Türkiye's e-Document Thresholds for Restaurants

In Türkiye, three e-document thresholds matter to a restaurant in 2026. First: a business whose annual gross sales revenue exceeds 3 million TL must switch to e-Fatura (e-invoice); the threshold is written into the communiqué as a fixed amount and does not rise each year. Second: since 1 January 2026, every invoice issued by a business keeping books on the balance-sheet basis must be an e-Arşiv (e-archive) invoice regardless of amount. Third: the line between a receipt and an invoice for consumer sales is 12,000 TL for 2026. This guide reflects the legislation in force as of August 2026.

The restaurant's e-document map

The entire e-document regime that concerns a restaurant sits under one umbrella text: Tax Procedure Law General Communiqué No. 509 (Official Gazette 19.10.2019). Later communiqués (526, 535, 573, 588, 589) wrote the thresholds and dates into that text. The 2026 table looks like this:

e-Adisyon is the most asked-about but least mandatory row of this table: as of August 2026 no general obligation announcement has been published, and the application is voluntary. For its scope, transition requirements and mechanics, see the e-Adisyon guide.

e-Fatura: who must switch, and when

The general rule is clear: a taxpayer whose gross sales revenue reaches 3 million TL or more in 2022 or any later accounting period must issue e-Fatura invoices from the beginning of the seventh month (1 July) of the following year. Concrete example: a restaurant that exceeded 3 million TL in 2025 entered scope on 1 July 2026; one that exceeds it in 2026 will enter on 1 July 2027.

Two special cases concern restaurants:

1. Online sales: the threshold is 500 thousand TL. For businesses selling through their own website or marketplace platforms, the threshold is 500 thousand TL, not 3 million. A restaurant selling in its own name through food-ordering platforms needs to assess its revenue under this rule; this threshold pulls even a small business into scope quickly.
2. Hotels: no revenue condition. Accommodation facilities holding an investment or operation license from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism or a municipality are in e-Fatura scope regardless of revenue. A restaurant operating inside a hotel works under the same rule.

A critical nuance: these thresholds are fixed. The 3 million, 500 thousand and 10 million TL amounts are written into the communiqué as fixed figures; the communiqués that update fines and limits every December (No. 588 for 2026) do not touch them. The practical consequence: every menu price increase moves you closer to the threshold while the threshold stands still.

e-Arşiv: the 2026 turning point

There are two doors into the e-Arşiv invoice. The first is automatic: every taxpayer who joins e-Fatura also joins e-Arşiv; invoices issued to customers not registered for e-Fatura (including consumers) become e-Arşiv invoices. The second door is the real news of 2026.

The rule introduced by Communiqué No. 573 (Official Gazette 12.11.2024): since 1 January 2026, all invoices issued by taxpayers who are not in any e-document application and who keep books on the balance-sheet basis must be e-Arşiv invoices regardless of amount, issued through the tax authority's (GİB) portal or a private integrator. In other words, even a balance-sheet-basis restaurant below the e-Fatura revenue threshold can no longer issue paper invoices; every invoice it issues is electronic. The GİB portal is free for this purpose.

Communiqué No. 589 (Official Gazette 31.12.2025) added a deferral: for taxpayers under the simplified regime and those keeping books on the operating-account basis, the no-threshold obligation was postponed to 1 January 2027. Until 31 December 2026 these businesses issue e-Arşiv invoices only above 3,000 TL including taxes; from 1 January 2027 the amount threshold disappears for them too.

Old information that needs correcting: many guides online still describe the e-Arşiv thresholds as "5,000 TL for taxpayers, 30,000 TL for consumers". Those thresholds were abolished by Communiqué No. 573; they gave way to a single 3,000 TL threshold in 2025, and from 2026 the threshold disappeared entirely on the balance-sheet basis.

The 12,000 TL invoice limit: receipt or invoice?

This is the threshold that fires most often in daily operations. Under article 232 of the Tax Procedure Law, the invoice-issuance limit is updated every year by revaluation; the 2026 amount was set at 12,000 TL by Communiqué No. 588 (Official Gazette 31.12.2025, No. 33124, 5th repeated issue). The 12,900 TL figure circulating in some sources is wrong: fractions below 5% of the raw amount calculated with the 25.49% revaluation rate are discarded, and the official figure in the Official Gazette text is 12,000 TL.

The decision rule at the register has four lines:

1. The customer is a consumer and the bill is 12,000 TL or less: a new generation fiscal cash register (ÖKC) receipt is sufficient.
2. The bill is above 12,000 TL: an invoice is mandatory.
3. The customer asks for an invoice: one is issued regardless of amount.
4. The customer is a taxpayer (corporate meal, company account): in practice they always ask for an invoice; e-Fatura for registered customers, e-Arşiv for the rest.

Which device the receipt comes from is its own body of legislation; for the full fiscal cash register obligation, see the guide to Türkiye's new generation fiscal cash registers. Issuing a receipt above the limit instead of an invoice is expensive: in 2026 the tiered document fines start at a minimum of 17,000 TL per document; the full list is in the 2026 fines guide.

e-İrsaliye: not for the single location, for the chain

The e-İrsaliye (e-dispatch note) scope: taxpayers registered for e-Fatura whose gross sales revenue reached 10 million TL or more in 2021 or a later accounting period (there are also sector-specific scopes such as excise goods and mining, which do not concern restaurants). A restaurant operating in a single location and not shipping goods effectively never issues one, even above 10 million TL in revenue; there is no dispatch to document.

The critical scenario is chains: a business moving product from a central kitchen or central warehouse to its branches must, once in scope, issue an e-İrsaliye for each of those shipments. A growing brand's "let's move to a central kitchen" decision is also an e-document decision; the dispatch routine should be in place before the operation starts.

Common misconceptions

1. "A low-revenue restaurant never deals with e-documents." No longer true. Even below the e-Fatura threshold, if you keep books on the balance-sheet basis, every invoice you issue since 1 January 2026 must be an e-Arşiv invoice regardless of amount. It can be issued free of charge through the GİB portal, so cost is no excuse either.
2. "The e-Arşiv thresholds are 5,000/30,000 TL." Outdated. Both thresholds were abolished by Communiqué No. 573 (Official Gazette 12.11.2024); the same amendment also repealed the "sum of same-day invoices to the same person" rule. The current rule: no threshold on the balance-sheet basis, 3,000 TL for the simplified regime and operating account until 31 December 2026.
3. "The e-Fatura threshold rises with inflation every year." Wrong. The 3 million, 500 thousand and 10 million TL thresholds are fixed amounts in the communiqué; annual limit communiqués like No. 588 do not update them. Inflation pulls more restaurants into scope every year; waiting on the assumption that "the threshold will rise too" is the wrong plan.

There is an operational side to these thresholds too: whichever document regime you land in, sales need to flow in one consistent stream from the register, the floor and the delivery channels. dojofood POS works with a Pavo fiscal cash register integration that ties sales to the receipt correctly, and its e-Adisyon integration is live. See the payment integrations page for details.

Official sources

• Tax Procedure Law General Communiqué No. 509, current consolidated text with footnotes (Turkish): e-Fatura IV.1.4-IV.1.5, e-Arşiv IV.2.4, e-İrsaliye IV.3.5-IV.3.6, e-Adisyon IV.12
• Communiqué No. 588 (Official Gazette 31.12.2025, No. 33124, 5th repeated issue, Turkish): 2026 limits and amounts, 12,000 TL invoice limit
• Communiqué No. 589 (Official Gazette 31.12.2025, No. 33124, Turkish): e-Arşiv deferral for the simplified regime and operating account
• GİB e-document announcement archive (Turkish): obligation announcements are published on this page
• GİB e-document legislation index (Turkish): all communiqués and guides

Note: Communiqué No. 573 (Official Gazette 12.11.2024, No. 32720), which introduced the no-threshold e-Arşiv obligation, and Communiqué No. 535 (Official Gazette 22.01.2022, No. 31727), which lowered the e-Fatura threshold to 3 million TL, are both consolidated into the No. 509 text above.

This content is for information purposes; consult your tax advisor or accountant for your business's specific situation.