Does Requesting a Document from a Public Institution Cost Money in Turkey?

The rule: a fee may be charged, but it is not compulsory

Right to Information Act No. 4982, Article 10, final paragraph: “The institution or organisation to which the application was made may collect from the applicant, to be recorded as budget revenue, a fee equal to the amount of the cost required for access to the information or documents to which it has provided access.” The verb is not “shall collect” but “may collect”; a fee is not an obligation but a possibility afforded to the institution. The institution may provide access without charging, and in practice usually does so for small-volume requests.

What the fee is for: proportionality to cost

Article 22(1) of the Implementing Regulation (as amended by Decision No. 2005/9585 of 31/10/2005) reads: “Institutions and organisations may collect from the applicant, including where access is provided by electronic mail, a fee for the information or documents to which they provide access, in a measure proportionate to the examination, research, copying, postage and other cost elements required for access to the information or documents. The tariff for access to information to be applied by institutions and organisations is determined by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance. However, no fee whatsoever, including the cost of posting, shall be charged for copies of the first ten pages of the information or documents to which access is provided.”

• The only basis for the fee is cost: examination, research, copying, postage and other cost elements. An institution cannot derive revenue from a freedom of information request.
• The words “in a proportionate measure” set a ceiling. A lump sum that cannot be linked to the volume of the request is contrary to that standard.
• The tariff is not at the institution’s discretion: “the tariff for access to information is determined by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.” By Presidential Decision No. 864, published in the Official Gazette of 10/4/2019, No. 30741, the words “Ministry of Finance” in that paragraph were changed to “Ministry of Treasury and Finance”.
• Any fee collected is taken “to be recorded as budget revenue” (Act 4982 Art. 10, final para.) — it goes to the budget, not to the institution’s staff or to the unit.

The first ten pages are free — postage included

The same sentence appears in two separate places in the Regulation. Article 22(1): “However, no fee whatsoever, including the cost of posting, shall be charged for copies of the first ten pages of the information or documents to which access is provided.” Provisional Article 6 of the Regulation repeats the same guarantee for the period before a tariff was set: “Until the principles concerning the application fees referred to in the first paragraph of Article 22 are determined, a fee may be collected according to tariffs to be set by institutions and organisations, to be applied for the year 2004. However, no fee whatsoever, including the cost of posting, shall be charged for copies of the first ten pages of the information or documents to which access is provided.”

The sentence has two elements, and both are critical. First, the limit is “the first ten pages” — pages, not documents. Second, the exemption covers not only copying but also the cost of posting; the institution cannot ask for postage on a ten-page dispatch. For requests exceeding ten pages, a fee arises for the excess; the first ten pages being free does not make the excess free too.

Can access in electronic form be charged for

There is an express provision in the text, and the answer is yes. The first sentence of Article 22(1) of the Regulation says that institutions and organisations “may collect a fee … including where access is provided by electronic mail, for the information or documents to which they provide access”. Those words were specifically added to the paragraph by the 2005 amendment. So the argument “you sent it by email, so no cost arose” has no basis in the text.

But the proportionality standard applies to electronic access too, and in practice it works in your favour: no copying or postage cost arises on an email dispatch, leaving only the examination and research elements. Article 19(1) of the Regulation expressly recognises the electronic route: “Information or documents in electronic form may be provided by electronic mail, by disks and other means used for copying data, and by other means.” Article 10(7) of the Regulation provides that an electronic application may be answered electronically.

The trap: a fee notice interrupts the period

This is where freedom of information files most often come unstuck. Act No. 4982, Article 11(2): “The fifteen business day period is interrupted by the administration notifying the applicant of the amount of the cost required for access to the information or documents referred to in Article 10. If the applicant does not pay the fee within fifteen business days, he is deemed to have withdrawn his request.” Article 22(3) of the Regulation brings the extended period within the rule and adds a proof requirement: “The fifteen or thirty business day periods are interrupted by the institution or organisation notifying the applicant of the amount of the cost required for access to the information or documents. If the applicant fails to submit the document showing that he has made the payment within fifteen business days of the date the notification was made, he shall be deemed to have withdrawn his request.” Note how severe the consequence of “being deemed to have withdrawn” is: the request lapses, and there is no refusal decision either; so there is no decision against which to appeal to the Board. You have to apply afresh, and time starts running again from the beginning. You will find the whole mechanism of the periods in the timetable in our article on freedom of information response times, and the route to follow after a refusal in our appeal guide.

When the institution must notify the fee

Article 22(2) of the Regulation places a period on the institution too: “Institutions and organisations shall inform the applicant of the amount of the access cost and where payment is to be made for the information or documents to which they will provide access, within fifteen days of the date of application.” In the extended situations (obtaining the material from another unit, the opinion of another institution, or the application concerning more than one institution), that period is “thirty days from the date of application”. Note: both these periods are written in the text as “days”, not business days.

Where the payment is made

Regulation, Article 22(4): fees requested by public institutions and organisations “shall be paid, to be recorded as revenue in the budget of the institution or organisation concerned, to the relevant accounting offices or to accounts opened in the name of those accounting offices at banks and other financial institutions or at PTT branches”. Article 22(5): for professional organisations having the character of a public institution, fees are paid “into the account opened in the name of the professional organisation concerned”. The institution is obliged to notify you of the place of payment (Art. 22(2)); if the notice contains no account details, ask for them in writing — the period is in any event interrupted in the meantime.

Tactics for reducing the cost

These are operational choices that stay within what the legislation permits; none of them involves waiving any right.

1. Narrow the request and target it by date and number

Article 9(3) of the Regulation already requires this: the petition must state “the subject of the information or document requested, its date and number if any, and the unit of the institution or organisation from which it is requested”. A request in the form of “all correspondence on this subject” inflates both the examination and research cost and the page count; it also risks not being processed on grounds of abstractness (Reg. Art. 18, final para.) and having time reset on grounds of vagueness (Reg. Art. 16(2)). Sending a narrow, targeted request first and then constructing a second request from the references in the document you receive is almost always cheaper.

2. Ask for an electronic copy

Forms ANNEX-1 and ANNEX-2 contain a field headed “By what means would you like to receive a reply to your application?”, with the options “In writing” and “Electronically”. Tick the electronic option and write your request for an electronic copy into your petition, relying on Article 19(1) of the Regulation. No copying or postage cost arises on electronic transmission; under the proportionality standard, the fee should fall accordingly. If the institution still notifies a high amount, ask in writing for a breakdown of the cost elements.

3. Use the ten-page limit deliberately

The first ten pages are free, postage included. If you can frame your request so that it does not exceed ten pages — for instance the signature page, the price clause and the term clause instead of a whole contract; the conclusions and recommendations section instead of a whole report — the cost falls to zero. In a large file it also helps to ask first for the contents or index page and then, having seen which pages you actually need, to make a second request.

4. Use the option of inspecting on the premises and taking notes

Article 10(2) of Act No. 4982 provides that, for documents of which no copy can be given, the institution shall enable the person concerned “to examine the original of the document and to take notes”, to listen to a sound recording and to watch a video recording. Article 19(3) of the Regulation provides that “how, when and where” access will be provided is notified to the applicant within the access period, and that during access “at least one official shall be present with the applicant”. For voluminous files, inspecting on the premises and then asking for copies of only the pages you really need largely eliminates the copying cost.

5. Do not ask for what has already been published

Under Article 8 of Act No. 4982, information and documents already published or disclosed to the public cannot be the subject of an application; the institution merely states “in what manner, when and where” they were published. In addition, Article 6 of the Regulation obliges institutions to publish their filing plans, their basic decisions and acts, their purchases of goods and services, their projects and their annual activity reports on their websites; Article 7 lists information such as budget and revenue-expenditure reports, staff numbers, services provided and statistical data that may be published voluntarily. Searching the institution’s site before applying saves both money and 15 business days.

Cost control sheet

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION COST CONTROL SHEET
(Act No. 4982 Arts. 10-11 / Implementing Regulation Arts. 19, 22)

A. BEFORE APPLYING
[ ] Is the material already published on the institution's website? (Reg. Arts. 6, 7)
    If so it cannot be the subject of an application (Act 4982 Art. 8)
    -> SEARCH THE SITE FIRST
[ ] Will the request exceed ten pages?  Estimated pages: ......
    If not, the cost should be ZERO (Reg. Art. 22(1))
[ ] Is the document targeted by date and number? (Reg. Art. 9(3))
[ ] Was ELECTRONIC selected as the means of reply? (form ANNEX-1 / ANNEX-2)
[ ] Were the following written into the petition:
      - Request for an electronic copy (Reg. Art. 19(1))
      - That the first ten pages being free be taken into account (Reg. Art. 22(1))
      - The severance request (Act 4982 Art. 9)
      - That any cost be notified WITH A BREAKDOWN OF ITEMS

B. WHEN THE FEE NOTICE ARRIVES  >>> THE CLOCK IS RUNNING FROM HERE <<<
Date of notice          : ../../....
Amount notified         : ................
Is the place of payment stated? (Reg. Art. 22(2))   [ ] Yes  [ ] No

[ ] WHICH ITEMS make up the amount?
      examination / research / copying / postage / other
      (Reg. Art. 22(1) - "in a proportionate measure")
[ ] Have the first 10 pages been deducted? (free, postage included)
      Total pages ...... - 10 = CHARGEABLE PAGES ......
[ ] If electronic delivery was requested, why is there a postage item?
[ ] If the amount looks disproportionate: ASK IN WRITING FOR THE BREAKDOWN
      (that request does not stop the clock - keep the counter running)

C. PAYMENT COUNTER      >>> THE MOST CRITICAL SECTION <<<
Date of notice ../../.... + 15 BUSINESS DAYS = LAST DAY ../../....
(weekends and public holidays do not count)

[ ] Payment made          Date: ../../....
[ ] PROOF OF PAYMENT SUBMITTED TO THE INSTITUTION   Date: ../../....
    (Reg. Art. 22(3): if the document is not submitted you are DEEMED TO
     HAVE WITHDRAWN THE REQUEST)
[ ] Receipt and transmission record archived

D. THE INSTITUTION'S PERIOD
Date of application ../../.... + 15 DAYS (calendar) = last day for the cost notice
In the extended case  ../../.... + 30 DAYS (calendar)   (Reg. Art. 22(2))

NOTE: A fee notice INTERRUPTS the 15 (or 30) BUSINESS DAY access period
      (Act 4982 Art. 11(2) - Reg. Art. 22(3)). Once proof of payment is
      submitted, time runs on from where it stopped.

If the fee notified looks disproportionate

No separate route of appeal against a fee is regulated in the texts; Article 13 of Act No. 4982 and Article 24 of the Regulation give the right of appeal to an applicant “whose request for information is refused”. The route that can be followed in practice is this: first ask the institution in writing for a breakdown of the cost elements, expressly citing the “in a proportionate measure” standard in Article 22(1) of the Regulation and the first-ten-pages rule. That correspondence does not stop your payment counter; to avoid missing the period, the safe course that keeps the right alive is to pay within time in any event and submit proof of payment. If the effect is that the fee actually prevents access, discuss with your lawyer the option of treating that as a refusal and appealing to the Board. The general approach of the Act supports that reading too: Article 5(1) of Act No. 4982 obliges institutions to “take the necessary administrative and technical measures to conclude freedom of information applications effectively, promptly and accurately”; and Article 6(3) of the Regulation provides for institutions to reshape their document systems so that the right of access to information can be exercised effectively and the workload minimised. Charging in a way that deters access is incompatible with that purpose.

You will find which information is in any event outside the scope, and the partial access rule, in our table of exemptions, and the routes to the official texts of the legislation in our guide to sources of Turkish media law.