so your remote team can hit the ground running
In this guide, we’ll show you exactly what benefits, insurance, and workspace perks your Turkish employees expect, and how EORs help you deliver them.
If you're wondering whether your current offer is competitive in Turkey... you’re in the right place.
What benefits are legally required in Turkey?
Here’s what “compliant hiring” in Turkey actually looks like when you strip the buzzwords:
You either follow the rules or you risk lawsuits, audits, and talent walking out the door.
EORs aren’t just a hiring shortcut. They’re your legal safety net in a country where benefits aren’t optional; they’re the law.
Here’s what gets covered when you use an Employer of Record in Turkey:
Social security & insurance contributions
Every employee must be registered with the Social Security Institution (SGK). Team Up handles this from Day 1.
The EOR ensures:
Employer-side contributions: ~15.75%–20.5% of gross salary
Employee-side deductions: ~9%–14% These cover:
Universal healthcare access
Unemployment benefits
Workplace injury and disability
Parental leave
Retirement pensions
Minimum wage compliance
Yes, Turkey adjusts its minimum wage often.
As of 2025: TRY 26,005.50/month (gross).
Your EOR provider in Turkey handles salary alignment and makes sure your offer meets the legal checklist and market expectations.
Paid annual leave (based on tenure)
Employees earn:
14 days if employed 1–5 years
20 days if employed 5–15 years
26 days if employed for over 15 years
Under 18 or over 50? Automatically entitled to 20 days.
Public holidays are also fully paid for by law.
Sick, maternity & paternity leave
Sick leave is paid and requires medical certification.
EORs also manage:
Paid maternity leave (16 weeks, extendable in complex cases)
Paternity leave (typically 5 days, paid)
Severance pay & notice periods
Turkish law requires:
Severance pay after 1+ year of employment
Notice pay based on tenure (from 2 to 8 weeks). An EOR ensures correct calculations, timelines, and filings. No guesswork.
Overtime pay
Anything over 45 hours/week?
That’s overtime, and it needs to be compensated at 150% of base rate or with extra time off.
Team Up makes sure you’re not missing payments (or breaking the law).
Is private health insurance required?
Legally no. But practically, you'll get ghosted without it.
Let’s break it down.
Turkey’s public healthcare system
Every full-time employee in Turkey is automatically enrolled in SGK (Social Security Institution) coverage.
This system gives access to public hospitals, covers major treatments, and ticks the compliance box.
But here’s the thing:
Nobody calls their mom to brag about landing a job with SGK coverage.
It’s expected. Bare minimum. Not a differentiator.
What Turkish professionals actually expect
In 2025, offering private health insurance is the norm, not the perk, for mid-level and senior hires.
Especially in cities like Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, where talent has options.
Here’s the market standard:
Entry-level talent – May settle for SGK alone, but even they ask about perks.
Mid-level hires – Expect private coverage that covers basic diagnostics and access to decent clinics.
Senior professionals – Will negotiate for top-tier plans that include private hospitals, dental, optical, maternity, and sometimes family coverage.
If you don’t offer that?
They’ll join the company that does.
What international companies are doing
Companies hiring in Turkey through EORs know the drill:
Good insurance = better candidates, faster hiring, lower churn.
That’s why most of them structure offers like this:
Basic Plan – Covers emergencies, basic outpatient/inpatient services
Mid-Tier Plan – Adds diagnostics, private clinics, and shorter wait times
Premium Plan – Private hospitals, global coverage, dependents included
These can be:
Fully paid by you
Co-funded (say, 70/30 employer/employee)
Reimbursed monthly (especially for remote roles)
Either way, your EOR partner handles all the setup, contracts, and admin.
What other perks do companies offer in Turkey?
Salary alone won’t cut it.
If your offer doesn’t come with extras, you’re not competitive.
And in a market where talent moves fast, you don’t want to be the slow offer on the table.
Here’s what’s expected, and how smart companies deliver it.
The perk lineup (aka the unofficial hiring checklist)
Let’s start with what’s common in 2025:
Phone & Internet Stipend: Remote employees need fast, stable Wi-Fi.A monthly allowance (typically TRY 300–600) is a basic expectation, not a luxury.
Transportation Reimbursement: For hybrid or on-site roles, covering commutes is normal. Some companies provide metro cards, others reimburse Uber/taxi rides.
Meal Cards (Sodexo, Multinet, Setcard): This is huge. Most full-time roles come with a prepaid card that covers lunch and sometimes dinner. Monthly value? Anywhere from TRY 1,500 to 3,000, depending on city and seniority.
Gym or Wellness Budget: With more companies caring about “employee wellbeing” (read: preventing burnout), gym passes or meditation app subscriptions are on the rise.
Online Learning Budget: Whether it’s a Coursera course or a new UI bootcamp, Turkish tech and design talent expect access to skill development. Budgets usually range from TRY 2,000–5,000 per year.
Local norms vs Western standards
Turkey sits in a weird middle ground:
It’s not Western Europe, but it’s not lagging behind either.
That means your local competitors are offering benefits that look a lot like what you'd see in Berlin or Barcelona, just at local cost levels.
But if you’re a US or EU company trying to hire in Turkey without localized perks?
You look out of touch.
Where EORs make your life easier
You don’t need to research local vendors, manage top-ups, or explain Multinet to your finance team.
A good Employer of Record (like Team Up) handles all of it:
Builds your perks into local employment contracts
Handles payments and reimbursements
Ensures tax-compliant treatment of non-cash benefits
Advises you on what’s standard vs what’s generous
And yes, we’ll tell you when you’re overspending too.
Workspace support for remote employees in Turkey
Hiring someone remotely isn’t just about wiring a salary and calling it a day.
If you want them to actually do the job well and stick around, you need to think about where they’re working from, what they’re working with, and who’s paying for it.
Where are they based?
Most EOR hires in Turkey work from home.
That’s especially true in cities like:
Istanbul – still the top talent hub
Ankara – common for developers and policy-adjacent roles
Izmir, Antalya, and Bursa – remote-friendly regions with growing tech scenes
You might also find solid talent in smaller towns, but expect more hybrid requests in Istanbul than anywhere else.
What does workspace support actually look like?
You’ve got two main options:
Home office stipends – TRY 1,000–2,000/month to cover utilities, ergonomic chairs, faster Wi-Fi, etc.
Coworking memberships – WeWork, Kolektif House, Impact Hub, and local chains are popular. Expect to pay TRY 4,000–6,000/month per person for full-time access in Istanbul.
You can also mix and match:
Home setup + 8-day/month coworking hot desk = solid hybrid perk.
What do employees expect?
Senior hires want clarity:
Will the company pay for their chair? Their desk? Their electricity bill?
Junior hires usually just want somewhere quiet to work.
Either way, having no plan = looking unprepared.
How Team Up handles it
When you hire through our EOR model:
We build workspace perks into the offer from day one
We manage stipends or coworking memberships on your behalf
We track and report expenses (yes, including invoices in Turkish)
We help localize expectations so you’re not over- or under-shooting
Who provides the equipment and tools?
No senior hire in Turkey wants to start their first day waiting for a laptop that’s still stuck in customs.
And no company wants to play DHL roulette every time someone new joins.
So, who handles the equipment?
What’s usually needed?
For most roles, especially in tech, design, and marketing, you’re looking at:
Laptop (MacBook or high-spec PC)
Second monitor
Keyboard and mouse
Noise-canceling headphones
Licensed tools (Figma, Adobe CC, IntelliJ, Zoom Pro, etc.)
Now here comes the important part…
Who actually buys and delivers it?
There are two ways this can go:
1. You handle procurement
You order the gear from your preferred supplier, ship it to Turkey, hope it clears customs, and coordinate delivery to your hire’s front door.
It's possible, but expect:
Delays (especially post-Brexit or from the U.S.)
VAT complications
Confused delivery agents asking your employee to “come pick it up from the depot”
2. Team Up handles logistics
Here’s what that looks like instead:
We source the equipment locally or from a vetted international vendor
We pre-check customs/import risks
We deliver to your employee’s home or coworking space—on time
We offer reimbursement options if the employee purchases on your behalf (with receipts)
No lost packages. No “your MacBook is being held for unpaid import tax” emails.
Just tools that show up on day one, like they should.
How long does it take?
Here’s a general timeline for when we manage the flow:
Week 1: Offer signed, preferences collected (Mac/PC, language, screen size)
Week 2: Gear ordered and delivered locally
Week 3: Fully set up before the onboarding date
If you’re shipping internationally, add 2–3 weeks minimum.
Why this matters for retention
You can’t promise someone they’ll be part of a world-class team, then hand them a dying laptop, zero benefits, and a barebones contract.
That’s not how you build loyalty.
That’s how you get ghosted after the probation period.
Great benefits = better retention
The Turkish tech and startup ecosystem has grown up. So have its expectations.
Today’s candidates want more than a salary. They want:
A proper workstation, not a kitchen table
Health coverage that actually covers something
Paid time off, they don’t feel guilty about using
Tools that work on day one
When you meet those expectations, people stick around.
When you don’t? They’re already replying to recruiter DMs by week three.
EORs help you punch above your weight
With Team Up’s EOR model, your package doesn’t have to look like it came from a scrappy startup guessing what Turkish hires want.
You’ll be offering:
Private health insurance that covers real clinics
Coworking passes in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir
Learning stipends that actually get used
Market-aligned PTO, sick leave, and maternity policies
It looks polished. It feels structured. It works.
The result?
Fewer no-shows after offer letters
Better first-month feedback
Higher retention rates
And a reputation as “the foreign company that gets it”
Retention doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you make your people feel like they matter.
And that starts with what you offer on day one.
Final comparison: EOR vs building HR ops
So, you want to hire in Turkey, but you're torn.
Do you partner with an EOR or build a local entity in Turkey and have an HR team from scratch?
Let’s break it down without the usual fluff.
Building HR from scratch: what it really costs
Entity setup: Incorporation fees, legal costs, and waiting time
Local HR hires: Salaries, taxes, onboarding, just to hire more people
Accountants & lawyers: Monthly retainers to avoid legal landmines
Compliance risk: One payroll error and you're explaining yourself to Turkish labor inspectors
Time drain: Your ops team now moonlights as Turkish law students
It’s doable. But it’s expensive, slow, and distracting, especially if you’re only hiring a few roles.
EOR: faster, safer, leaner
With Team Up as your EOR in Turkey, you get:
Legal employment without opening an entity
Built-in payroll, benefits, and equipment support
A local HR backend without the overhead
Full compliance, zero guesswork
You stay focused on growth, not paperwork.
When should you build in-house?
Honestly? Only when you’ve reached a size where your Turkish operation justifies a standalone team.
If you’re scaling fast, managing dozens of roles, or planning long-term presence in the market, internal HR might eventually make sense.
Until then?
Skip the headache. Hire through an EOR and stay lean.
Conclusion
An EOR isn’t just a shortcut; it’s the difference between hiring someone and keeping them.
Because here’s the truth:
Benefits, insurance, work tools, and workspace aren’t “extras” anymore.
They’re the bare minimum your offer needs to stand out in Turkey’s competitive hiring market.
If you want top talent, you need a full employment experience.
And that’s exactly what Team Up delivers.
We handle payroll, legal benefits, private insurance, equipment, onboarding, and all the admin behind the scenes, so you don’t have to.
Want to see how it works?
Book a call to explore how Team Up supports your Turkey hires, from offer to onboarding.
Let’s make global hiring feel local.
