In the statement made by the Ministry of Commerce on 20 October, it was announced that there was an amendment on the requirement to bring telephones from abroad. Accordingly, as of November 1, inspections will begin, and foreign telephones in excess of the legal limit will not be able to be brought into Turkey. So what will happen to the devices?
If a foreign phone is brought over the legal limit, it will not be brought into Turkey! So what about the devices?
As we said in the news whose link we shared below, BTK and the Ministry of Commerce will work together to control the phones brought from abroad. The inspection will be done by customs guards. Today, the details have been revealed.
Accordingly, people who have brought a smartphone from abroad once -if they have it registered in their passports- will not be able to bring a second device into the country within 3 years. As of November 1, if the citizens coming from abroad have 2 or more phones with them or in their bags, they will be controlled through the system created by the BTK and the Ministry of Commerce.
The requirement to bring a phone from abroad has changed!
According to the statement made by the Ministry of Commerce today, the requirement to bring a phone from abroad has changed. Here are the details…
For example, you went abroad and you bring a phone with you or in your bag. In this case, the customs officers will invite you to their office and check the device’s IMEI and your data. If you bought and registered another device within 3 years and the phone you brought has not given a signal in Turkey before, that is, if it is certain that you bought it from abroad, it will not be allowed to be brought into the country.
Another reason under the control of IMEI was that some citizens were throwing the box of the device and saying it was the 2nd device I bought from Turkey and bringing it into the country. This situation will be understood by checking whether it has given signals within the country before. Of course, if you haven’t registered a foreign device you bought from Turkey and you haven’t inserted a SIM before, it will still be considered as a new arrival from abroad. So what will happen to this device?
According to the statement, the aforementioned legal non-border phones will be kept by customs officers. In return, a warehouse receipt will be given. If this citizen will go abroad again in 3 months, he will be able to take his phone with him when leaving the country.
Bekir Can Uslu, General Manager of Customs Enforcement at the Ministry of Commerce, said:
“When a phone is brought from abroad, if the passenger has a phone with him, we considered it as an exemption. If there is more than one phone, we subject it to customs procedures. A protocol was signed between BTK and the Ministry of Commerce, General Directorate of Customs Enforcement.
A database sharing was carried out within the scope of the protocol. As of November 1, we will check whether our passengers arriving from abroad have used their exemption rights in the last three years. If our passenger has used his exemption right in the last three years, that is, if he has brought a phone call from abroad in the last three years, we will keep his new phones here.
Then, our passenger will be able to register this phone via BTK systems within 120 days. If we see that our passenger has exercised his right of exemption within the last three years, we keep his phone in the customs warehouse. We give him a warehouse receipt in return. In this case, our passenger can take his phone back abroad when going abroad within three months.
When the passenger sees a mobile phone with him, our friends will invite him to our office, if there is an opportunity for exemption on the system during the controls, our passenger will take his phone and continue. If there is no possibility of exemption, they will leave your phone as escrow at the customs warehouses.
According to the decision of the Council of Ministers, the right to telephone is given every three years. There is no problem with the personal phone he is using on it. There is no problem with the phone he is currently using, but we will check if an additional phone he brought with him is within the scope of the exemption. There is no harm in the phone he uses, we will perform the checks on the second phone we see soon. The aim is to prevent the phone from entering the country if there is no exemption right.”
What do you think about the international phone restriction? Don’t forget to share your views with us in the comments!