Short answer: between two companies resident in Turkey, the fee for an event management contract cannot be set in dollars or euros. The rule comes from paragraph (g) of Article 4 of Decree No. 32, added by Presidential Decree No. 85 published in Official Gazette No. 30534 of 13 September 2018. It states that parties resident in Turkey cannot set the contract price, or any other payment obligation arising from the contract, in foreign currency or indexed to foreign currency in employment, service and works contracts between themselves. The same legislation leaves a large part of event work outside the ban. Under paragraph 10 of Article 8 of Communiqué 2008-32/34, movable property rental contracts other than vehicle rental may be denominated in foreign currency, and sound systems, LED screens, stages and simultaneous interpretation equipment all qualify as movable property. Paragraph 8 permits foreign currency in works contracts that carry a genuine foreign currency cost, and paragraph 19 allows it where the client is a Turkish company at least 50 percent foreign owned. Getting this wrong has a price tag: the administrative fine under Article 3 of Law No. 1567 runs from 90,669 to 756,426 lira in 2026, and it is applied to each party separately. Below: which contract type sits on which side of the line, how far the indexing ban reaches, what the Code of Obligations actually offers when the exchange rate moves, and the clauses to write into your contract.
What exactly does the ban cover, and who counts as resident in Turkey?
The source text is short. Paragraph (g), added to Article 4 of Decree No. 32 in 2018, says that except in cases determined by the Ministry, parties resident in Turkey cannot agree the contract price or other payment obligations in foreign currency or indexed to foreign currency in sales of movable and immovable property, in any rental of movable or immovable property including vehicle and financial leasing, in leasing, or in employment, service and works contracts between themselves. The phrase "cases determined by the Ministry" hands the whole question to Article 8 of Communiqué 2008-32/34, where every exception lives. Keep two terms apart: in this legislation an employment contract is the one you sign with a worker, while a service contract is the one you sign with a supplier. The event management agreement you sign with an agency falls in the second group, and paragraph 7 of Article 8 sweeps that group into the ban, explicitly including consultancy, brokerage and transport. Residency is defined in Article 2 of the Decree: natural and legal persons whose legal domicile is in Turkey. Paragraph 24 widens the circle, treating a Turkish company's foreign branch, or a company in which it holds 50 percent or more, as resident in Turkey unless the contract is performed abroad. The ban also reaches beyond the price itself. Paragraph 22 closes the door on foreign currency amounts in negotiable instruments such as cheques and promissory notes issued under a contract that falls inside the ban.
Event management or equipment rental? The contract type changes the answer
Event work is not one contract type, so it does not have one answer. Paragraph 10 is explicit: movable property rental contracts other than vehicle rental may have their price set in foreign currency or indexed to it. Sound systems, LED screens, stage decks and podiums, truss, lighting fixtures, interpretation booths and headsets are all movable property. An amendment dated 6 March 2025 put the sales side in the same place through paragraph 9, so sales of movable property other than vehicles may also be denominated in foreign currency. What stays inside the ban is the service itself: creative production, event management, stage design consultancy, supply of hosts and technical crew, and installation labour. Transport is closed off twice over, since paragraph 7 lists transport among service contracts and paragraph 10 keeps vehicle rental out of the exception. The coach you hire to shuttle guests has to be priced in lira. The practical consequence is simple. Putting equipment rental into its own contract is a legitimate choice, but the split has to reflect reality. Filing a turnkey production job under a rental heading does not change what the contract is; what gets examined is the substance of the work, not the title page.
The works contract exception: how is foreign currency cost measured?
Paragraph 8 permits foreign currency pricing in works contracts that contain a foreign currency cost. On the event side that door is open for jobs where a defined result is delivered: exhibition stand fabrication, custom decor production, purpose-built stage structures, large format printing. The frequently asked questions document published by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance clarifies two points. First, there is no rule on what proportion of the cost has to be in foreign currency, so there is no percentage threshold to hunt for. Second, and more useful on site, payments for purchases of movable property that must themselves be made and accepted in Turkish lira cannot be counted as a foreign currency cost. You cannot dress up chipboard and paint bought domestically in lira as a currency cost and walk into the exception. Imported aluminium profile, LED modules ordered from abroad, or a software licence bought from a foreign supplier are genuine foreign currency costs. Listing those items line by line in the contract is the cheapest way to keep the exception from being reopened later.
Events with a cross-border leg, and hotel accommodation
Paragraph 7 lists five exceptions: service contracts to which persons holding no citizenship tie with the Republic of Turkey are party; service contracts concluded within the scope of exports, transit trade, sales and deliveries deemed exports, and foreign currency earning services and activities; service contracts covering activities that a resident of Turkey will carry out abroad; service contracts that start in Turkey and end abroad, start abroad and end in Turkey, or run entirely abroad; and, added by an amendment dated 30 January 2021, accommodation service contracts concluded at accommodation facilities licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. That last item is directly useful for dealer meetings and congresses, because accommodation bought from a licensed hotel can be priced in foreign currency. Do not read the second item too broadly. The Ministry's own frequently asked questions draw the line: even where an activity falls within the definition of a foreign currency earning service, contracts for services supplied domestically to residents of Turkey cannot be denominated in foreign currency. Venue hire sits behind a separate line. Paragraph 2 bans foreign currency pricing in rental contracts whose subject is immovable property located in Turkey. A hotel selling you its ballroom as a package and you renting the hall bare are two different contract types, so state in writing which one you are signing.
Foreign owned companies and free zones: paragraph 19
If you are producing an event for the Turkish arm of a multinational group, the picture changes. Paragraph 19 sets apart branches, representative offices, offices and liaison offices located in Turkey that belong to persons resident abroad, companies in which such persons hold 50 percent or more of the shares directly or indirectly or which they control, and companies in free zones acting within their free zone activities. Where these entities are party as employer or as the recipient of services, the price in employment and service contracts may be set in foreign currency or indexed to it, and the Ministry's frequently asked questions repeat the same conclusion. The practical translation is short: your client's shareholding structure is a data point that determines which currency you may write into the contract. The question to ask at the quotation stage is equally short. Does the company have 50 percent or more foreign shareholding? There is an open door for talent brought in from abroad as well. Paragraph 7(a) covers service contracts with persons holding no citizenship tie with Turkey, and paragraph 14 covers employment contracts of persons resident in Turkey who hold no such tie, so a foreign host or technical director can be engaged in foreign currency.
Indexing is banned too: exchange rate clauses, gold and indirect linkage
The second half of the ban gets skipped often. Writing the price in lira and tying it to the central bank rate on the payment date counts as foreign currency indexing, and for contracts inside the ban it leads to the same door. Paragraph 23 widens the circle further: contracts indexed to precious metals or commodities whose international price is set in foreign currency, and contracts indirectly indexed to foreign currency, are also treated as foreign currency indexed for the purposes of Article 4(g). The only carve-out in that paragraph is fuel price indexing in service contracts for transport activities. The way to manage currency risk inside a lira contract is an escalation mechanism tied to Turkish lira indices, which the ban does not touch. Look at the numbers. According to Turkish Statistical Institute data, consumer prices rose 1.84 percent month on month in August 2026 and 31.51 percent year on year. In the same month the domestic producer price index was up 27.95 percent year on year, while the services group rose 40.28 percent. The three figures diverge clearly, and the cost structure of an event budget looks far more like the services group than like headline consumer inflation. Which index you write into the contract decides who loses money six months later.
The rate jumped and the budget broke: does adaptation actually work?
The contract is signed, the event is four months out, and the lira cost of imported equipment has run past the estimate. Article 138 of the Turkish Code of Obligations was written for this situation. It asks for four things together: an extraordinary circumstance not foreseen and not expected to be foreseen by the parties when the contract was made, arising for a reason not attributable to the debtor, which changes the position against the debtor to the point where demanding performance would offend the rules of good faith, and a debt not yet performed or performed with rights reserved. Where those conditions come together, the debtor may ask the court to adapt the contract to the new conditions and, where that is not possible, to withdraw from it. The closing sentence of the article is the direct hook in currency disputes: the provision also applies to debts in foreign currency. Lump sum work has a second hook. Article 480 says that where the price is fixed as a lump sum the contractor must produce the work for that price and cannot ask for an increase even if it took more labour and expense than expected, while the second paragraph gives the contractor a right to seek adaptation where circumstances not foreseen at the outset, or foreseeable but not taken into account, prevent or severely hinder production of the work. Both articles occupy the same place in practice: last resort. Litigation takes months and the event date does not move. Solving currency risk inside the contract is cheaper. Put a validity period on the quotation, fix prices for imported items on the order date, and tie the payment schedule to the build schedule.
Can the invoice be in foreign currency, and what is the fine? Seven lines for your contract
The invoicing side is more flexible than most people assume. Article 215 of the Tax Procedure Law says Turkish lira is used in records and documents, then immediately adds that documents may also be issued in a foreign currency provided the Turkish lira equivalent is shown. For documents issued to customers abroad, even that equivalent is not required. This is not permission to denominate the contract in foreign currency; the form of the invoice and the validity of the contract are two separate questions. The cost of non-compliance is concrete. The first paragraph of Article 3 of Law No. 1567 on the Protection of the Value of Turkish Currency sets an administrative fine of three thousand to twenty five thousand lira, and those amounts are increased each year by the revaluation rate. General Communiqué No. 585 of the Tax Procedure Law, published in Official Gazette No. 33090 of 27 November 2025, set that rate at 25.49 percent, which puts the 2026 range at 90,669 to 756,426 lira. According to the Ministry's frequently asked questions, the fine is applied to each party of the contract separately and doubles on repetition. The same document adds one more detail: a complaint is only processed if it comes with concrete evidence such as an invoice, a copy of the contract or a price quotation. The seven lines to write into your contract: residency status of the parties and any foreign shareholding percentage, the contract type item by item (service, movable rental, works), the currency of the price and the legal basis for any exception, an itemised list of costs incurred in foreign currency, the index and escalation mechanism for lira contracts, the payment schedule and the validity period of the quotation, and a force majeure and adaptation clause. What you have read here is the general framework; read your actual contract together with your accountant and your lawyer. Tales Event works out of Istanbul and delivers sound, lighting, stage, LED screen, decor and simultaneous interpretation across Turkey for dealer meetings, product launches, gala nights, openings and graduation ceremonies. Send us your event date, the venue and your company's shareholding structure, and we will come back with a quotation structured to show which item belongs to which contract type.
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