Paying Contractors in Turkey: Can You Pay in USD? (2026)

TL;DR: For employees, no: statutory salary in Turkey is paid in lira, to a Turkish bank account. For contractors, yes: they can invoice you in USD and keep the money in dollars. On Shor, contractors hold their earnings in USD and withdraw to lira when they choose, with a flat disclosed 2% FX applied only when money actually converts, for $19/month per contractor.

To pay an independent contractor in Turkey from a US company you need three things and no Turkish entity: a written contract with the person or their business, a signed Form W-8BEN (or W-8BEN-E if they invoice through a company), and an invoice for each payment. The invoice can be denominated in USD or in lira. Nothing in that list requires you to register in Turkey, because you are buying services from a business, not employing anyone.

Turkey has one of the deepest engineering talent pools in Europe's time zones, and after watching the lira lose most of its value in a few short years, Turkish professionals think about their rate in hard currency whether or not you pay them in one. Here's what's allowed, and how to set it up.

The short answer

It depends entirely on one thing: is this person an employee or a contractor?

Employees: no. Turkish statutory salary is paid in lira (TRY) to a Turkish bank account, on a monthly payroll. Turkey's rules on foreign-currency contracts between residents have shifted repeatedly over the past decade, and our compliance data on Turkey is thinner than for our core markets, so treat lira payroll as the default and put anything beyond it in front of Turkish counsel first.

Contractors: yes. An independent contractor invoices you as a business. That invoice can be denominated in USD, and how the contractor holds or converts the money afterward is their decision. In Turkey, after the last few years, many choose dollars.

One warning before anything else: the classification has to be real. Reclassifying someone who works like an employee as a contractor so you can pay them in dollars trades a currency problem for a much more expensive legal one.

Why USD pay matters in Turkey

Turkey is coming out of one of the worst inflation runs of any major remote-talent market, and the recovery is real but incomplete.

Official inflation peaked at 85.5% in October 2022, a 24-year high, eased, then climbed to a second peak of 75.45% in May 2024 before the current disinflation took hold. As of July 2026, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) reports annual inflation of 31.75%, the second straight month of cooling, a reading Bloomberg notes still tests the central bank's forecasts. An independent research group puts the same figure above 50%, a gap that itself tells you something about how much trust in official price data, and the lira behind it, has to be rebuilt.

The currency moved the same way. One dollar bought around 8 lira in September 2021 and nearly 19 by the end of 2022, and the slide has continued more slowly since. As of August 23, 2026 one dollar buys about 48 lira, roughly 17% weaker than a year earlier, which is depreciation running well below inflation rather than a collapse. That is deliberate: the central bank held its policy rate at 37% in July and published its third inflation report of 2026 on August 13, with a disinflation strategy that leans on keeping the lira from falling as fast as prices rise. So the honest framing is not "Turkey is in crisis today". It's that inflation is cooling but still above 30%, and Turkish professionals have lived through enough lira episodes that they price the risk in. A USD-denominated rate holds its purchasing power while the contractor decides when to convert. That's a stability point, not an investment strategy.

For you as the employer, the flip side is cost predictability: a USD rate means your books see the same number every month, instead of catch-up conversations that are really inflation adjustments.

Paying employees in Turkey: what the law requires

If you hire a Turkish employee (directly or through an employer of record), salary is paid in lira to a Turkish bank account, with registered payroll and social contributions, on a monthly cycle. Turkey has had rules restricting foreign-currency denomination in contracts between Turkish residents since 2018, with exceptions that have been amended more than once. We won't summarize them here because the details move; if someone proposes a dollar-linked salary structure for a Turkish employee, have a Turkish employment lawyer look at your specific case before you rely on it. We are not that lawyer, and this page is not legal advice.

What compliant employers actually do instead:

• Pay salary in lira, index reviews to the dollar. Set an expectation that compensation is reviewed against a USD reference on a fixed schedule. At Turkey's current inflation, that schedule needs to be frequent; local employers commonly adjust more than once a year.
• Keep the adjustment cadence honest. A once-a-year review in a 30%+ inflation environment is a real-terms pay cut by month six.

This keeps you inside the law while addressing the thing the employee actually cares about: their purchasing power.

Paying contractors in Turkey in USD

For genuine contractors, USD pay is straightforward, and it's where most US companies hiring Turkish talent land. On Shor it works like this:

• Contractors invoice in USD or lira, their choice. Contracts, W-8BEN collection, and invoicing are built in.
• The money stays in USD. No forced conversion on arrival. Most platforms convert a "USD payment" to lira the moment it lands, which protects the contractor for exactly zero days. Holding is the feature.
• They withdraw to lira when they choose, over local rails. This month's bills in lira today, the rest staying in dollars until they need it.
• Conversion costs a flat disclosed 2%, shown before the money moves, and only when money actually converts.
• For you: $19/month per contractor. No setup fees, month-to-month.

The deeper version of the employer case (retention, cost predictability, why holding matters more than denomination) is in our guide to paying international contractors in USD.

How to pay an independent contractor in Turkey, step by step

The sequence is the same one you would run for any foreign contractor, and none of it is Turkey-specific paperwork.

1. Confirm the person is genuinely a contractor. They control how and when the work happens, they can take other clients, and they are not filling a permanent seat in your org chart. This is the step that costs money when it is skipped, and the test that matters is the Turkish one, not the wording of your agreement.
2. Put the engagement in writing. Scope, rate, currency, invoicing cadence, payment terms, confidentiality, and who owns the work product. Name the currency explicitly: "USD" in the contract is what stops a conversation about exchange rates later.
3. Collect the right W-8 form before the first payment. Form W-8BEN if they invoice as an individual, Form W-8BEN-E if they invoice through a company. You keep it, you do not file it, and it expires. The details are in our W-8BEN guide for foreign contractors.
4. Take an invoice for every payment. A Turkish contractor operating as a registered business will have their own invoicing obligations at home. That is their side of the transaction, and it is worth asking how they invoice before you agree a rate, because a contractor who has to charge local indirect tax will price for it.
5. Pay, and let them decide when to convert. This is the part that is specific to Turkey, and it is covered in the section above: the value of a dollar rate is mostly destroyed if the money is converted to lira the moment it arrives.

Nothing here makes the relationship compliant on its own. If the person works your hours, on your systems, under your direction, they are employee-shaped, and the right question becomes whether to employ them properly rather than which form to collect.

What it costs to pay a Turkish contractor

On Shor it is $19 per month per contractor, with contracts, W-8BEN and W-9 collection, and invoicing included. There are no setup fees and no annual commitment. Conversion from USD to lira costs a flat disclosed 2%, shown before the money moves and charged only on the amount that actually converts, so a contractor who holds most of their balance in dollars pays it on the fraction they withdraw.

The comparison worth running is not against another platform's headline fee but against the rail you would otherwise use. International bank wires carry a per-transfer fee on both ends plus an exchange spread that is rarely quoted as a number, and marketplaces take a percentage of the invoice. We work the year-one math for each of those in how to pay international contractors.