Commercial and corporate

Partnership company (şahıs şirketi)

A category of Turkish companies, covering general and limited partnerships, in which partners bear unlimited secondary liability for company debts.

All terms

Partnership companies (şahıs şirketleri) are Turkish company forms in which the identity of the partners is central and the partners can be held personally liable for company debts without limit. General partnerships and limited partnerships fall within this category.

Debts that cannot be recovered from the company may be pursued against the partners' personal assets; their liability is secondary but unlimited. Mutual trust among partners is decisive, so share transfers require the consent of the other partners and any change in membership directly affects the structure.

In everyday Turkish, sole traders registered only for tax purposes are also loosely called şahıs şirketi. Legally, however, that is not a company at all; the term properly refers to general and limited partnerships, which have legal personality.

Not to be confused with

Adi ortaklık ile karıştırılmamalıdır: adi ortaklığın tüzel kişiliği yoktur ve Borçlar Kanununa tabidir.

Statutory basis

  • TTK m.211
  • TTK m.304

The glossary is provided for information only and does not constitute legal advice. What a term means in a specific case depends on the details of the file.