Drink and drug driving in Türkiye, and the two files one stop opens.

A roadside check produces two separate outcomes from the same set of facts. One is a misdemeanour sanction under the Highway Traffic Code, Law no. 2918 (KTK 48): a fixed administrative fine and the withdrawal of the driving licence for a fixed period. The other is a criminal file under the Penal Code. They are decided by different bodies, on different tests, and they do not wait for each other.

The Traffic Code says so in terms. Where a driver is found to have driven over 0.50 promille, the administrative fine is imposed even if the act also constitutes a criminal offence (KTK 48, fifth paragraph). There is no argument to be made that one process bars the other; they are built to run in parallel.

Why the parallel matters

The criminal file moves slowly and is the one people watch. The administrative decision moves fast and becomes final on its own timetable. An application against an administrative sanction is made to the sulh ceza court within fifteen days of notification, and if that period passes without an application the sanction becomes final (Law no. 5326, art. 27/1). Licences are routinely lost this way, while the holder is waiting for a hearing date in the other file.

The Traffic Code sets the limits by class of vehicle and by repetition. The Penal Code sets a separate criminal threshold on top of them.

Two figures that look like a misprint

They are not. The fifth paragraph of KTK 48 sets the floor for vehicles other than private cars at 0.21 promille. The seventh paragraph, dealing with accidents, uses 0.20 for the same group. Both numbers stand in the text as enacted.

The repeat count runs backwards

The five-year window is measured backwards from the date of the last violation, not forward from the first. And where a licence has already been withheld for some other reason, the new period does not begin until the existing one ends (KTK 48, fifth paragraph).

Repetition carries more than money. A second withdrawal within five years brings a driver-behaviour development programme administered through the Ministry of Health; a third or further withdrawal brings a psycho-technical assessment and examination by a psychiatrist (KTK 48, eleventh paragraph). And a driver who breaches the fifth or ninth paragraph three times within five years while driving goods or passenger transport vehicles has the licence cancelled, not withheld (KTK 48, added paragraph).

The lira figures are those written into the Law. Administrative fines are increased at the start of each calendar year by the official revaluation rate (Law no. 5326, art. 17/7), so the amount on a current ticket will sit above the figure in the statute.

The criminal provision is one sentence long. Article 179/3 of the Penal Code punishes a person who drives although not in a condition to operate the vehicle safely — through the effect of alcohol or a narcotic substance, or for any other reason — with six months to two years' imprisonment.

Two things follow from that wording. The offence is not defined by a number; it is defined by unfitness to drive safely, and the promille reading is evidence going to that question rather than the offence itself. And the article is not confined to alcohol and drugs. "Any other reason" is in the text.

The link to a number comes from the Traffic Code, not the Penal Code: above 1.00 promille, KTK 48, sixth paragraph, provides that TCK 179/3 applies in addition to the administrative sanction.

The neighbouring paragraph is worth knowing, because it is sometimes the charge instead. TCK 179/2 punishes operating a vehicle in a manner dangerous to the life, health or property of others with four months to two years.

What a sentence in that range can become

• Suspension. A sentence of two years or less may be suspended, if the person has no previous conviction of more than three months' imprisonment for an intentional offence and the court forms the view that no further offence will be committed. A supervision period of one to three years follows, and it cannot be shorter than the sentence (TCK 51).
• Deferral of announcement of the verdict. Where the sentence is two years or less, the court may defer announcement of the judgment. It requires no previous conviction for an intentional offence, the court's assessment of the defendant, and full compensation of the damage caused to the victim or to the public. The supervision period is five years (CMK 231).
• Conversion. A sentence of one year or less is a short-term sentence (TCK 49/2) and may be converted — to a judicial fine, or to other alternative sanctions, one of which is withdrawal of the licence for half to one times the length of the sentence (TCK 50).

None of these is automatic, and none of them is something a lawyer can promise you in advance. Each has conditions that are examined on the file.

Refusal is not a way of avoiding the sanction. It is its own violation, with its own figure. A driver who does not submit to measurement of blood alcohol or of narcotic or stimulant use receives an administrative fine of 150,000 Turkish lira, and the licence is withheld for five years (KTK 48, ninth paragraph, in the form given to it on 12 February 2026).

Set that against a first reading over 0.50 promille: 25,000 lira and six months. Refusing costs six times the fine and ten times the period. Only the eighth paragraph — narcotic or stimulant use — is heavier, because there the licence is cancelled rather than withheld.

Where narcotic or stimulant use is suspected, the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure on judicial police apply to what follows (KTK 48, tenth paragraph). That is not a formality: it changes the character of the stop from a traffic check into an investigative act, with the procedural record that goes with one.

The drug side is not a heavier version of the alcohol side. It is a different structure, and since the amendment of 12 February 2026 it is considerably harder to undo.

A driver found to have taken a narcotic or stimulant substance receives an administrative fine of 150,000 Turkish lira, and the licence is cancelled — not withheld for a period, cancelled (KTK 48, eighth paragraph). The same paragraph provides that the Penal Code applies in addition.

Getting a licence back after cancellation

The route is set out in the same paragraph and it is long. The person must attend a driving course and pass the examinations for a new driver certificate. Before the course can even begin: at least five years must have passed since cancellation, all administrative fines imposed under the Traffic Code must have been collected, the driver must pass a psycho-technical assessment, and a health board report from an official health institution showing no impediment to driving must be produced to the course.

The second file

A positive test in a vehicle is also, on its face, evidence of use. TCK 191 punishes buying, accepting or possessing narcotic or stimulant substances for personal use, or using them, with two to five years' imprisonment. The same article provides that the opening of a prosecution is deferred for five years, with a probation measure of at least one year — extendable in six-month steps by up to two further years — and testing ordered at least twice a year.

That route is designed around a person who is here to report and be tested. What it commits a foreign national to, and what it does to residence and travel, is dealt with on the drug offences page and needs to be worked out before anything is accepted.

An accident does not add a line to the file. It changes which file you are in.

Injury caused by negligence is punished under TCK 89 with four months to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine. The sentence is increased by half for injuries such as a bone fracture, permanent weakening of a sense or organ, a permanent mark on the face, or a life-threatening condition; it is doubled for the graver consequences listed in the third paragraph. Where more than one person is injured, the range is nine months to five years.

Two features matter when alcohol is in the file.

• The complaint requirement falls away. Negligent injury is normally investigated and prosecuted only on complaint. But where the offence is committed with conscious negligence, no complaint is required — the exception being the basic form in the first paragraph (TCK 89/5). Settlement with the injured party stops being the end of the matter.
• The sentence goes up. Conscious negligence — foreseeing the result while not wanting it — increases the sentence by one third to one half (TCK 22/3). Driving after drinking is the standard fact pattern in which a prosecutor argues for it, and contesting that characterisation is often the substance of the defence.

The Traffic Code closes the loop: where a driver above the threshold causes an accident, the relevant provisions of the Penal Code apply in addition to the administrative sanction (KTK 48, seventh paragraph). Where someone has died, or where a driver has left, the file moves to different articles again.

Four things separate this file from the same file opened against a resident.

Language

Where a suspect or defendant cannot express himself adequately in Turkish, an interpreter is appointed and the essential points of the accusation and the defence are interpreted; the same applies to suspects heard during the investigation, where the interpreter is appointed by the judge or the prosecutor (CMK 202). A roadside record and a measurement report are written in Turkish. If you did not understand a question, say so and have the fact recorded — a recorded misunderstanding is worth more later than a confident answer to the wrong question.

Leaving the country

Judicial control can include a ban on leaving the country (CMK 109/3-a). The same article allows an order not to drive any vehicle, and to surrender the licence against a receipt (109/3-d), and treatment or examination measures directed at alcohol dependency, including admission to hospital (109/3-e). A judicial-control measure is not a penalty and it can be challenged, but the deadlines are short.

Which body decides the licence

Withdrawal and cancellation of driving licences is decided by the sulh ceza courts, except in the cases where the officers listed in article 6 of the Traffic Code and the traffic registration units are authorised to act (KTK 112). Part of what happens to your licence is therefore administrative and part is judicial, and they are challenged by different routes. Establishing which one produced the decision in your hand is the first step, not a detail.

What follows a conviction

Where a foreign national is sentenced to imprisonment, the position is reported immediately to the Ministry of the Interior for assessment in relation to deportation, once release on probation or conditional release has been decided and in any event once the sentence has been served (TCK 59). A deportation decision is then taken for foreigners assessed under that article, and separately for those regarded as a threat to public order, public security or public health (Law no. 6458, art. 54/1-a and 54/1-d). That is an administrative process with its own file and its own deadlines. It is not decided by the criminal court, and it does not begin when the criminal case ends.

What this page cannot tell you

It cannot tell you what your reading means for your file. The same number produces different outcomes depending on the class of vehicle, on whether anything within the previous five years sits on the record, on whether an accident occurred and what it caused, and on whether the measurement was taken and recorded in the way the law requires. Nor can it tell you what a court will decide. Nobody can, and any page that offers you a probability is selling something.