Work accident reporting in Turkey: how many days to notify SGK, and who reports?

Friday, 16:40. An employee’s hand gets caught on the packaging line, they are taken to hospital, and the shift supervisor returns to the site. Before everyone goes home, the same questions come up: by when must the accident be reported, does the weekend count, and who files it — HR, the occupational health and safety specialist or accounting? In most workplaces people only start looking for the answer when the accident happens, and the deadline slips away in the rush. In this article we go through the wording of Turkish Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety and Law No. 5510 on Social Insurance and General Health Insurance to set out how many days employers in Turkey have to report a work accident, who reports it, what the penalty provision says and how an internal record differs from the SGK notification.

Work accident reporting in Turkey means informing the Social Security Institution (SGK) about the injured insured person’s situation using the work accident and occupational disease notification form. The law requires the employer to report work accidents within three working days after the accident; it also separately requires that the accident be reported immediately to the competent local law enforcement authorities.

Work accident reporting deadline: how many days do you have?

Article 14(2) of Law No. 6331 on Occupational Health and Safety states that the employer must report work accidents to SGK within three working days after the accident. Article 13 of Law No. 5510 describes the same deadline through the notification form: immediately to law enforcement, and to SGK no later than three working days after the accident. If the accident happened at a place outside the employer’s control, the period starts from the date the accident became known.

For details of how working days are counted — for example whether Saturday counts — you need to check SGK’s current guidance. The safest way to avoid doubt is to start preparing the notification on the day of the accident; leaving it to the last day can make you miss the deadline over even small hitches, such as missing information or an authorised person who cannot be reached.

Who reports a work accident, and how is SGK notified?

The law lists submitting the form to the Institution directly or by registered mail; the form, content and implementation details are left to regulations issued by the Institution. Confirm the current reporting channel through SGK announcements and with your accountant or HR advisor. Accuracy matters too: the law provides that if the reported facts turn out to be untrue and the event was not a work accident, any undue payments are recovered from those who made the false report.

Penalty for not reporting a work accident in 2026: what the law says

Article 26 of Law No. 6331 states that an administrative fine applies to an employer who fails to meet the reporting obligation under Article 14(2). Unlike other occupational health and safety fines, these reporting fines are imposed directly by SGK. The amount may stay the same or be increased depending on the number of employees and the hazard class of the workplace (Article 26(3)).

We do not give an amount in this article. Check the current amount in announcements published by SGK and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and ask your occupational safety specialist or legal advisor how it applies to your own workplace. Meeting the deadline after an accident is cheaper than arguing about the fine.

Does an internal incident record replace the SGK notification?

No. These are two separate tasks. The SGK notification informs the Institution about the accident. The internal record relates to the obligation under Article 14(1) of Law No. 6331: the employer keeps a record of all work accidents, carries out the necessary investigations and prepares reports on them. The first faces outward, the second inward — and without the second, it is hard to stop the accident from happening again.

Consistency between the two records also matters. If the same accident appears with one time in the SGK form, another time in the internal incident record and a third location in the written accident report, every later investigation starts by explaining that difference. It is therefore a useful habit for the person preparing the form to see the internal record, and for the person keeping the internal record to see the form.

Accident-day checklist

1. First aid is given to the injured person, who is referred to a healthcare facility if needed.
2. The area is made safe. The machine is stopped and the traces of the accident are photographed before they are disturbed.
3. Check whether law enforcement has been notified; the person responsible must be clear.
4. An internal incident record is opened: date, time, location, injured person, witnesses and first aid given.
5. The person who will report and the deadline are set in writing; preparation starts on the day of the accident.
6. The SGK form is submitted and the proof of submission is kept with the record.
7. An investigation meeting is held: the occupational safety specialist, the workplace physician and the relevant supervisor meet.
8. A root cause analysis is carried out and a corrective action raised, with an owner and a due date.

Let us go back to the Friday example from the start. When the supervisor gets back from the hospital, their first job is to write down who will file the report and by when, open the incident record that same evening and not leave the photos and witness names until after the weekend. Having to ask “who had this?” on Monday morning is the most common way the deadline quietly runs out.

Common mistakes in work accident reporting

• Holding the report back: Letting the deadline pass while waiting for the employee’s condition to become clear or for a medical report. The clock runs from the accident.
• Not naming an owner: A report everyone assumes someone else is filing may never be filed by anyone.
• Not keeping proof of submission: The document showing when the report was made should stay with the record.
• Mistaking the internal record for the report: An internal incident report does not replace the SGK notification form.
• Not collecting evidence in the first hours: Photos, witnesses and the state of the machine cannot be reconstructed days later.

Where does tracking work accidents in Excel, on paper and by email break down?

In a workplace with a few accidents a year, an Excel sheet works: columns for accident date, reporting deadline, date reported and owner are enough. What the sheet does not do: if nobody fills in the “reporting deadline” column, there is no warning of the approaching deadline. When the accident report is on paper, the photos on a phone and the hospital documents in email, the sheet becomes just a list of dates. When the accident is reviewed a few months later, you are left trying to remember who did what and when.

Internal records in KurumsalPortal: alongside the SGK notification, not instead of it

The OHS Incident / Near Miss Management module records work accidents, near misses and hazardous situations with location and photos. The record is reviewed, the root cause is analysed, a corrective action is assigned to an owner and closed with evidence; the outcome goes into the closing report. The module helps keep the recording and investigation work under Article 14 of Law No. 6331 orderly within the company.

The limit needs to be stated clearly: records in the module are for internal tracking and do not replace the SGK notification. You file the SGK notification through your own channel, within the period set by law. KurumsalPortal holds the work before and after that notification: recording the event, investigating it and closing the action with evidence.

If you want to see the recording, investigation and action flow after an accident in one place, see the OHS Incident / Near Miss Management page; for the other modules, see the KurumsalPortal page.