Turkey regulates bank charges to consumers through Communique No. 2020/7 of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkiye, published in the Official Gazette of 7 March 2020. Article 6 classifies the chargeable products and services in an annex and bars any fee for anything outside the Communique and that annex, although third-party amounts may be passed on unchanged. Domestic transfer fees are then capped by transaction size and channel, while the last sentence of Article 12 leaves international fund transfer and messaging fees to the contract between the consumer and the institution.
Turkey does not leave far-end bank charges to the bank. A central bank instrument classifies every product and service a bank may charge a consumer for, bars anything outside that classification, and caps several of the items. Which items those are decides what can reach a payment arriving from abroad.
Key Takeaways
- Communique No. 2020/7 of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkiye is the instrument, published in the Official Gazette of 7 March 2020.
- Its Article 6 makes the annexed list closed: no fee may be charged for anything outside the Communique and that annex.
- The power to set consumer bank charges moved from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency to the Central Bank in February 2020.
- Paying money in at the institution holding the account carries no fee, and nor does opening or running the account - but that prohibition stops short of an arriving international transfer.
- Domestic transfer fees are capped by transaction size and channel; the international leg is expressly left to the contract.
Which body writes the rule
The Central Bank, and only since 2020.
The authority comes from Article 4 of Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection. Its third paragraph does two things. It states a principle: no additional charge may be demanded from a consumer for performances the consumer justifiably expects, for things among the drafting party's own legal obligations, or for expenses that party incurred in its own interest. Then it hands the detail to a named body, which sets all types of fee, commission and expense other than interest.
That body used to be the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency. Article 39 of Law No. 7222, dated 20 February 2020, replaced the phrase with the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkiye, effective 25 February 2020. Two weeks later the Official Gazette of 7 March 2020 carried both halves of the handover in a single issue: a regulation repealing the supervisory agency's own fees rules, published in the Official Gazette of 3 October 2014, No. 29138, and the Central Bank's replacement. Both instruments carried the same short title, which is why the older one is easy to cite by accident.
The rule that turns a list into a wall
Article 6 of the Communique, and it is the provision the rest of the guide depends on.
It says the products or services institutions may charge for are classified in Annex 1, and that no fee may be charged for anything outside the Communique and its annex. One carve-out follows: amounts paid to third parties may be passed on to the consumer as they are.
The second paragraph closes the route around it. An institution wanting a new fee item, or a product group not in the classification, must obtain the Central Bank's permission. The Central Bank may amend the list where it sees fit, and institutions then have until the end of the following month to move onto the new one.
Supporting duties make the list visible rather than theoretical, and they sit in two different articles. Article 5 requires consent to be obtained for each chargeable product or service under a contract, and provides that where an institution cannot prove consent was obtained, it is treated as not given. Article 9 carries the disclosure half: the fee has to appear clearly on the transaction slip, and current information on interest, charges and other deductions must sit on the institution's website, clearly and accessibly, in a form suitable for comparison.
What cannot be charged, and where the prohibition stops
Several of the charges a sender might expect are prohibited outright. Each row below is drawn from the article named beside it.
| The charge in question | What the Communique does with it |
|---|---|
| Money paid in to the consumer's own account through any channel of the institution holding it, domestically | No fee (Article 12) |
| A third party paying money in at the branch holding the account | No fee (Article 12) |
| Opening a deposit account, running it, keeping it available, custody, systems investment | No fee (Article 13) |
| A domestic electronic fund transfer, incoming or outgoing, returned through the consumer's own error | No fee beyond costs paid to the Central Bank (Article 12) |
| A havale - a transfer between accounts at one institution - returned, refused, transferred or amended | No fee beyond amounts paid to a public body or third parties (Article 12) |
| Any item not classified in the annex | No fee at all (Article 6) |
Read the first two rows carefully, because the limit on them is the most useful thing on this page. Both describe a pay-in: an act of putting money in, done either by the consumer through one of the account-holding institution's own channels, or by a third party at the branch where the account sits. An arriving international transfer is neither of those. It is not paid in by the consumer, it is not handed over at their branch, and it reaches the bank from a correspondent rather than from a person standing in front of it.
The drafting shows this rather than leaving it to inference. The very next paragraph of Article 12 opens by naming incoming and outgoing electronic fund transfer transactions expressly. The word for incoming is there, one paragraph later, the moment an arriving payment is what is meant. It is absent from the pay-in prohibition.
So a Turkish deposit account is free to open and run, and paying money into it at the institution holding it is free, and neither of those tells a recipient what an arriving international transfer costs. That question is answered in the section below, and the answer is not a cap.
The item the schedule does not cap
Onward movement inside Turkey is capped. The international leg is not, and the same article says so.
Article 12 sets maximum fees for payments over the Central Bank's electronic fund transfer system, on two dimensions. Transaction size splits the schedule at 1,000 lira and again at 50,000 lira, and each band has three channel tiers: mobile and internet banking with regular payments, then ATM, then other channels. A havale takes the same divisions at half the maximum, and a later paragraph brings the instant transfer system under the same ceilings.
Then the last sentence of the same paragraph: the fees for international fund transfer and messaging transactions carried out by institutions are determined by the contract between the financial consumer and the institution.
So the cross-border item is not outside the instrument, and it is outside the schedule of maximum amounts. Article 6's bar runs to anything outside the Communique and its annex, and this sentence is in the Communique itself, which is why the fee is permitted without being capped. What binds it instead is the contract, the consent requirement, the disclosure duties, and the principle in the Consumer Protection Law that a bank may not charge for its own costs or for what it must do anyway.
The one thing a Turkish bank may pass on unchanged
Article 6's bar has a single carve-out, and it is the one that decides what a correspondent deduction looks like by the time it reaches the recipient.
After stating that no fee may be charged for any product or service outside the Communique and its annex, the same sentence adds that amounts paid to third parties may be reflected to the financial consumer as they are. The Turkish word carries the whole of it: as they are, unchanged. So a Turkish institution may pass through what it has actually paid somebody else, and it may not add to that figure and call the total a fee. The carve-out is a conduit, not a licence to price.
That matters on this corridor, because a cross-border payment routinely collects charges from parties the recipient's bank does not control. Where a correspondent takes an amount before the payment arrives, this sentence governs what the Turkish institution may do with it: reflect it at the figure paid. Anything added on top is a charge of its own, which has to find a place in the classification and satisfy the consent and disclosure duties.
Why the caps are not a figure to memorise
Because the instrument re-sets them every year.
Article 7 provides that the monetary limits and maximum fees in the Communique are raised annually by the Central Bank at the consumer price index rate the Turkish Statistical Institute announces for the end of the previous year, and notified to banks on the first business day after that rate is published.
An institution raising a fee set in a contract must tell the consumer at least thirty days before the increase applies, and the consumer then has fifteen days to give up the product or service. So the binding number is always the current published one, and the instrument is what forces it to be published.
Where to look next
Understanding transfer fees covers the two separate charges on a transfer and why a service advertising no fee is not always cheaper. How international transfers work sets out the sequence a payment moves through before any of this applies. For the live figures, see the Australian dollar to Turkish lira page.
Sources
- Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection, consolidated text, Turkish Presidency legislation portal - Article 4, its bar on charging a consumer for the drafting party's legal obligations or its own expenses, and the footnote recording that Article 39 of Law No. 7222 of 20 February 2020 replaced the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency with the Central Bank
- Communique No. 2020/7 on Procedures and Principles Regarding Fees to be Charged to Financial Consumers, consolidated text - Article 5 on consent for each chargeable item and the consequence of an institution being unable to prove it, Article 6 on the annexed classification, Article 7 on annual indexation, Article 9 on disclosure through the transaction slip and the comparable website listing, Article 12 on transfer charges and the last-sentence carve-out for international transfer and messaging fees, and Article 13 on deposit accounts
- Communique No. 2020/7 as published, Official Gazette of 7 March 2020, No. 31061 - the Central Bank as issuing body, the scope covering banks, consumer credit institutions and card issuers, and the exclusion of securities, insurance and cheque transactions
- Official Gazette index for 7 March 2020 - the repeal of the earlier fees rules and the Central Bank Communique in the same issue
- Central Bank of the Republic of Turkiye, press release on fees banks can charge commercial clients - the parallel instrument for commercial customers, Communique No. 2020/4, covering commercial loans, foreign trade, cash management and payment systems across 51 items
General information about sending money to Turkey and about the rules governing bank charges there. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
Who decides what a Turkish bank may charge a consumer?
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkiye. Article 4 of Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection says the fee, commission and expense types charged to consumers by banks and card issuers are set by that body. Until 2020 the article named the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency; Article 39 of Law No. 7222, dated 20 February 2020, substituted the Central Bank.
Can a Turkish bank invent a new fee?
Not on its own. Article 6 of Communique No. 2020/7 states that no fee may be charged for any product or service outside the Communique and its annex, and that a new fee item or product group needs the Central Bank's permission. Third-party amounts may still be passed on as they are.
Is there a charge for money arriving into a Turkish account?
The prohibition most people have in mind does not reach it. Article 12 bars a fee on paying money IN at the institution holding the account, by the consumer through one of that institution's own channels or by a third party at the branch holding the account. An arriving international transfer is neither of those acts, and the last sentence of the same article leaves international fund transfer and messaging fees to the contract. Article 13 does separately bar fees for opening a deposit account, running it, keeping it available, or custody.
Are transfer fees capped in Turkey?
Domestic ones are. Article 12 sets maximum fees for transfers over the Central Bank's electronic fund transfer system, banded by transaction size at 1,000 and 50,000 lira and split by channel between mobile and internet banking, ATM, and other channels. A havale, a transfer between accounts at one institution rather than across the interbank system, is capped at half the corresponding figure.
Does the cap cover an international transfer?
No, and the instrument says so. The last sentence of Article 12 provides that fees for international fund transfer and messaging transactions are determined by the contract between the financial consumer and the institution. Article 6 bars a fee for anything outside the Communique and its annex, and that sentence is in the Communique, so the item is not an unpermitted one - it simply has no ceiling written for it.