Turkey's Press Card Commission: Meeting Calendar and Results

Legal basis: Additional Article 5 of Law No. 5187 and the Press Card Regulation

The statutory basis of the Press Card Commission is Additional Article 5 of Press Law No. 5187. That article was introduced when the entire press card regime (Additional Articles 1-8) was added to the Law by Law No. 7418 of 13/10/2022. The Commission's working and decision-making procedures are set out in the Press Card Regulation, issued under the authority conferred by Additional Article 8 (Presidential Decision 7051, Official Gazette 10/4/2023 – 32159). The provisions on the Commission are in Articles 29-35 of the Regulation.

The structure of the Commission: 19 members

Under Article 30(1) of the Regulation, the Commission consists of 19 members in total. The sources of the members are listed subparagraph by subparagraph:

Two supplementary rules: under Article 30(2), the members to be designated under subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) are as a rule to be chosen from among professionals who have held a press card for at least five years. Under Article 30(3), changes in the membership numbers of the organisations the members represent are disregarded during their term of office — that is, even if a professional organisation's membership falls during the term, its representative does not lose the seat.

Term of office and chairmanship

• The members' term of office is two years; members whose term expires may be re-elected (Art. 31(1)).
• At its first meeting the Commission elects from among its own members, by the votes of an absolute majority of the full membership, a chair and a deputy chair for a term of two years (Art. 31(2)).
• In the chair's absence, the deputy chair presides over the meeting.

Termination of membership

• The membership of a member who fails to attend three consecutive meetings without an excuse terminates. Excuses are notified to the Directorate in writing before the day of the meeting; the Commission decides on their validity (Art. 32(1)).
• In the event of death, resignation, or termination of the office held at the relevant institution or organisation, membership terminates automatically (Art. 32(2)).
• If the office held at the professional organisation or trade union represented by members coming from subparagraphs (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) comes to an end, membership terminates automatically (Art. 32(3)).
• For a vacant seat, a new member is designated by the same procedure to complete the previous member's term of office (Art. 32(4)).

Duties and powers of the Commission

Article 33(1) of the Regulation lists the Commission's powers in five subparagraphs:

• (a) To decide to grant or refuse the request, by assessing the applicant's qualifications, professional work, published output and awards.
• (b) In the event of conduct contrary to the press ethics principles determined under Article 49 of Law No. 195, to decide, having regard to the nature of the breach, to issue a warning or to cancel the card.
• (c) To decide whether to accept or reject the excuses of members who fail to attend a meeting.
• (ç) To decide that a portion of the applications be voted on collectively.
• (d) To decide to warn a member who disrupts the order of proceedings and, if the member persists, to remove that member from the meeting.

Meeting and decision quorums

Decision-making procedure and the moment a file is finalised

The most critical provision from an applicant's point of view is Article 35(1): 'Press card applications to be considered at a Commission meeting shall be finalised at least five days before the date of the meeting and made available to Commission members electronically.' (Unofficial translation.) In other words, a file not completed by five days before the meeting will not be considered at that meeting and will be held over to the next one.

• Art. 35(5) — Decisions are recorded in minutes; the reasons for decisions of refusal are annexed to the minutes.
• Art. 35(6) — Separate minutes are drawn up for warning and removal decisions and for decisions accepting or rejecting excuses.
• Art. 35(7) — The minutes are signed by the members who attended; a member attending remotely submits their view in writing through the electronic system and the minutes are signed with a secure electronic signature.
• Art. 35(8) — Information, documents and records relating to remote meetings are processed and kept in accordance with Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 ('KVKK') and the relevant legislation.

Assessment criteria

Under Article 35(2), the Commission assesses the following in reaching its decision: the applicant's qualifications, professional work, published output and awards, and the qualities of the media organisation to which the applicant belongs. Two further specific criteria are added on top of these:

• Art. 35(3) — Where the applicant is an employee of an internet news site, the site's number of unique visitors and number of page views are also taken into account.
• Art. 35(4) — In applications by information officers, whether the title and the duties actually performed are media-related is taken into account.

The stage before the Commission: initial examination

Not every file reaches the Commission. Article 29 of the Regulation provides for a preliminary filtering stage:

• Art. 29(1) — The Directorate may request information and documents from professional press organisations, provincial governorates, the Directorate General of Judicial Records and Statistics, tax offices, the Social Security Institution, the Directorate General of Population and Citizenship Affairs, the Press Advertising Agency (Basın İlan Kurumu, BİK) or any other institution it deems necessary.
• Art. 29(2) — Requests from those found by the Directorate not to meet the conditions in Article 8 or Article 9 of the Regulation are refused without going to the Commission; the applicant is notified using the contact details in the declaration form. A fresh application may be made once the deficiencies are made good and the condition is satisfied.
• Art. 29(3) — The files of applicants who have applied in due form and who are subject to no disqualifying circumstance are referred to the Commission.

Meeting calendar: 2025 and 2026

The Regulation announces no fixed calendar; Article 34(1) requires only at least three meetings a year. In practice the Commission meets three times a year, at roughly three-month intervals. The dates below are compiled from the results announcements of the Directorate of Communications.

Where results are published

Results are not delivered by individual notification; they are opened up through a query. The principal channel is e-Devlet, Turkey's e-government portal:

The announcements typically follow this pattern: the Commission's decisions concerning the media professionals whose files were considered have been made available on e-Devlet. In other words, the announcement tells you that the query has opened; it does not contain the decision itself.

Application channels

Two-factor identity verification through the e-Devlet Gateway is mandatory to log in to the system. The application screens on the portal are divided according to two basic scenarios: worn-card applications (where the card details have not changed) and applications for a change of card details (where the employer, title or surname has changed).

There is a condition specific to 2026 for resident international press members: a work permit or work permit exemption certificate covering the year 2026 must have been obtained from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security before the application and uploaded to the accreditation system; applications made without this document are not accepted. This information could be confirmed from a single source only; verify it against the official announcement.

How to plan your application around the calendar

The practical consequence of the Commission's calendar is this: applying before your file is ready does not save you time, it costs you time. Because under Article 35(1) files are finalised at least five days before the meeting, an incomplete file is held over not to that meeting but to the one three months later.

APPLICATION PLANNING SCHEDULE

  T - 60 days  Gathering documents
               - Employment contract (compliant with Law No. 5953), social
                 security service record
               - Criminal record, civil registry and education documents
               - Portfolio of professional work / published output / awards
               - Traffic reports if you work for an internet news site

  T - 30 days  Completing employer approvals
               - Media organisation's notification of title and staff position
               - Checking compliance with the quota

  T - 15 days  Filing the application through BKS
               - Leaves time to correct any notified missing documents

  T -  5 days  FILES ARE FINALISED (Regulation Art. 35(1))
               A file completed after this date will NOT be considered
               at that meeting

  T            COMMISSION MEETING

  T + a few    Results made available on e-Devlet
      weeks    turkiye.gov.tr/cib-komisyon-sonucu-sorgulama

• Because meetings take place roughly every three months, aim to complete your file at least a month in advance. Every meeting you miss means an average delay of three months.
• The quota is the most technical of the grounds for refusal, and it can be resolved before applying. Check your organisation's quota in advance against the tables in our article on calculating the press card quota by type of publication.
• Your contract's compliance with Law No. 5953 is both a condition of application and a quality element the Commission assesses. Compare your contract text against our journalist employment contract template compliant with Law No. 5953.
• A change of workplace or title must be notified to the Directorate in writing within one month of the date of the change (Regulation Art. 36(1)). Skipping this notification will also affect your next application.
• Your new press card application will not be processed until you have returned your old card (Art. 37(4)).

What can be done after a refusal

The Press Card Regulation does not provide for an administrative appeal body, an appeal period or a review procedure against decisions of refusal or cancellation; there is no provision headed 'appeal' in the Regulation. The avenues the Regulation does provide concern making a fresh application:

• Art. 29(2) — A fresh application may be made once the deficiencies are made good and the condition is satisfied.
• Art. 38(1) — A fresh application is required once the grounds for cancellation have ceased to exist.
• Art. 38(4) — Where the card was cancelled for breach of press ethics principles, no new card is issued until one year has passed from the date the card was returned.

Summary

• The Commission's statutory basis is Additional Article 5 of Law No. 5187; its procedural basis is Articles 29-35 of the Press Card Regulation.
• The Commission has 19 members; their term of office is two years, and the chair and deputy chair are elected for two years.
• The meeting quorum is 13 members and the decision quorum is an absolute majority of those attending; abstentions are not permitted.
• Files are finalised at least five days before the date of the meeting (Art. 35(1)) — plan around that date.
• The Commission meets at least three times a year; meetings were held on 12 September and 2 December in 2025, and on 24 March, 29 June and 4 September in 2026.
• Results are opened through turkiye.gov.tr/cib-komisyon-sonucu-sorgulama; no numerical acceptance or refusal statistics are published.
• For employees of internet news sites, unique visitor and page view figures are also assessed, but there is no numerical threshold (Art. 35(3)).