Turkey's verified reviews rule

What changed in Turkey’s rules on consumer reviews?

Turkey’s Ministry of Trade has substantially amended the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices (Ticari Reklam ve Haksız Ticari Uygulamalar Yönetmeliği). The amending regulation was published in the Official Gazette (Resmî Gazete) No. 33297 on 1 July 2026, and its entry-into-force article sets 1 August 2026 as the start date. The amendment covers other advertising topics too; this post looks only at the provisions on consumer reviews.

The rules matter to any brand or marketplace that shows reviews to Turkish consumers: a local online store, a global brand running a Turkish storefront, or a seller on Turkish marketplaces.

The amendment first adds a definition: a consumer review is any statement, endorsement or rating made online by consumers that describes their experience. A star rating counts as much as a written review.

Two articles then change. Article 28/B is rewritten for sellers, providers and intermediary service providers that facilitate distance contracts, whenever they let consumers review a product, service, seller or provider. Article 28/C changes the reply window on platforms that publish consumer complaints.

This is not legal advice. We describe what the regulation says and how it can be implemented technically; confirm your own position with Turkish counsel.

Which review rules apply?

The main provisions of the rewritten Article 28/B:

Rule	What the regulation says	Impact on your workflow
Purchase required	Only people who bought the product or service may review it	Every review must be tied to an order
Unverifiable channels	Reviews from channels where the purchase cannot be verified may not be published	Reviews from social media or email should not be copied onto product pages
Publication rules	Rules are shown where reviews appear, or on a linked screen; they may not block reviews or restrict them to certain topics	Moderation rules must be written and public
One area	If reviews are split by topic (product, delivery, seller), all are shown in the same area	Delivery reviews cannot be tucked away from the product page
No positive/negative filtering	After the necessary checks, reviews are published for at least a year, ordered by an objective criterion	No separate approval queue for low ratings
Unpublished reviews	The reviewer is informed immediately	Rejections trigger an automatic notice
Health claims	Reviews with health claims that breach the relevant rules may not be published	Such content goes to human review
Use in ads	Reviews without purchase verification may not be used in advertising	Marketing uses verified reviews only
Resolved complaints	If the consumer or seller reports a complaint resolved, the update is published promptly next to the original review, after verification	Complaint closure is linked to the review record
Fake reviews	Sellers may not arrange or buy false reviews or endorsements to boost sales	Review incentive schemes need a second look

The Ministry’s 1 July 2026 announcement highlights two points in this article: no publication of reviews from channels where the purchase cannot be verified, and all topic-specific reviews shown together in one clear, easy-to-reach area.

Reviews can be shown on other channels, but only in a way that reflects the overall content and ratings on the original channel. Picking only the five-star reviews from a marketplace to display on your own site could conflict with that.

What does the 48-hour window cover?

Some coverage has described the 48-hour window as if it applied to all product reviews. In the regulation text it sits in Article 28/C, on publishing consumer complaints. The amendment replaces “at least seventy-two hours” with “forty-eight hours” and adds that if no reply is given within that time, the review is published directly.

The Ministry’s announcement of 30 July 2026 frames the change the same way: the time sellers or providers get to explain or reply before a complaint is published on complaint platforms has dropped to 48 hours.

In practice, when a complaint platform notifies you, you have two days to reply. A notice that lands on a weekend or a Turkish public holiday will go live unanswered if nobody is watching. For international teams, that also means someone in or covering Turkish time zones and able to reply in Turkish.

How can you meet these rules with automation?

Most rules map to a step in a review’s life cycle. Running those steps as workflow automation rather than by hand shortens response times and leaves a record.

1. Tie every review to an order. Send the review invitation after delivery with an order-specific link. Store the order number, product and delivery date with the review. A review that does not match an order does not enter the publishing queue. If you also sell on marketplaces, you need order data in one place; our post on WooCommerce and marketplace integration covers how.

2. Base checks on written rules. Automated checks should look only at published rules: abuse, personal data, health claims. Rating must not be a criterion. When a review fails a check, the reviewer gets an automatic notice.

3. Route each review to the right team. A language model can classify whether a review is about the product, delivery or seller. A low-rated delivery review goes to logistics, a defect report to quality, a return request to customer service. Classification is for routing only and must not change the publishing decision.

4. Track complaint-platform notices against the clock. Collect notices from complaint platforms in one queue and calculate each 48-hour deadline automatically. At a set threshold before the deadline, remind the owner and their manager.

5. Let AI draft replies, and a person approve them. Drafts should rest on the order record, shipment status and return policy. The model must not promise anything without a source, such as a refund the policy does not allow. A staff member edits and approves; the system publishes. We describe the customer service side of this on our AI customer service page.

6. Log every step. Arrival time, matched order, check result, rejection reason, notice time, draft, approver and publication time. That audit trail lets you document the process if the Ministry or a customer asks.

7. Flag what marketing may use. Reviews used in advertising carry their verification record. An unverified review cannot be pushed to ad tools.

This flow can be built with tools such as n8n or Make on top of your existing e-commerce stack. Because reviews and orders contain personal data, set retention periods and access rights up front under KVKK, Turkey’s data protection law, and the GDPR where it applies.

Where to start

1. List every channel where you collect or display reviews for Turkish consumers: your own site, marketplaces, social media, email and complaint platforms.
2. For each, write down how the purchase is verified. Remove reviews from unverifiable channels from pages and ad materials.
3. Write and publish your moderation rules where reviews appear, and confirm no step filters by rating.
4. Set up one owner, one queue and a 48-hour reminder for complaint-platform notices.
5. Pilot AI-drafted, human-approved replies on a single channel.
6. Review the full flow with your Turkish counsel.

These rules matter most to e-commerce and retail businesses that sell both on their own site and through Turkish marketplaces.

Corrplus does not give legal advice. We are the technical team that builds the rules your counsel sets into your systems. In discovery we map your review channels and order data; in design we write down the verification, routing, approval and logging steps. Details are on our workflow automation and n8n and Make automation pages. To look at your current flow together, book a first call through our contact page.