Registering a Ship in Türkiye: Foreign Documents

A ship bought abroad and brought under the Turkish flag goes through a ship registry office. The Ship Registry Regulation, which replaced the 1956 ship registry rules, and the regulation on the Turkish International Ship Registry set out what the office needs.

Documents from abroad

The regulation is explicit: transactions carried out in a foreign country must be certified by the Turkish consulate or under the Apostille Convention and submitted to the registry office with a notarised Turkish translation. If the country is not a party to the convention and has no Turkish consulate, the documents are certified by that country's representation registered with a Turkish governorship.

A ship previously on a foreign register must present documents showing that it has very probably been deleted from that register. If this is impossible because of the law of the flag state or the situation in that country, the registry office may waive it. For ships imported from abroad, the office also asks for documents showing the owners' citizenship and the customs inspection and import permit documents. All transactions are carried out on originals or copies certified by the competent authorities.

Applying

The first registration is made on the application of the owner, or one of the owners, to the registry office of the ship's home port. Where a representative applies, the office asks for a notarial authority document showing that the representative may carry out the transaction; for a legal entity, it asks for the representative's authority document and a registry certificate.

For the Turkish International Ship Registry, the application is accompanied by the documents in the regulation's annex; for registration under a financial lease, also the lease agreement and the flag state's consent. Owners abroad may apply through Turkish consulates.

We prepare notarised Turkish translations of bills of sale, deletion certificates and company documents in Ankara through translators sworn before a Turkish notary. The registry office decides.