Türkiye's Qualified Service Centre Regime

What a Qualified Service Centre is

The third pillar of the 2026 reform targets companies rather than individuals. Law No. 7582 created a new corporate category — the Qualified Service Centre (QSC) — inside Türkiye's Foreign Direct Investment Law (Law No. 4875). It is designed to pull the regional headquarters, shared-service and coordination functions of international groups onto Turkish soil by making the income from those activities largely tax-free.

A QSC is a Turkish capital company (a joint-stock anonim şirket or a limited limited şirket) that provides qualifying services to related entities of its group located abroad. Where it qualifies, it can deduct 95% of the foreign-source earnings from those activities from its corporate tax base — rising to 100% inside the Istanbul Financial Centre or approved zones.

Do you qualify? The three-country and 80% tests

To be a Qualified Service Centre, a company must satisfy a set of cumulative conditions:

• be a capital company (AŞ or Ltd. Şti.);
• serve related group entities across at least three countries;
• derive at least 80% of its revenue from foreign affiliates (i.e. the services are genuinely export-facing, not domestic); and
• carry on activities that fall within the qualifying service categories — the coordination, management, treasury and support functions the regime is meant to attract.

The detailed qualification analysis, including how the categories are drawn, is in do you qualify as a service centre.

95% or 100%? The deduction and the location uplift

The incentive applies for 20 accounting periods, on condition that the profits are transferred to Türkiye within the statutory filing period for the annual corporate tax return. The difference between 95% and 100% — and why the Istanbul Financial Centre is the premium address — is covered in 95% vs 100%.

The income-tax break for qualified personnel

The regime does not stop at the corporate line. To help groups actually staff their Turkish centres with senior people, it offers an income-tax exemption for qualified service personnel: under the general rule, salary up to three times the gross minimum wage can be exempt from income tax. That materially lowers the cost of placing skilled staff in Türkiye — details in the personnel tax break.

Timing and who it reaches

The category applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, and — importantly — it includes entities established before that date. An existing Turkish subsidiary that already performs regional functions may be able to convert into a QSC rather than starting from scratch. The status is also geographically neutral: unlike a free-zone incentive, the company can be located anywhere in the country, with the extra 5 points reserved for the Istanbul Financial Centre and approved zones.

The wider corporate package

The QSC sits inside a broader pro-investment corporate reform. Two neighbouring measures matter for many groups:

• Manufacturing corporate tax cut — the rate for manufacturers falls from 25% to 12.5%. See the 12.5% manufacturing rate.
• Istanbul Financial Centre — the 100% corporate tax exemption on financial-services export income is extended to 2047. See the IFC incentives.

Together, these reposition Türkiye as a base for high-value services, regional coordination and production — not just a market to sell into.