Injured as a passenger in a bus, taxi or airport transfer in Türkiye: who pays, what you can claim and the fifteen-day letter that comes first.

1. Who Is Liable to an Injured Passenger: KTK 85, TTK 914 and Law 4925

A passenger injured in a Turkish coach, taxi or transfer vehicle has more than one person to look to, and the law deliberately stacks them. The starting point is Article 85 of the Highway Traffic Law (Karayolları Trafik Kanunu, KTK No. 2918). Its first paragraph makes the operator (işleten) of a motor vehicle liable for death, bodily injury or property damage caused by the operation of the vehicle. The same paragraph then adds the rule that matters most to passengers of commercial vehicles: where the vehicle is operated under the title or trade name of an enterprise, or with a ticket issued by that enterprise, the operator of the vehicle and the owner of the enterprise are jointly and severally liable for the damage. The coach company whose name is painted on the bus and printed on the ticket cannot point to the individual owner of the vehicle, and the owner cannot point to the company; the injured passenger may pursue either or both for the whole.

Article 85 also settles the question of the driver's conduct. The operator and the enterprise are liable for the fault of the driver and of the persons who assisted in the operation of the vehicle as if it were their own fault. An injured passenger therefore does not have to sue the driver personally in order to reach the company, although the driver remains liable in tort under the general rules and is, in practice, the person against whom criminal proceedings for causing injury by negligence are brought.

The second source of liability is the contract of carriage. Article 914 of the Turkish Commercial Code (Türk Ticaret Kanunu, TTK No. 6102) provides that the carrier is liable for the damage suffered by passengers who are involved in an accident during carriage; where the passenger dies, the persons deprived of their support may claim under the general rules. The carrier escapes liability only by proving that the accident resulted from a cause it could not have avoided even with the utmost care. This is a heavier burden than the ordinary fault standard: a tyre burst, a driver's momentary inattention or a mechanical failure that maintenance would have revealed do not qualify. For intercity and international coach travel, Articles 6 and 7 of the Road Transport Law (Karayolu Taşıma Kanunu, Law No. 4925) reinforce the point by making carriers responsible for carrying passengers and their luggage safely and by setting out their operational duties.

Taxis and transfer vehicles fall under the same structure. A taxi is a commercial passenger vehicle whose operator is liable under Article 85 and whose driver's fault is attributed to the operator; where the taxi is operated under a company's trade name or through a company's booking, the joint liability of the enterprise follows. Airport and hotel transfers sold by tour operators or transfer companies are carried out under the transport company's authorisation and, usually, its name; the passenger's ticket or voucher identifies the enterprise that answers under Article 85 alongside the vehicle's operator.

2. The Insurance That Actually Exists Since 2016: ZMSS and the Seat Accident Cover

Foreign passengers and, occasionally, their lawyers abroad still search for the "carrier's liability insurance" that Turkish coach companies were once required to carry. It no longer exists. Articles 17 to 25 of the Road Transport Law, which created a separate compulsory carrier's financial liability insurance, were repealed in April 2016, and Article 3 of that Law now defines the liability insurance as the compulsory motor liability insurance of the Highway Traffic Law, known in Türkiye as ZMSS (Zorunlu Mali Sorumluluk Sigortası). A claim addressed to a non-existent policy loses weeks; the correct addressee from the first day is the ZMSS insurer of the vehicle.

ZMSS covers the operator's liability under Article 85 towards third parties within the policy limits set each year for death, bodily injury and property damage. A fare-paying passenger is a third party for this purpose. Where the accident involved another vehicle, that vehicle's operator and its ZMSS insurer are liable in the same way, and a passenger may address both insurers; the fault allocation between the drivers is then a matter between the insurers and does not reduce the passenger's own recovery, since the passenger bears no fault in the collision.

Passenger transport carries one additional compulsory cover. Article 48 of the Road Transport Regulation (Karayolu Taşıma Yönetmeliği) requires undertakings carrying passengers to hold, besides ZMSS, a compulsory personal accident insurance per seat (zorunlu koltuk ferdi kaza sigortası) issued under the Insurance Law No. 5684. This is not a liability policy: it pays fixed sums for death and for permanent disability, and treatment costs up to the policy limit, to the passenger or their heirs regardless of fault, and it is paid in addition to the compensation recovered under the liability rules. Passengers of licensed coaches and transfer vehicles should claim on it as a first step; it is often paid within weeks while the liability claim is still being quantified.

3. What Can Be Claimed: TBK 54, 55 and 56 After the 2026 Amendment

The heads of damage are fixed by the Turkish Code of Obligations (Türk Borçlar Kanunu, TBK No. 6098). Article 54 lists the bodily damages: treatment expenses; loss of earnings during the period of incapacity; losses arising from the reduction or loss of working capacity, which is the largest head in any serious injury and is calculated actuarially on age, earnings and the disability rate fixed by a medical board or court expert; and losses arising from the impairment of the person's economic future. Where the passenger died, Article 53 covers funeral expenses, treatment costs and lost working capacity where death was not immediate, and the loss of support of the persons the deceased maintained.

Article 55 governs how the figures are calculated and was amended in July 2026 by Law No. 7589. Two changes matter to passengers. First, on compensation for the reduction or loss of working capacity and for loss of support, statutory interest now runs from the date of the harm for the part of the calculation that concerns the period of known earnings, and from the date of the decision for the remainder; a claim that takes three years to decide therefore carries interest on the past-loss element for the whole period. Second, social security payments that cannot be recovered by recourse are set off in proportion to the fault attributed to the liable party rather than deducted in full, so a passenger who received treatment or benefits through the SGK or a foreign scheme no longer sees the whole of those payments taken out of the award. Article 56 adds non-pecuniary compensation for the physical and psychological suffering of the injured person and, in cases of death or serious injury, of their close relatives.

4. The Written Application to the Insurer and the Fifteen-Day Rule (KTK 97)

Turkish procedure inserts a mandatory step between the accident and the courtroom. Article 97 of the Highway Traffic Law provides that, within the limits of the compulsory insurance, the person who suffered the damage must first apply in writing to the insurer, submitting the documents that prove the claim. If the insurer does not respond within fifteen days of the application, or if no agreement is reached, the injured person may bring an action or apply to the Insurance Arbitration Commission under the Insurance Law No. 5684. An action filed without the prior application is dismissed on procedural grounds, so the letter is not a formality; it is the condition of everything that follows.

The application should identify the vehicle, the policy where known, the date and place of the accident, the injuries and the heads of damage claimed, and should attach the accident report, the hospital records, the medical board report on the disability rate where one exists, proof of earnings and the passenger's ticket or booking confirmation. Foreign passengers who have returned home may make the application through a lawyer in Türkiye under a power of attorney; documents in a foreign language are filed with Turkish translations. The insurer's answer within the fifteen days is typically an offer calculated on the insurer's own actuarial assumptions, and the difference between that offer and a court or arbitration award is the reason most serious claims proceed to the next stage.

5. Court or Arbitration: Where the Claim Is Decided

Once the fifteen days have passed, the passenger has a choice within the insurance limits. The Insurance Arbitration Commission (Sigorta Tahkim Komisyonu) established under the Insurance Law No. 5684 decides claims against insurers that are members of the system, which the compulsory motor insurers are; the procedure is written, faster than the courts and conducted through arbitrators who specialise in traffic accident compensation. Our separate guide explains how the Commission works for traffic accident claims. Alternatively, the passenger may sue the insurer, the operator and the enterprise together before the civil court of first instance, which is the only route for the part of the claim that exceeds the insurance limits and for non-pecuniary compensation, which the compulsory policy does not cover.

Where the accident is also being investigated as an offence of causing injury or death by negligence, the criminal file, the expert reports on fault prepared in it and the judgment are used as evidence in the compensation claim, and the injured passenger may join the criminal proceedings as a participant to follow them. The compensation claim itself, however, is decided by the civil court or the Commission and need not wait for the criminal case to end.

6. Deadlines: Two Years, Ten Years and the Criminal Extension (KTK 109, TTK 855)

Two limitation regimes apply to the same accident, and the passenger benefits from whichever is longer for the claim in question. Under Article 109 of the Highway Traffic Law, claims for damages arising from a traffic accident are time-barred two years from the date the injured person learned of the damage and of the person liable to compensate it, and in any event ten years from the date of the accident. Where the act giving rise to the damage is also an offence and the criminal law provides a longer limitation period, that longer period applies to the compensation claim as well. The same rules govern the claim against the insurer, and the interruption of the period against one of the liable persons operates against the others.

Under Article 855(1) of the Commercial Code, the contractual claim against the carrier for the death or bodily injury of a passenger is subject to a ten-year limitation period, and Article 855 expressly reserves the limitation rules of the Highway Traffic Law. For a passenger, the practical result is that the claim against the coach company under the contract of carriage is safe for ten years, while the tort and insurance claims should be treated as two-year claims from the moment the passenger knows who is liable, unless a criminal prosecution extends them. A passenger injured in 2026 who waits three years to write to the insurer may find the insurance route closed while the contractual route against the carrier remains open; the contractual route, however, reaches only the carrier's own assets, not the policy.

7. Evidence, Practical Steps and a Comparison Table

At the scene and in hospital. The accident report drawn up after the collision, with the vehicle plates, the drivers' details and the preliminary fault findings, is the foundation of the file; passengers should obtain a copy or its reference number. Hospital records showing the date of admission, the diagnosis and the treatment are the second pillar. The ticket, booking confirmation or transfer voucher proves the contract of carriage and identifies the enterprise liable under Article 85.

After returning home. Treatment abroad is recoverable if the expenses are documented and reasonable; keep the invoices and translations. The disability rate is determined in Türkiye by a medical board report obtained through the court or the Commission, and passengers should expect to provide their foreign medical file for that purpose. A Turkish lawyer acting under a power of attorney can make the Article 97 application, claim on the seat accident insurance, file with the Commission or the court and receive payment into a client account without the passenger travelling back.

A passenger's claim in Türkiye is strong in law: liability is strict against the operator and the enterprise, the carrier's only defence is an unavoidable cause, and the 2026 amendment to Article 55 has improved both the interest position and the treatment of social security payments. It is weak only in one respect, which is procedure. The written application, the fifteen days, the choice between Commission and court and the two-year clock are where recoverable claims are lost, and they are the points on which a foreign passenger should take advice early.

Scope. This page describes the Turkish statutory framework as in force in September 2026 and is general information, not legal advice on a particular accident. Policy limits, the procedure of the Insurance Arbitration Commission and the evidence required for a disability rate change over time; the position of a specific passenger depends on the facts, the documents and the insurance actually in place.