TURQUALITY® Requirements 2026: 4 Core Criteria and an Eligibility Guide for Family Companies

To meet the TURQUALITY® requirements, a company established in Türkiye that aims to build a global brand must satisfy four core criteria set by the Ministry of Trade: export performance, a registered trademark, corporate governance infrastructure and a strategic business plan. Companies that fall short on any of the four do not get past the preliminary review, however strong the file.

TURQUALITY® is the world’s first and only government-backed branding programme. It is not just a grant scheme but a corporate transformation that moves your company from a “founder-run” structure to a “system-run” one. In this guide we cover the process, the criteria and the most common mistakes, with a focus on family companies.

Why family companies in Türkiye are on the TURQUALITY® radar

Take İzmir as an example. With organised industrial zones such as Atatürk OIZ, Torbalı, Kemalpaşa and Pınarbaşı, it sits at the heart of Türkiye’s export geography, and many second- and third-generation family companies there work in food processing, textiles, machinery and automotive supply.

Many of these companies already have the export volume and brand awareness the programme looks for, but their corporate infrastructure has not caught up yet. TURQUALITY® is designed to close exactly this gap, and the export-led growth these companies know best fits naturally with what the programme expects.

TURQUALITY® requirements for 2026: the 4 core criteria

1. Export performance and growth trend

The Ministry reviews your last three years of export data, looking at both volume and growth trend. The exact threshold varies by sector, and the assessment weighs value-added intensity, not just total exports. A company exporting technology- and design-heavy products can be better placed than a rival shipping far larger volumes of low value-added goods.

2. Trademark registration in Türkiye and the target market

The brand in the application must be registered in Türkiye. It must also be registered in at least one target market, either under the Madrid Protocol or under that country’s own law. Mismatched registration classes between Türkiye and the target country are one of the most common technical reasons files are rejected.

3. Corporate governance infrastructure

This is the toughest pillar of TURQUALITY®. The programme expects a written, working organisation chart, documented job descriptions, an active performance management system and regular budget reporting. What we often see in family companies in Türkiye: strong export figures, but the institutional memory behind them is not written down.

4. Strategic business plan

A five-year, data-based strategic business plan adopted by the board is mandatory. It is not a formality: assessors probe the plan’s consistency, its financial basis and the depth of its target market analysis. A weak strategic plan is the most common reason companies are eliminated.

TURQUALITY® or the Brand Support Programme: which one fits your company?

Not every company is ready to apply for TURQUALITY® straight away. The Brand Support Programme (Marka Destek Programı, MDP) works well as the first stop on the branding journey. The table below sums up the key differences:

For a detailed comparison and the current scope of support, see the Ministry of Trade’s official TURQUALITY® and Brand Support Programme page.

How FIX runs your eligibility analysis

When we prepare a manufacturer for the programme, whether it sits in an organised industrial zone in İzmir or elsewhere in Türkiye, we follow three stages:

• Current-state analysis: we establish where the company really stands against the application criteria. Which criteria are already in place, and which are development opportunities?
• Infrastructure development: we build HR processes, financial reporting sets, brand strategy and the strategic business plan together with you. Our priority is not filling in forms but building a system that works on the ground.
• Mock Audit: before the real assessment, we take the company through a full rehearsal. So there are no surprises on audit day, we apply a stricter filter than the real auditors do.

For details of our TURQUALITY® Consulting service, visit our Corporate and TURQUALITY® Consulting page.

Common mistakes that lead to rejection

Companies often assume that strong export figures mean approval. In fact, most rejections come from management gaps, not financial ones:

• Trademark class mismatch: the class registered in Türkiye does not match the class in the target country.
• No budget tracking: no budget management system is actually working.
• Supply chain gaps: no supplier evaluation and tracking system is in place.
• Inconsistent strategic plan: financial forecasts lack a realistic basis.

Regulations and Ministry expectations change all the time. Managing the process in-house can lead to misdirected investment and months of lost time.