Social Security Agreements with Türkiye: Documents

People who have worked in Türkiye and in a country with which Türkiye has a social security agreement deal with two systems at once. The Social Security Institution (SGK) explains how the agreements work and which foreign documents it needs.

Combining periods and pensions

Under the agreements, if entitlement to a benefit under one party's law depends on completing an insurance period, the institution applying that law counts periods completed under the other party's law as its own, provided they do not overlap. If that still does not give entitlement, the parties also combine periods in a third country with which both have an agreement. The date of first employment in the other country is taken into account as well.

The agreements also allow someone who has earned an old-age pension in the other country to keep receiving it after moving to the other party's territory. For the agreement with the United Kingdom, SGK notes a choice between a combined calculation and separate pensions under each country's law. Under the agreement with Switzerland, among others, disability pensions follow the law that applied when the incapacity arose. SGK mediates payments for people resident in Türkiye who draw pensions from Germany, and pensions of recipients living abroad can be transferred to an account abroad on written request.

Foreign documents SGK works with

As the Turkish liaison body, SGK issues and approves the documents on which child benefit payments are based, the forms called civil status certificate and education certificate, which differ from country to country. Insured persons of an agreement country who are in Türkiye present the health entitlement document from their insurer to the provincial social security directorate or centre. Family members living permanently in Germany submit a letter from a German health insurance fund or form T/A 5. For a health document for study in an agreement country, foreign-language papers are submitted with a Turkish translation.

Documents can be handed in directly or sent by post from Türkiye or abroad. We translate foreign insurance documents into Turkish in Ankara through sworn translators; SGK decides.