Türkiye

Summary

Türkiye is the rare country where the bow is written into the hunting act itself rather than inferred from silence. Law 4915 lists bow and arrow among the equipment a visiting hunter may bring into the country, and the hunting tourism regulation says in one line that foreign and Turkish hunters alike may hunt with it. Nothing anywhere sets a draw weight, an arrow weight or a broadhead width.

For a visiting bowhunter the route runs through hunting tourism: a temporary hunting document issued by the provincial directorate, with no exam, plus the hunting permit fee. Booked through an agency it opens the state and general grounds and the quota big game; without an agency it is limited to private grounds, and the ground’s operator files the application. Either way the document names the ground, the dates and the species, and hunting outside them is its own offence.

What the law says

• Hunting Act, art. 6 (1): hunting is done, on condition of holding the hunting document and the hunting permit, with the weapons, means and trained animals permitted by the laws, according to the hunting plans or the decisions of the Central Hunting Commission. This is an open reference, not a closed list like Italy’s: what matters is whether another law names the means.
• Art. 16: hunter tourists may bring with them bow and arrow, and rifled and smooth-bore hunting guns with their ammunition. The bow is named in the act, in the article written for the hunter arriving from abroad.
• Hunting tourism regulation, art. 25: foreign hunters may hunt with the guns, ammunition and bow and arrow they brought in under the act or acquired in Türkiye; Turkish hunters may hunt on their own gun licence and with bow and arrow.
• Central Hunting Commission decision, art. 16 (1): hunting with a sparrowhawk or with bow and arrow without a hunting document and a hunting permit is prohibited. The sentence sits in the article on trained animals, next to hunting with a sparrowhawk. It is written as a prohibition and says nothing about hunting with the papers in hand; what carries this page is art. 25 of the regulation, which states the permission directly.
• Art. 10 of the same decision lists the prohibited means — automatic and pump guns, air guns, live decoys, night-vision devices, poison, magnetic and light devices, traps, drones. The bow appears nowhere in it.
• Equipment: no text read sets a minimum draw weight, arrow weight or broadhead width, and none mentions mechanical heads or lighted nocks. The only figure written for the bow anywhere is a duration: under the annual instruction the hunting window is five consecutive days for a Turkish hunter and seven for a foreign one, and seven for everyone hunting with the bow.
• Sanction: hunting without the temporary hunting document is an administrative fine under art. 24 of the act, and hunting outside the species and places written on that document is a separate fine under art. 25.

Which game, with which weapon

The hunting tourism regulation sets the weapon by species group, and this is the one place where the bow is measured against the rifle: art. 49 gives rifled or smooth-bore guns for wild boar, fox and jackal, smooth-bore for small mammals and birds, and, for the other big game, a rifled gun of 6.5 to 9.8 mm or bow and arrow. No text read defines “the other big game”. The species in the table above are the ones the 2025-2026 supplementary decision put on quota — wild goat, red deer, chamois, roe deer and Anatolian wild sheep — which is where that list comes from, not from a definition.

Wild boar is where two texts differ. Art. 49 of the regulation does not name the bow for boar. The annual instruction for 2026-2027 does, in as many words: at the boar hunt a rifled gun, a smooth-bore with a single slug, or bow and arrow. Which of the two prevails is not written anywhere we read.

Small mammals and birds are the open end. The commission decision lets any licensed hunter use the bow, but within an organised hunt art. 49 gives only the smooth-bore for that group, and no text read says what a bowhunter does about it.

Foreign hunters

• Temporary hunting document (geçici avcılık belgesi): issued by the provincial directorate to a foreign tourist hunter coming through an agency or on their own, under art. 10 of the hunting tourism regulation. No foreign tourist hunter may hunt without it. It carries the hunter, the hunting ground, the dates, the weapons and the species, and it runs for the length of the permitted stay.
• The file is short: the application form, the receipt for the document fee, and proof of the hunting permit fee — plus the hunting fee where an agency applies (art. 11 and 12). No exam. The home hunting licence is not among the documents the regulation lists, though the European Bowhunting Federation says to bring it.
• Through an agency or through a ground’s operator: a foreign tourist cannot hunt on their own. Organised hunts are run by group A travel agencies licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and holding the hunting tourism permit of the General Directorate (art. 5); the quota of the state and general grounds open to a tourist is the agency quota (art. 30 (2)). Without an agency, a tourist may hunt only in private grounds and grounds run by a private person or company, and the application is filed for them by the ground’s operator or an agency (art. 10 (5), 11).
• Bringing the bow: art. 16 of the act lets a hunter tourist bring bow and arrow into the country. The temporary import document required by art. 11 (4) of the regulation is written for guns and their ammunition; no text read says whether anything is asked for a bow.
• Escort: organised hunts for the hunting tourism species take place accompanied by a ministry official, at most two, and the agency must employ a certified hunt organiser.
• Resident foreigners hold a foreign hunting document, issued on reciprocity with the hunter’s own country, and apply for quota species with a special hunting permit of their own (art. 20).

Seasons

Wild boar runs almost the whole hunting year at the stand and from late August to mid-February as a driven hunt. The quota big game is a different regime: the species, the sexes, the quotas and the dates come each year in a supplementary decision to the annual instruction, and quotas are drawn by lot for Turkish hunters and auctioned to agencies. The 2026-2027 supplementary decision had not been published when this page was written, so the table above carries the 2025-2026 windows as the shape to expect, not as this season’s dates.

Before you go

This page describes the Turkish texts as they stood on the date below. The act, the hunting tourism regulation and the annual instruction were read on the official files; the Central Hunting Commission decision was read on a legal database, because the gazette’s own PDF would not open — if a word of art. 10 or art. 16 matters to you, check it against the gazette. Ask the agency or the ground’s operator for the number of the current supplementary decision and for the species written on your temporary document, because hunting beside them is fined separately. A 2026 amendment to the act introduced “traditional hunting” as a category and left the Directorate General to write its rules; if the bow is placed there, this page changes. The final check is yours.

Open questions

• The crossbow. No text read names it, in Turkish or otherwise: it is neither among the prohibited means of art. 10 of the commission decision nor among the permitted ones. Since art. 6 of the act asks for means “permitted by the laws”, its position is undetermined.
• The home hunting licence. The regulation’s document lists do not include it; the European Bowhunting Federation says a non-resident presents it. To be confirmed with a provincial directorate.
• Small game with the bow inside an organised hunt, given art. 49 of the hunting tourism regulation.
• The 2026-2027 supplementary decision with this season’s quota species and dates.