Through the amending regulation prepared by the Ministry of Trade and published in the Official Gazette dated 1 July 2026 and numbered 33297, a comprehensive update has been made to the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices, which is the core piece of legislation in the field of advertising. The amendments cover a broad area, ranging from social media advertising to AI content, and from discount pricing to consumer reviews.

This legal brief explains the amendments made to the Regulation, the points that will change in practice, and the concrete steps businesses need to take, comparing them with the rules currently in force.

The amendments will enter into force as of 1 August 2026, providing advertisers, media outlets, and social media influencers with a compliance window of approximately one month.

New concepts introduced into the Regulation

One of the most significant aspects of the amendment is that certain concepts, long used in digital marketing but without a direct counterpart in binding legislation, are for the first time defined at the level of the Regulation. Four new concepts have been added to the definitions article of the Regulation.

The foremost of these is the social media influencer. This role, commonly known to the public as "influencer," was previously defined only in a 2021 guideline of the Advertising Board, and is now for the first time defined at the level of the Regulation, that is, in a binding instrument published in the Official Gazette. The Regulation defines a social media influencer as a natural or legal person who shares content on social media aimed at promoting a good or service, whether on their own behalf or on behalf of an advertiser, and who converts this communication into any form of benefit. The significance of this distinction is addressed separately in the section on influencer advertising below.

The second concept defined is consumer reviews. Comments made by consumers online regarding a good or service, together with ratings such as scores and stars, fall within this scope. The "reviews" and "ratings" that have become an everyday part of online shopping are thereby tied to a legal definition.

Third, the concept of an environmental claim has been defined. Statements or visuals asserting that a product provides an environmental benefit, or that its adverse impact has been reduced, throughout the process from production to disposal, fall within this scope. To complement these concepts, a definition of social media has also been included.

The importance of these definitions lies in the fact that they form the basis for the obligations that follow them. Most of the rules discussed below are built directly upon these new concepts.

To assess the new rules correctly, it is necessary to recall the previous period. Advertising by social media influencers was not unregulated before the 2026 amendment. By its principle decision no. 2021/2 taken at its meeting dated 4 May 2021, the Advertising Board put into force the Guideline on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices Carried Out by Social Media Influencers, and this Guideline was published on the Ministry of Trade's website. The Guideline set out in detail the definition of an influencer, the prohibition of surreptitious advertising, the circumstances in which disclosure must be made, how labels should appear, and even the expressions that could be used on a platform-by-platform basis (such as #Reklam, #Sponsor, #İşbirliği).

However, this Guideline entered into force not by publication in the Official Gazette like a law or regulation, but by a decision of the Advertising Board. In terms of its legal nature, it was less a binding regulatory instrument than a guiding document showing how existing provisions were to be applied. Indeed, the Guideline itself stated that its provisions could not be interpreted contrary to the surreptitious advertising rules of the Law and the Regulation. Despite this, in practice the concrete obligations in the Guideline became direct criteria for supervision, and violations of them became the subject of suspension and administrative fine decisions, formally grounded in the relevant articles of Law No. 6502 and of the Regulation. Imposing new obligations in practice, and applying sanctions for their violation, on the basis of a document that had not been published in the Official Gazette and did not carry the character of a duly issued regulation, was criticized as a controversial practice from the standpoint of the principles of legality and legal certainty in administrative sanctions.

This is precisely where the true significance of the 2026 amendment lies. Through the new Article 23/A added to the Regulation, the amendment has moved most of these rules out of the guideline level and directly into binding secondary legislation published in the Official Gazette. In this way, these obligations have for the first time acquired a solid and indisputable normative basis. Accordingly, the real novelty here is not that the rules are introduced for the first time, but that their legal basis has been strengthened.

As for the content of the article, where there is redirection to a good or service or to the advertiser, the provision of a benefit such as a fee or a free or discounted product, the sharing of prize-draw and campaign content for promotional purposes, or the obtaining of a benefit in return for participation in an event, it must be clearly stated that the content is advertising. The label is required to be distinguishable from the background and legible, to be visible at first glance without the consumer needing to scroll the screen, and, where applicable, to appear before and separately from other labels. In audio-only broadcasts, the disclosure must be made verbally at the beginning of the broadcast and before the advertisement. A significant portion of these criteria has essentially been carried over almost verbatim from the 2021 Guideline.

That said, in some respects the rules have changed, and have indeed become stricter. The most striking difference appears in the expressions that may be used. The 2021 Guideline permitted a broad list of labels such as #Reklam, #Reklam/Tanıtım, #Sponsor, #İşbirliği, #Ortaklık, as well as explanations of the "provided by @[advertiser]" or "thanks" type. The new Regulation, however, requires that the post must contain one of the expressions "Reklam" (Advertisement) or "Tanıtım" (Promotion). This means that tags such as "#Sponsor," "#İşbirliği," or "#Ortaklık" alone will no longer be sufficient, and that acknowledgment statements may only be used together with the "Reklam" or "Tanıtım" wording. In addition, the element of the promotion being converted into any form of benefit has been added to the definition of an influencer, situations such as prize draws and events have been expressly enumerated, and a rule has been introduced requiring disclosure in each post where the content is spread across more than one post. On the other hand, certain detailed conduct rules in the Guideline, such as indicating that a filter has been applied to an image or not endorsing a product that has not been tried, have not been reproduced verbatim in the new article, and these matters will continue to be assessed within the framework of the general provisions of the Regulation.

For example, it will no longer be sufficient for a content creator who has been sent a free product to bury a single "#işbirliği" tag among dozens of other tags in a post praising the product. The wording "Reklam" or "Tanıtım" must be included, in a legible manner, in the first-visible portion of the post. This obligation concerns not only the influencer but also the advertiser establishing the collaboration and the intermediary agency.

Targeted advertising and the protection of children

The concept of targeted advertising has been regulated through the new Article 25/A added to the Regulation. Presenting advertisements specifically to particular individuals or groups by analyzing consumers' online behavior, past preferences, location information, or demographic data is regarded as targeted advertising.

The ability to carry out such advertising is conditioned on informing the consumer, in a clear and easily accessible manner, of the criteria according to which the advertisement is shown and of how these criteria may be changed. Since the previous text did not address targeted advertising under a separate heading, the matter could only be assessed indirectly, through the protection of personal data and general principles of good faith.

The most striking aspect of the regulation is the absolute prohibition introduced with respect to children. Where it is known, or may reasonably be expected to be known, that the consumer is a child, targeted advertising using profiling methods based on personal data is entirely prohibited. For example, showing product-specific advertisements to child users by processing their behavioral data in an application heavily used by children will no longer be possible.

An important distinction must be underlined here. Article 25/A of the Regulation introduces a transparency obligation for targeted advertising, requiring the consumer to be informed of the criteria according to which the advertisement is shown. However, it does not address whether explicit consent is required for the processing of personal data for the purpose of targeted advertising. This dimension falls not within the scope of consumer legislation, but within the scope of Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data. Accordingly, Article 25/A does not replace existing data protection obligations; it is a complementary layer added on top of them.

The practical importance of the matter stems from the fact that targeted advertising and manipulative designs are already on the Advertising Board's agenda. Through the provision added in 2022 to the list of example practices in the annex to the Regulation, the Board classified redirecting interface designs that distort the consumer's decision-making will, that is, the practices known in international literature as dark patterns, as unfair commercial practices. In 2023, turning this subject into a separate area of review, it imposed administrative fines on numerous companies for pre-ticked boxes, false scarcity and urgency messages, hidden subscriptions that are made difficult to cancel, and designs that steer the will on consent screens. In personal-data-based marketing, the Board likewise does not regard as valid a consumer's consent that is embedded in a contract, pre-approved, or made difficult to withdraw.

On the data protection side, the established approach is even clearer. In its guideline on cookie practices and in its decisions, the Personal Data Protection Authority has established that presenting targeted advertising by profiling user behavior is subject not to legitimate interest but to explicit consent. More importantly, since explicit consent must be based on free will, it has stated that a service or membership cannot be made conditional on explicit consent, that doing so would vitiate the consent, and that it would amount to an abuse of right. This approach weakens a defense frequently encountered in practice. Many e-commerce marketplaces or social media platforms embed the permission for targeted advertising within the user agreement and argue that membership is not mandatory, and that the consideration for membership is precisely targeted advertising. Yet according to the prevailing view in both Turkish law and European Union law, consent that is made a precondition of a service or embedded in a contract is not deemed to have been given by free will. Indeed, in the 2023 Meta judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it was stated that personalized advertising as a rule cannot be based on the performance of a contract or on legitimate interest, that explicit consent is required for it, and that a platform's strong position in the market is an important criterion in assessing the freedom of consent. The Irish data protection authority likewise imposed administrative fines on Meta totaling EUR 390 million on the same grounds, and the European Data Protection Board took the view that the "consent or pay" model of large platforms does not, in most cases, provide valid consent, and that a free alternative that is ad-free or uses less personal data should instead be offered.

The 2019 decision of the Personal Data Protection Board concerning a loyalty-card application is frequently relied upon, in particular, in support of the membership-linked explicit-consent practice of e-commerce platforms in Turkey. The Board accepted that free will is not impaired where explicit consent is not made a condition of access to the core service, is tied only to an additional benefit, and the consumer can benefit from the service without giving consent. In our view, the consent to be obtained for targeted advertising activities should not be tied to the provision of the service; should be obtained by informing the user, a point reinforced by the amended Regulation; and should be entirely a matter of choice and revocable at any time, in a manner that does not prevent the user from benefiting from the advantages provided by membership (such as order tracking, saved addresses, and so on). Nevertheless, for data controllers the conclusion is clear: providing the transparency notice envisaged by Article 25/A of the new Regulation is not sufficient on its own; if personal data are to be processed for targeted advertising, an explicit consent that is independent of the contract, based on free will, and revocable must also be obtained.

AI-generated content and digital characters

The subject of artificial intelligence has been addressed in the Regulation in two distinct respects. First, where artificial intelligence or other software is used, or digital characters indistinguishable from humans are featured, in a manner that significantly affects the consumer's economic behavior, it has been made mandatory to state this clearly and comprehensibly.

Second, a more stringent prohibition has been introduced. Presenting a digital replica of a real person, created using artificial intelligence technologies, as having experienced or recommended a product when that person did not in fact use or recommend it, is prohibited. Since the previous text contained no specific provision on artificial intelligence and digital characters, such content could only be assessed within the framework of the general prohibition on deception.

For instance, where a promotional face that is entirely AI-generated but could be mistaken for a real human is used, it must be stated that this character is not real. Imitating the image of a well-known person using artificial intelligence to make it appear as though they are using a product falls directly within the scope of the prohibition, and additionally gives rise to liability for infringement of personality rights.

Reference price in discounted-sale advertising

One of the amendments that most directly concerns consumers has been made in Article 14, on discounted-sale advertising. Under the new rule, in advertisements for discounts on the sale of goods, the lowest price applied within the ten days preceding the start of the discount will be taken as the pre-discount price. For perishable goods such as fruit and vegetables, and for services, the price immediately preceding the discounted price will be taken into account.

At this point there is an important difference that often goes unnoticed. Under the previous text, the period used to determine the lowest price was thirty days. With the new rule, this period has been reduced to ten days. In addition, services, which were previously subject to the thirty-day lowest-price rule, have now been shifted to the "immediately preceding price" basis. It is clear that this change constitutes a step backward in terms of consumer rights.

Three further points have been clarified by the paragraphs added to the article. If a product is sold through different sales channels, the reference price in the discount advertisement will be determined solely on the basis of the price in the channel where the discount is applied, and the price in one channel cannot be used as the basis for a discount in another channel. Loyalty-program discounts that are easily accessible to the consumer will also be assessed within the scope of this article. Conditional sales tied to a particular purchase requirement, such as "buy three, pay for two," will likewise be subject to the same rules, save for the exception regarding the display of quantity.

For example, a business that has long sold a product at TRY 100 cannot raise the price to TRY 200 just before the discount and then advertise it as "50% off, TRY 100." The price to be taken as the basis is the lowest price within the ten days preceding the discount. Accordingly, a price increase made 11 days before the discount, which was prohibited under the previous rules, becomes possible with this new change.

Environmental claims and greenwashing

A topic that is less discussed publicly but is important for businesses is that of environmental claims. In this area, a new definition has been introduced and Article 17 has been redrafted.

Under the new rule, the certificates and approvals in advertisements containing environmental claims must be substantiated with documents obtained from competent authorities, from the relevant departments of universities, or from accredited or independent testing and assessment bodies. The use of general and vague "green" expressions, without explanation or in a manner that creates uncertainty for consumers, is prohibited. In addition, it must be clearly stated to which part of the product, or to which stage of its life cycle, the claim relates; and detailed information on the measurement and assessment method must be provided in the advertisement, via a link, or in a pop-up screen.

Under the previous text, environmental claims were subject only to the criterion of not being deceptive. The criterion of not being misleading has also been added to the new text, and concrete obligations have been introduced regarding substantiation, clarity, and redirection. This regulation aims to prevent the practices known internationally as greenwashing, that is, environmental assertions that have no real basis.

For example, a brand using expressions such as "eco-friendly" or "100% recyclable" must be able to show for which part of the product this claim is valid and on which document it is based. Presenting a product whose packaging alone is recyclable as though it were entirely environmentally friendly may be regarded as misleading.

Consumer reviews (comments and ratings)

Review and rating systems, which have become decisive in online shopping, have also been redrafted. In this context, Article 28/B has been amended in its entirety.

Under the new rule, a review of a product may only be made by consumers who have purchased that product, and reviews obtained from channels where the purchase cannot be verified may not be published. The rules on the publication of reviews will be displayed in an area accessible to the consumer, and reviews may not be limited only to certain topics. Reviews will be kept published for at least one year, without distinction between positive and negative, according to an objective criterion such as date or score. The reason for reviews that are not published will be notified immediately to the consumer who made the review. Having false reviews made, or entering into agreements to that end, in order to increase sales is expressly prohibited.

In addition, through the amendment made to Article 28/C, the period granted to the seller to respond before a negative review is published has been reduced from seventy-two hours to forty-eight hours. If no response is given within this period, the review will be published directly.

For example, an online sales platform will not be able to allow users who have not purchased the product to leave ratings and reviews, and will not be able to procure false positive reviews from outside sources. When a negative review is received, the seller will have forty-eight hours, rather than seventy-two, to respond.

Other changes that should not be overlooked

Alongside the prominent headings, other changes, narrow in scope but important in practice, have also been made.

In the article on accuracy and honesty, academic titles have been added to the statements that must be substantiated. Claims of academic titles used in advertising must also be capable of being documented. The comparative-advertising provision has been expanded to cover food supplements, and, in addition, advertising food supplements in a manner that creates the impression that they replace foods consumed as part of a normal diet has been prohibited.

It has been expressly stipulated that medicinal products for human use, electronic cigarettes, tobacco products, and alcoholic beverages may not be advertised, and the phrase "illegal games of chance" has been added alongside "illegal betting." Awards that are not based on previously announced objective criteria and that are obtained in return for a benefit may not be featured in advertisements. In the article on financial-service advertising, the phrase "and dividend" has been changed to "or dividend." In addition, Article 26 on goods and services subject to specific advertising regulation, together with one item of the list of deceptive commercial practices in the annex, has been repealed.

Entry into force and the compliance period

The amending regulation was published on 1 July 2026 and will enter into force on 1 August 2026. Since the entire Regulation will enter into force on the same date, the information circulating in public that certain provisions will enter into force later is inaccurate. This one-month period should be regarded as a transition period granted to businesses.

Sanction for violation

The Regulation is based on Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection. The supervision of advertising and practices contrary to these rules is carried out by the Advertising Board. In the event of a violation, the Board may decide on sanctions such as the interim or full suspension of the advertisement, its correction, and the imposition of an administrative fine. In determining the amount of the administrative fine, the degree of unfairness of the violation, the size of the benefit obtained or the harm caused, the degree of fault and the economic situation of the offender, and the medium in which the violation occurred (internet, TV, nationwide, and so on) are taken into account as decisive criteria.

In this respect, considering that these administrative fines, which for 2026 may be applied between TRY 99,339 and TRY 39,916,524 and are updated each year at the revaluation rate, compliance with the legislation is of critical importance for businesses not only for the protection of corporate reputation but also for the prevention of direct and serious financial consequences.

Recommendations for businesses

It would be advisable to complete certain steps before the entry-into-force date. Foremost among these are reviewing social media influencer and agency contracts in line with the new labeling rules, and adapting discount and price-display processes to the ten-day lowest-price rule. In addition, it is recommended to audit the review systems on websites and applications with regard to purchase verification, to add the necessary notices to AI content and targeted-advertising flows, and to redraft environmental claims in a manner that can be supported by documentation.

Considered as a whole, the amendments show an effort to bring Turkish advertising legislation into line with current practices such as social media, artificial intelligence, and data-based targeting. For businesses, the priority should be less about examining the rules one by one, and more about reviewing their advertising and sales processes as a whole against this framework.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the Commercial Advertising Regulation amendment enter into force? The amendment was published in the Official Gazette on 1 July 2026, and the entire Regulation enters into force on 1 August 2026.

Which wording is mandatory in social media influencer posts? One of the expressions "Reklam" (Advertisement) or "Tanıtım" (Promotion) must appear in the post, in a manner that is visible at first glance, legible, and distinguishable to the consumer. Together with this wording, the name of the advertiser or an acknowledgment statement to the brand must also be included.

Was social media influencer advertising not regulated at all before? It was regulated, but at a different level. In 2021, the Advertising Board published a guideline and set out the rules on influencer advertising there. However, because that guideline was not published in the Official Gazette and did not carry the character of a binding regulation, the prohibitions and fines based on it were a matter of debate. The 2026 amendment moved these rules for the first time directly into the Regulation, giving them a solid legal basis.

How is the reference price in a discount determined? For goods, the lowest price applied within the ten days preceding the start of the discount is taken as the basis. This period was previously thirty days. For perishable goods such as fruit and vegetables, and for services, the price immediately preceding the discounted price is taken into account.

What has changed in advertising directed at children? Where it is known, or may reasonably be expected to be known, that the consumer is a child, targeted advertising using profiling methods based on personal data is entirely prohibited.

Is a disclosure mandatory in AI-generated advertisements? Yes. In advertisements using digital characters indistinguishable from humans, this must be clearly stated. Presenting an AI replica of a real person as having used or recommended a product is prohibited.

What sanction applies in the event of a violation of the new rules? Supervisory authority lies with the Advertising Board. The Board may decide on the suspension of the advertisement, its correction, and the imposition of an administrative fine. As of 2026, administrative fines range from TRY 99,339 to TRY 39,916,524, and the amounts are updated each year.

Amendment to the Commercial Advertising Regulation: What Has Changed?