When a couple separates and a divorce action is filed in Turkey, the financial reality of running two households rarely waits for the court to reach a final decision. Cases can take many months, sometimes years, to conclude, and during that time the economically weaker spouse and any children of the marriage still need to cover housing, living costs, and daily expenses. Turkish law addresses this gap through a temporary form of maintenance that secures the basic needs of the family while the litigation is pending, ensuring that no one is forced into hardship simply because the marriage is ending.
The Legal Basis of Temporary Maintenance
This protection is rooted in Article 169 of the Turkish Civil Code (Türk Medeni Kanunu), which provides: “Once a divorce or separation action has been filed, the judge shall, of their own motion, take the temporary measures necessary for the duration of the proceedings, in particular those relating to the housing and maintenance of the spouses, the management of the spouses’ property, and the care and protection of the children.”
In Turkish legal practice this temporary maintenance is referred to as tedbir nafakası, which can be translated as interim or precautionary alimony. It is worth noting that the Civil Code does not actually use the phrase “interim alimony” in the text of the article; the heading of Article 169 speaks of temporary measures. The concept of interim alimony itself has been developed through Turkish case law and legal doctrine as one of the most important of those temporary measures, and it is the form most frequently encountered in divorce proceedings.
How the Protection Works During the Marriage
A key principle underlying this support is that a marriage continues to exist in legal terms until the divorce decree becomes final. Because the marital bond is still legally intact while the case is ongoing, the spouses’ mutual duty to support one another also continues. Interim alimony is the mechanism that gives practical effect to this ongoing obligation during a period when the spouses are usually living apart and the relationship has broken down in every other respect.
Filing for divorce or separation gives the spouses the right to live separately, and Turkish law accepts that this physical separation should not leave the financially dependent spouse without means. The aim of the measure is straightforward: to prevent either spouse or the children from suffering material hardship during the litigation, and to preserve, as far as possible, the standard of living the dependent party enjoyed while the couple was still together.
Support for Both the Spouse and the Children
Temporary maintenance under Turkish law is not limited to the spouses. Article 169 expressly extends the judge’s protective measures to the care and protection of the children, which means interim support can be ordered both for the economically weaker spouse and for any minor children of the marriage. In practice the court often grants a separate amount for the spouse and a separate amount for the children, calculated according to their respective needs.
Alongside the financial side, the temporary measures may also address the custody and living arrangements of the children for the duration of the case. The court can place the children provisionally with one parent while regulating the other parent’s contact, always with the best interests of the child as the guiding consideration. For foreign and binational families, where one parent may be living abroad or planning to leave Turkey, these provisional arrangements can be of decisive practical importance and should be addressed at the very start of the proceedings.
Fault Is Not a Condition
One of the most distinctive features of this form of support, and one that often surprises foreign clients, is that fault plays no role in granting it. Because interim alimony is a temporary protective measure rather than a final allocation of responsibility for the breakdown of the marriage, the court does not examine which spouse was to blame before ordering it. The decisive question is purely economic: which party is financially weaker and in need of support during the proceedings.
This means that even a spouse whose conduct contributed to the breakdown of the marriage may still be entitled to interim alimony while the case is pending. Turkish courts have made clear that the question of fault belongs to the final judgment and to any later claims for post-divorce alimony or compensation, not to the temporary measures taken at the outset. The dependent spouse’s immediate need for housing and subsistence takes priority over questions of who was right or wrong in the marriage.
The Judge Acts on Their Own Initiative
A further important characteristic of Article 169 is that the judge is required to act on their own motion. The provision obliges the court to take the necessary temporary measures automatically, without waiting for a formal request from either party. In principle, therefore, a judge can order interim alimony in favor of the financially weaker spouse or the children even where no one has specifically asked for it.
This duty is balanced, however, by the principle that a court cannot award more than has been requested where a specific demand has in fact been made. In other words, if a party does request a particular amount, the judge is bound by that request and cannot exceed it, but the absence of a request does not prevent the court from protecting a vulnerable spouse or child. There is also a practical timing point worth understanding: where interim support is not sought in the initial petition but is requested later, Turkish courts generally award it from the date of that later request rather than from the date the case began.
When the Support Begins and How the Amount Is Set
As a general rule, interim alimony is granted from the date the divorce or separation action is filed and is payable from that date through to the conclusion of the case. Turkish courts treat the support as having arisen, in terms of the amount awarded, on the date the action was filed. The court may, however, set a later starting date where the specific circumstances of the file justify it, so the filing date is the default rather than an inflexible rule.
The amount itself is left to the discretion of the judge and is not calculated as a fixed percentage of either spouse’s income. Instead, the court weighs the incomes, living standards, and needs of both parties, aiming to set an amount that allows the dependent spouse to maintain a standard of living comparable to the one enjoyed during the marriage, taking into account the realities of living separately. Because the assessment depends on concrete financial information, the court generally fixes the amount soon after the documents reflecting the parties’ economic and social circumstances have reached the case file. Payment is made monthly and in advance, consistent with the general rules governing maintenance under Turkish law.
Enforcing an Unpaid Order
An order for interim alimony is typically made through an interlocutory decision during the proceedings, and it can be enforced even before the divorce case as a whole has concluded. If the spouse ordered to pay fails to do so voluntarily, the receiving party is not left without a remedy. The unpaid amounts can be collected through enforcement proceedings, and accumulated arrears are generally recovered through the enforcement office in the same way as other monetary claims.
The spouse against whom enforcement is initiated has the right to object to the payment order within seven days of its service, and a timely objection will suspend the enforcement. Where this happens, the creditor must then bring a separate action to set aside or annul the objection in order to proceed with collection. Turkish law also treats the persistent failure to pay maintenance with particular seriousness, and a debtor who ignores a valid enforcement order for maintenance may face additional legal consequences beyond ordinary debt collection. As to interest, Turkish courts have held that interest runs only from the point the debt becomes due and payable, not for the earlier period between the filing of the case and the decision fixing the amount.
What Happens When the Divorce Concludes
Interim alimony is, by its nature, temporary. It comes to an end when the divorce judgment becomes final, and at that point it either ceases altogether or transforms into a different and permanent form of maintenance depending on the outcome of the case. Where the conditions are met and a claim has been made, the support for the spouse may continue after the divorce as poverty alimony, while support for the children continues as child support. The interim amount paid during the case may also be set off against, or adjusted in light of, the final maintenance figure that the court determines.
This continuity is important for foreign spouses to understand, because the financial arrangements during the case and the financial arrangements after the divorce are governed by different rules and serve different purposes. The interim measure exists only to bridge the litigation period and is granted without reference to fault, whereas post-divorce alimony depends on additional conditions and, in the case of poverty alimony, on the relative fault and financial position of the parties.
A Related Route Outside Divorce Proceedings
Turkish law also provides a closely related form of temporary support that does not depend on a divorce action being filed at all. Under Article 197 of the Turkish Civil Code, where one spouse is justified in living separately, that spouse can seek maintenance as an independent claim during the period of de facto separation, even if no divorce or separation case has yet been opened. This is a separate procedural path from the temporary measures taken under Article 169 within an ongoing divorce, and it allows a spouse to secure financial support during a separation that has not yet become formal litigation.
For foreign nationals who are separated but not yet ready to commit to a full divorce, or who are still gathering documents and authenticating foreign records before filing, this alternative can be a valuable safeguard. Whether it is more appropriate to seek support under Article 197 as a standalone claim, or to file for divorce and rely on the temporary measures of Article 169, depends on the individual circumstances of the family. A Turkish law office experienced in advising international clients can assess which route best protects a dependent spouse and any children, prepare the necessary financial evidence, and ensure that any order obtained is properly enforced if the other spouse fails to comply.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation. We are available online for clients located outside Turkey.
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