Your Turkish debtor objected to the payment order: how a foreign creditor restarts the pursuit with the annulment-of-objection lawsuit.

1. What the Debtor's Objection Does (İİK 60 and 66)

Turkish law lets a creditor start enforcement without first obtaining a judgment. The creditor files a pursuit request with an enforcement office, and the office issues a payment order (ödeme emri). Under Article 60 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (İcra ve İflas Kanunu, İİK) No. 2004, the order warns the debtor to pay the debt and the costs within seven days into the bank account of the enforcement office stated in the order. Within the same seven days the debtor must separately and expressly declare if the signature on the document relied upon is not its own, and must declare any objection to the whole or part of the debt, or to the creditor's right to pursue enforcement.

Article 66 then states the effect in one sentence: an objection made within the period stops the pursuit (takibi durdurur). No seizure follows, the file does not become final and the debtor's assets stay free of the enforcement. An objection made out of time does not have that effect: on the creditor's request the enforcement officer continues the pursuit for the whole claim. Where the debtor objects to only part of the debt, the pursuit continues for the amount the debtor accepted, and only the disputed part is stopped.

The objection decides nothing about the debt. A Turkish buyer may object to every payment order it receives simply to gain time, or because it genuinely disputes delivery, quality or price. Either way the legal position is the same: the creditor who wants the pursuit to move again has to have the objection set aside by a court. The law offers two ways to do that, and each has its own period, its own court and its own evidence rule.

One warning before the choice. A creditor who obtained a precautionary attachment (ihtiyati haciz) before starting the pursuit is on a much shorter timetable. Article 264 of the İİK requires that creditor, once the objection is served, to ask the enforcement court to remove it or to file a lawsuit within seven days; if it misses the period, the attachment becomes void. Our guide on freezing a debtor's bank accounts covers the attachment itself.

2. Two Roads After the Objection: Removal (İİK 68) or Annulment (İİK 67)

The first road is removal of the objection (itirazın kaldırılması) before the enforcement court under Article 68 of the İİK. It is available only where the pursuit rests on a particular kind of document: a document containing an acknowledgement of debt whose signature has been admitted or certified by a notary, or a receipt or document issued by official authorities within their competence and in due form. With such a document, the creditor may ask for removal within six months of the date the objection was served on it. The enforcement court looks at documents: if the debtor cannot produce any document making its objection plausible, the court removes the objection; if the objection itself rests on a document of the same kind, the request is rejected. Article 68 adds that if removal is not requested within the six months, a new pursuit without a judgment cannot be started.

The second road is the annulment-of-objection lawsuit (itirazın iptali davası) under Article 67. The creditor applies to the competent court within one year of the date the objection was served on it and asks for the objection to be annulled by proving the existence of its claim under the general rules (genel hükümler dairesinde). It is a full lawsuit on the merits: every kind of evidence the general rules allow can be used, and the court decides whether the debt exists and in what amount.

For most foreign suppliers the choice makes itself. An international sale is usually documented by a contract or order confirmation, commercial invoices, delivery documents and e-mails. None of these is a notarised acknowledgement of debt or an official document in the sense of Article 68, so the enforcement court road is normally closed and the annulment lawsuit is the road. Removal is worth considering where the Turkish buyer signed a debt acknowledgement before a notary, for example as part of a payment plan it later stopped honouring.

A foreign creditor should also expect the question of security. Article 48 of the Law on International Private and Procedural Law (MÖHUK) No. 5718 requires foreign natural and legal persons who file a lawsuit or join one in a Turkish court, or who pursue enforcement, to provide the security set by the court for the costs and the other side's damage, and the court exempts them on the basis of reciprocity.

3. The Annulment-of-Objection Lawsuit: One Year, Proof Under the General Rules, the Evidence File

Article 67 gives the creditor one year from the date on which the debtor's objection was served on it. The period runs from service of the objection, not from the due date of the invoice and not from the date of the payment order, so the creditor's lawyer should note the service date in the enforcement file on the day it happens. Because mediation must be completed before the lawsuit in commercial money disputes (see the next section), the process should be started in good time; Article 18/A(15) of the Mediation Law No. 6325 provides that limitation periods stop and forfeiture periods do not run from the application to the mediation office until the final record is drawn up, but relying on that pause at the last minute is not a plan.

The lawsuit is decided under the general rules. The creditor does not win because it started a pursuit; it wins by proving the contract, its performance and the unpaid amount. The debtor may raise any defence it has, including defects, late delivery, set-off or payment. The court's judgment then does two things at once: it establishes the debt and, by annulling the objection, allows the stopped pursuit to continue from where it stopped.

For a foreign creditor the evidence file is usually built from the following documents:

1. The contract or the accepted order, with the general terms of sale if they were part of the deal, showing price, quantity, delivery terms and payment terms.
2. The commercial invoices sent to the Turkish buyer, with proof of dispatch, and any e-invoice or customs documentation linking them to the goods.
3. Delivery evidence: bills of lading, CMR consignment notes, delivery notes signed on receipt, warehouse records.
4. Your own accounting records: the customer account statement, ledger entries and any account reconciliation the buyer signed or confirmed.
5. Correspondence: e-mails or messages in which the buyer confirmed receipt, asked for more time, promised payment or complained about quality, since each of these shapes the dispute.
6. Payment history: part payments received, with bank records, showing the buyer treated the invoices as owed.

Foreign-language documents need Turkish translations, and translating a full commercial file takes time. A creditor that sends the full set to its Turkish lawyer at the start saves time at the mediation stage, where the same documents persuade the other side to settle. The lawyer files the lawsuit on the basis of a power of attorney, which a foreign company typically signs before a notary abroad with an apostille or at a Turkish consulate.

4. Mediation First in Commercial Money Disputes (TTK 5/A)

Before the annulment lawsuit can be filed, a creditor whose claim arises from a commercial relationship usually has to try mediation. Article 5/A of the Turkish Commercial Code (Türk Ticaret Kanunu, TTK) No. 6102 provides that in commercial cases, as defined in Article 4 of that Code and in other laws, whose subject is a sum of money, namely claims for payment, compensation, annulment of objection, negative declaratory actions and restitution actions, applying to a mediator before filing is a condition of the action (dava şartı). The Article names the annulment-of-objection lawsuit expressly, so a foreign supplier suing a Turkish company over unpaid goods should treat mediation as the first step.

The mediator must conclude the application within six weeks of being appointed, and may extend this period, where necessary, by at most two weeks. A foreign creditor does not need to travel for the meetings; its Turkish lawyer attends with a power of attorney that covers mediation and settlement, and the creditor follows the discussion by telephone or video and approves any proposal.

Mediation is not a formality. The debtor that objected to the payment order learns, often for the first time, that the creditor has a complete file and a lawyer ready to sue. Some objections are made only to buy time, and a structured instalment agreement signed at mediation may achieve more than a judgment against a company whose assets are shrinking. If the meeting ends without agreement, the mediator's closing record shows that the condition of the action was met.

5. The 20% Enforcement-Denial Compensation and Its Mirror Against the Creditor

Article 67 attaches a financial consequence to a baseless objection. If the court finds that the debtor's objection was unjustified, the debtor is ordered, on the other party's request, to pay compensation of not less than 20% of the amount awarded. The law calls this enforcement-denial compensation (icra inkâr tazminatı). The court fixes the appropriate amount according to the circumstances of both parties and what the case and the awarded sum can bear, but it cannot go below the 20% floor. The compensation must be requested, so the creditor's statement of claim should ask for it expressly.

The rule works in both directions. If the court finds that the creditor was unjustified and acted in bad faith in starting the pursuit, the creditor is ordered, on the debtor's request, to pay compensation of not less than 20% of the amount rejected. The difference in wording matters: for the debtor an unjustified objection is enough, while the creditor pays only if its pursuit was both unjustified and in bad faith. A creditor that pursues a debt it can document honestly is not exposed merely because part of the claim is rejected.

There is one exception on the debtor's side. Where the objection was made by a parent acting for a child, a guardian or an heir (veli, vasi veya mirasçı), compensation against the debtor depends on proof of bad faith. The rule matters in practice where the Turkish customer was a sole trader who has died and the pursuit continues against the heirs, who may have objected because they did not know the business.

The last paragraph of Article 67, added in 2012, fixes the calculation base: in determining enforcement-denial compensation, bad-faith compensation and similar compensation under the Act, the claim made in the pursuit request or in the lawsuit is taken as the basis. The figure written in the pursuit request therefore matters beyond the enforcement file, and it should be calculated carefully, including the interest claimed up to the date of the request.

Removal before the enforcement court carries a similar sanction. Under the last paragraph of Article 68, if the request for removal is accepted on grounds relating to the merits, the debtor, and if it is rejected on the same grounds, the creditor, is ordered on the other side's request to pay compensation of not less than 20%. Unlike Article 67, this provision does not require bad faith on the creditor's part. Collection of that compensation is postponed until the end of the case if the debtor files a negative declaratory or restitution action, or the creditor files a lawsuit in the general courts, and the compensation falls away for the party that wins that lawsuit.

6. Missed the Year? The Ordinary Claim Remains

A creditor that lets the year in Article 67 pass is not left without a remedy. The Article states that a creditor who has missed the period for the annulment lawsuit retains the right to sue for its claim under the general rules (umumi hükümler dairesinde). The creditor simply brings an ordinary action for payment of the debt, in which it proves the claim in the same way.

What the creditor loses is the link to the enforcement file. An ordinary claim is an action for the debt itself, not a request to annul the objection, and enforcement then proceeds on the basis of the judgment. The 20% enforcement-denial compensation of Article 67 belongs to the annulment lawsuit (the Article speaks of compensation awarded in this lawsuit), so it is not part of an ordinary claim. The ordinary claim remains subject to the limitation period of the underlying debt, which must be checked separately; our claim time-limit checker helps with the first estimate. In commercial money disputes the mediation requirement of TTK Article 5/A applies to the ordinary claim as well.

The practical lesson is to diarise the service date of the objection on the day it arrives. A claim that is strong on the merits can still lose the annulment route, with its compensation, simply because the creditor, abroad and waiting for a settlement proposal, let the months pass.

7. The Three Roads Compared and a Practical Checklist

The table sets the three roads side by side. They are not exclusive in every case: a creditor whose removal request fails can still take the claim to the general courts, as Article 68 itself contemplates, and a creditor that misses the year keeps the ordinary claim. What the table shows is the order of preference: the documentary road where the documents allow it, the annulment lawsuit in the ordinary run of cross-border trade, and the ordinary claim as the fallback.

Checklist for a foreign creditor after the objection

1. Record the service date of the objection the day it is served, and calculate the six-month and one-year periods from it.
2. Check whether a precautionary attachment exists. If it does, the seven-day period of İİK Article 264 governs, not the longer periods.
3. Read the objection. Note whether it covers the whole debt or part of it, and whether the signature is denied; the accepted part can be enforced now.
4. Decide the road on the documents. A notarised or admitted acknowledgement of debt opens the enforcement court; a contract and invoices point to the annulment lawsuit.
5. Assemble and translate the evidence file: contract, invoices, delivery documents, account statement, correspondence, payment history.
6. Sign a power of attorney covering mediation, settlement and litigation, and prepare for any security the court may set under MÖHUK Article 48.
7. Apply to mediation early enough that the six weeks, and any two-week extension, end well inside the one-year period.
8. File the lawsuit with the mediator's closing record if there is no agreement, and ask expressly for enforcement-denial compensation of not less than 20%.

A debtor's objection turns an enforcement file into a lawsuit, but it does not weaken a well-documented claim. The creditor's part is to note the service date, choose the road the documents allow, go to mediation in time and file with a complete, translated evidence file, asking for the enforcement-denial compensation that Article 67 attaches to an unjustified objection.

Scope. This page describes the Turkish rules as in force in September 2026: Articles 60, 66, 67, 68 and 264 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004, Article 5/A of the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 and Article 48 of the Law on International Private and Procedural Law No. 5718. It is general information, not advice on a particular case; which court is competent, the costs and the outcome depend on the facts, the documents and the court's assessment.