Precautions to be Taken Against Bringing Telephones from Abroad

With the depreciation of the Turkish lira and increasing inflation, access to electronic products was restricted by prices and taxes, and it became much more reasonable to buy phones from abroad. But today, from the Ministry of Commerce An important decision has come.

Bekir Can Uslu, General Manager of Customs Enforcement at the Ministry of Commerce, Information Technologies and Communications Authority (BTK) announced that they had signed a protocol with With the said protocol, it will be checked whether the citizens coming from abroad use their mobile phone exemption rights, and if they are used, new phones will be checked. It will be maintained by the Ministry.

The phones of those who use their exemption will be confiscated:

“When a phone is brought from abroad, if the passenger has a phone with him, we considered it within the scope of exemption, if there is more than one phone, we subject it to customs procedures. A protocol was made between the BTK and the Ministry of Commerce General Directorate of Customs Enforcement. A database was shared 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 are here. We’ll keep your new phones safe.“

The phone can be taken back when going abroad within three months:

“If we see that our passenger has exercised his right of exemption in 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.”

If there is an exemption right, a 120-day registration time limit will be set:

Uslu said that if the passenger has the right to exemption, they will allow them to take his phone, then the passenger’s within 120 days He stated that he can register this phone via BTK systems.

The additional phone, not the one on you, will be checked:

“There is no problem with the personal phone that the (passenger) uses 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.”

How will the new system work?

Along with the explanation, a practical explanation was also made for the new system. In this context, the suitcases of passengers coming from abroad were taken to X-ray search. The passenger, who had a mobile phone in his suitcase, was invited to the office for exemption control. It was questioned whether the passenger had a mobile phone exemption right.

It was determined that the passenger in question brought a phone call on September 19, 2022. Therefore, the passenger was not exempt. The earliest date that a passenger could bring a telephone to Turkey was January 1, 2025 (due to the 3 calendar year limit). The passenger’s phone was taken to the hold.

The new system will be implemented from 1 November:

The new system, developed in partnership with the Ministry of Commerce and BTK, from 1 November will be put into practice.