Six Months to Complain About an Insult in Türkiye: and the two-year limit that ends it

Insult is a complaint offence, and TCK 131/1 says so in a single line: except where it is committed against a public official on account of their duty, the investigation and prosecution of insult depend on the victim's complaint. TCK 73/1 supplies the consequence. Where the person entitled does not complain within six months, no investigation and no prosecution may be carried out.

Behind it sits a longer period that is routinely confused with it. TCK 66/1-e fixes the limitation period of the public case at eight years for offences requiring imprisonment of not more than five years or a judicial fine. Insult under TCK 125/1 carries three months to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine; TCK 66/4 says the upper limit written in the article decides the bracket, and that imprisonment is taken as the basis where the article offers a choice. Eight years, therefore, running under TCK 66/6 from the day the offence was completed.

The two periods do different work. The eight years is the outer wall of the case. The six months is the door, and it is the door that closes on most insult files. A prosecutor who finds the complaint out of time does not weigh it against the eight-year period; the file ends for want of a complaint, whatever the evidence shows.

TCK 73/2 does not begin the six months on the day the post went up. It begins on the day the person holding the right to complain knew or learned the act and who the offender was. Two pieces of knowledge, not one. Someone who saw an anonymous post in March but only learned in September who was behind the account has, on the face of the provision, an argument that the clock started in September. That makes the start date a question of documents — the date on a screenshot, the date a message was forwarded, the date the file matched an account to a person. Recollection settles nothing here.

Two neighbouring rules matter. Under TCK 73/3, where several people hold the right to complain, one of them letting the six months pass does not extinguish the rights of the others. Under TCK 131/2, where the victim dies before complaining, or the insult was directed at the memory of someone already dead, the complaint may be made by the deceased's ascendants and descendants up to the second degree, by the spouse, or by siblings.

The same architecture governs the offences beside insult in the Code. Stalking under TCK 123/A carries six months to two years' imprisonment and, under TCK 123/A(3), is prosecuted only on complaint. Where one file holds messages of several kinds, the deadlines on a stalking and threats file are calculated article by article, never once for the whole file.

Until late 2024 the discovery rule had no boundary short of the eight-year limitation period: a post from years earlier could be taken to a prosecutor by someone who said they had only just seen it. That is no longer the position.

The discovery rule survives, but inside a fixed window. A post published in 2023 and discovered in 2026 is not rescued by the fact that discovery was recent. A post published eighteen months ago and discovered last week leaves six months from discovery, but nothing beyond the twenty-fourth month.

For acts committed before 14 November 2024, the date Law no. 7531 entered into force after being passed on 7 November 2024, the position is argued rather than settled. The argument runs through TCK 7/2: where the law in force at the time of the offence differs from one that entered into force later, the provision more favourable to the offender applies. Whether a complaint period is caught by that rule is answered on the file.

The cap covers complaint-dependent insult only. Insult of a public official on account of their duty sits outside the complaint requirement under TCK 131/1. Prosecution for insulting the President is gated instead by the permission of the Minister of Justice under TCK 299/3, and investigation under TCK 301 by the same permission under TCK 301/4. Those are permission filters, not complaint clocks; neither period runs against them.

CMK 158/1 allows a complaint to be made to the office of the public prosecutor or to the police; under CMK 158/2 one made instead to a governorship or a court is forwarded on, and under CMK 158/3 it may be made to a Turkish embassy or consulate for offences committed abroad that are to be pursued here. CMK 158/5 permits it in writing, or orally where recorded in a tutanak. What matters afterwards is the date the complaint entered the system, and only a filed document carries one. Under CMK 158/6 a complaint that plainly discloses no offence, or that is abstract and general, draws a decision that there is no ground to investigate, challengeable by the objection procedure in CMK 173.

Withdrawal should be understood before it is offered. Under TCK 73/4 the withdrawal of the injured party ends the case, but withdrawal after the judgment has become final does not prevent execution of the sentence. Under TCK 73/5, withdrawal in respect of one of several defendants who acted together covers the others. TCK 73/7 adds the sting: where the case ended on withdrawal and the injured party also stated then that they were waiving their personal rights, they can no longer bring the claim in the civil courts.

Two recent changes altered this answer, and older guidance still gives the previous one. Insult is no longer a mediation offence. CMK 253/3, as amended by Law No. 7531 of 7 November 2024 and then by Law No. 7571 of 24 December 2025, provides that even where prosecution depends on complaint, mediation may not be resorted to in insult under TCK 125, in stalking under TCK 123/A, or in offences against sexual inviolability.

What took its place is advance payment. TCK 75/6(a)(2) now extends the advance payment provisions to insult under TCK 125, with the case in TCK 125/3(a) excluded. Under TCK 75/1, where the person pays the amount notified by the prosecutor together with the investigation costs within ten days, no public case is opened; on a request made inside those ten days it may be paid in three equal monthly instalments, and a missed instalment voids it. The figure that binds you is the one in the notice served on you.

These outcomes are recorded, but not where most people assume. TCK 75/7 provides that decisions given upon payment are entered in a system peculiar to them, visible only where a prosecutor, judge or court requests them in connection with an investigation — which is why they behave differently from a conviction on your Turkish judicial record. Where a file is already open, the order of questions is which paragraph of TCK 125 is charged, when the complaint was filed, and whether both periods were kept; the wider ground is on insult and social media offences in Türkiye.