Clinic websites and Turkey's advertising rules: what can you publish, page by page?

A clinic website is the most closely inspected surface of Turkey's health promotion rules: the Regulation says provincial health directorates and the Ministry regularly scan websites (Art. 11(1)). This post does not repeat the general framework of the rules; we covered that in our post on the health advertising regulation. Here we translate the same rules into the pages of a site: what can you publish on which page, and what do you need to take down?

The legal basis is the Regulation on Promotion and Information Activities in Health Services (Sağlık Hizmetlerinde Tanıtım ve Bilgilendirme Faaliyetleri Hakkında Yönetmelik), published in the Resmî Gazete (Turkey's Official Gazette) of November 12, 2025, issue 33075 (hereafter "the Regulation"). The Regulation entered into force on the date of publication (Art. 14) and repealed the 2023 regulation of the same name (Art. 13). It covers health professionals, private health institutions and international health tourism intermediaries (Art. 2). This post is not legal advice; confirm with your own legal team before your site goes live.

The core distinction: promotion and information are allowed, advertising is not

The Regulation prohibits covert or open advertising in the provision of health services, while allowing promotion and information under certain principles (Art. 5(1)). Advertising is defined as any activity that "exceeds the limits of promotion and information" and puts a service, person or institution in the foreground (Art. 4(1)(d)).

What counts as promotion and information is defined too. For health facilities: address and contact details, working days and hours, the specialties in which patients are accepted, the professional and academic titles of the health professionals working there, and information that protects and improves health in the field of service (Art. 4(1)(ğ)(1)). For health professionals: their main and sub-specialties, academic titles, when and where they see patients, and related preventive health information (Art. 4(1)(ğ)(2)).

This list sketches the skeleton of a clinic website. When you start your page plan, ask which item on this list each page carries. If there is no match, the page most likely falls on the advertising side.

A page-by-page checklist

Below we go through the pages that raise the most questions, one by one.

The homepage and "why us" sections

The homepage is where the line between advertising and information is most easily crossed. The Regulation prohibits promotion that creates a perception that the service is "different from or superior to others," abuses people's trust or exploits their lack of knowledge (Art. 5(1)(h)). Promotion that gives the impression the facility provides services outside the specialties in which it accepts patients, or that puts its own service forward at the expense of other institutions, is prohibited as well (Art. 5(1)(c)). Review phrases such as "the best clinic in the region," "guaranteed results" or "100% success" against these two provisions. If you use numbers, remember Art. 5(1)(ğ): statistics and research results cannot be presented in a way that leads to conclusions different from what they actually show.

Physician pages

On a physician page, no specialist title based on certificates or similar training documents may be shown beyond the main and sub-specialties defined under Law No. 1219 (Art. 5(1)(d)). The same provision also lists what may be shown, provided it is within the specialty stated on the diploma: training received, certificates registered by the Ministry, scientific publications, meetings organized, academic awards, administrative and advisory roles, and memberships in specialty associations in Turkey and abroad. Building the physician page as a résumé limited to this list is both compliant and easy for patients to read.

Treatment pages and the blog

Treatment pages and blog posts should be information that protects and improves health. There are three limits. First, only health professionals authorized in the subject may provide information about health services (Art. 5(1)(b)); that is why an author or reviewer line with the physician's name and title under the content matters. Second, methods that are not scientifically and clinically proven, or not defined as medical procedures by the Ministry, cannot be featured (Art. 5(1)(ç)). Third, no perception may be created that the device or product used is superior; no covert or open company, product or brand promotion may be made, and no links may be given (Art. 5(1)(h)). A link to the device manufacturer's website is risky on this count too.

Before-and-after images

Before-and-after images are not banned; they are conditional. What Art. 7 means for a website:

• The explicit consent of the patient (or of the parent or guardian, if the patient is a minor or under guardianship) is obtained; consent may be taken in writing or electronically with the Visual Content Recording and Processing Consent Form in Annex 1 (Art. 7(1)(b)).
• The patient may see the image in advance and can withdraw permission at any time; withdrawal is acted on immediately (Art. 7(1)(c)). This calls for content management that can take an image out of the gallery quickly.
• No payment, discount or gift may be given in return for permission (Art. 7(1)(d)).
• Images cannot be retouched afterwards, and misleading makeup cannot be used (Art. 7(1)(e)).
• Before and after are taken in the same setting and under the same technical conditions; the procedure date and the imaging date are shown on the image (Art. 7(1)(f)).
• It is stated whether the image belongs to the physician concerned and to a real patient, and its source if it is borrowed (Art. 7(1)(g)).
• Images of the patient during surgery cannot be shared (Art. 7(1)(h)).
• In promotion aimed at Turkey, the image carries the following statement in an easily readable form (in Turkish; in English it reads): "In any surgical or interventional procedure, results may vary from person to person. It is recommended that you get a detailed opinion from your physician before the procedure." (Art. 7(1)(k))
• Image posts are closed to interactions such as comments, likes and reshares (Art. 7(1)(ğ)). Do not add a comment field to the gallery on your site.

In gallery design, it is safer to plan the date fields and the warning text as part of the image than to add them later.

Prices and campaigns

On a site aimed at Turkey, promotion and information cannot include fees, discounts, campaigns or promotions (Art. 5(1)(m)). Health services also cannot be the subject of marketing activities such as incentives, draws and gifts (Art. 5(1)(l)). Blocks such as "free initial consultation" or "a discount for the first 50 patients" fall foul of these two provisions. The only exception is the site aimed abroad, described below.

Patient reviews

In no medium, websites included, may advertising-style posts be made using thank-you or satisfaction messages from patients or their relatives (Art. 5(1)(e)); for image posts, Art. 7(1)(ğ) repeats the same rule, even if they were made on other platforms. A "what our patients say" section on the site, or an embedded review feed from a third-party review platform, should be assessed on this basis.

Contact, forms and personal data

Form and appointment-request pages are allowed, but promotion by phone call or by sending messages, emails or social media messages without the person's knowledge and consent is not (Art. 5(1)(k)). Only reply to the person's request when they come in through a form; get separate consent to send marketing messages. Promotion activities are carried out in line with KVKK (Turkey's personal data protection law), Additional Article 19 of Law No. 3359 and the Regulation on Personal Health Data (Art. 6(2)); under KVKK Art. 6(1), health data is a special category of personal data. If you ask for a diagnosis or photos in the form, set up the privacy notice and explicit consent flow with your legal team. Measuring which ads and pages on the site bring in inquiries (source attribution) is a separate matter and does not mean monitoring people; we covered it in our post on WhatsApp tracking.

Last-updated date and editor details

An often-missed requirement: the last-updated date of the information on websites and the contact details for reaching the site editor are stated clearly (Art. 5(1)(ı)). Building this at template level, as a field that appears at the bottom of every page, is safer than adding it page by page. If your content management system writes the update date automatically, make sure it changes for real content changes, not just typo fixes.

Search engines: titles and descriptions are covered too

The Regulation reaches beyond the site. Health facilities may register with search engines only on condition that the listing is not paid, sponsored or aimed at prominence; the keywords used in search engines and the information on the results page cannot contradict the Regulation's principles either (Art. 5(1)(i)). Page titles and meta descriptions appear on the results page; a meta description with "best," "guaranteed" or a price can cause problems even if the page itself is compliant. There is an exception for sponsored promotion during the first month after opening (Art. 5(1)(j)). We covered building organic visibility within these limits in our post on health tourism SEO.

Foreign-language pages: the separate regime in Art. 8

Art. 8 sets separate rules for facilities that serve international patients under a health tourism authorization certificate. These rules only apply to authorized facilities and intermediaries; the English page of a clinic without an authorization certificate is subject to the domestic rules.

Site requirements for an authorized facility:

• Promotion aimed abroad is carried out through a separate website or social media platform, and the site clearly states that services are provided within the scope of health tourism (Art. 8(1)(a)). The text does not say explicitly whether a language folder on the same domain counts as a "separate website"; make that call with your legal team.
• The health tourism authorization certificate is published on the site (Art. 8(1)(b)).
• The HealthTürkiye logo is used across all media (Art. 8(1)(e)).
• The facility name, title and URL on the site match the title and ownership name on the license issued by the Ministry (Art. 8(1)(f)). A facility that wants to use its registered trademark in the URL notifies the Ministry of the registration certificate (Art. 8(1)(ı)).
• Medical procedures that are prohibited or unauthorized in Turkey are not featured (Art. 8(2)).
• Promotion aimed at creating demand among people living in Turkey is prohibited (Art. 8(1)(c)). For that reason, a Turkish version should not be part of the site aimed abroad; sponsored promotion is in any case only allowed in languages other than Turkish (Art. 8(1)(a)).

When these conditions are met, the site aimed abroad gains two extra permissions: patient stories, reviews and thank-you messages may appear, provided the patient's explicit consent is documented (Art. 8(1)(ç)); and discounts, campaigns and competitive price announcements may be made (Art. 8(3)). On every matter Art. 8 does not cover, the domestic rules apply (Art. 8(4)): the rules on claims of superiority, unproven methods, certificate-based specialist titles and the Art. 7 conditions for before-and-after images apply on the site aimed abroad too.

For intermediaries' sites, additionally: the URL carries the trade name, business name or its abbreviations (Art. 8(1)(h)); and the intermediary states that the service is provided by the health facility it has signed a protocol with and that it is not itself a health facility (Art. 8(1)(ğ)).

If you plan to send ad traffic to the site aimed abroad, we covered the campaign side in our post on Google Ads for medical tourism.

The consequences of non-compliance

The Regulation sets out inspection and sanctions in detail. Provincial health directorates and the General Directorate regularly scan websites (Art. 11(1)); violations are inspected on complaint or on the authority's own finding and decided by the provincial commission (Art. 11(2), Art. 10). For health facilities and intermediaries, the sanctions listed in the Administrative Sanction Form in Annex 2 apply under the fifth paragraph of Additional Article 11 of Law No. 3359 (Art. 12(1)(a)). For content that endangers human health, an access ban may be requested under Law No. 5651 (Art. 12(1)(e)). Those who carry out promotion contrary to the principles on social media and websites and those who share it are equally responsible (Art. 5(2)); in other words, not only the agency or content team that runs the site but the facility itself is responsible.

A short list for reviewing your site

1. Does every page carry one of the items listed in Art. 4(1)(ğ)?
2. Does the template include a last-updated date and editor contact details (Art. 5(1)(ı))?
3. Is the site aimed at Turkey free of prices, discounts, campaigns, gifts and draws (Art. 5(1)(l), 5(1)(m))?
4. Is it free of posts built on patient thank-you and satisfaction messages (Art. 5(1)(e))?
5. Do before-and-after images have a consent form, dates and the warning statement, with comments closed (Art. 7)?
6. Do physician pages show only registered specialties and the information listed in Art. 5(1)(d)?
7. Are titles and meta descriptions free of superiority claims and prices (Art. 5(1)(i))?
8. Does the foreign-language site meet the conditions in Art. 8?

You can see how we handle the site, the ads and measurement together for health tourism clinics on our health tourism advertising agency page. For page design, see landing page design; for ads and measurement, see performance marketing.

Sources

• Regulation on Promotion and Information Activities in Health Services (Sağlık Hizmetlerinde Tanıtım ve Bilgilendirme Faaliyetleri Hakkında Yönetmelik), Resmî Gazete November 12, 2025, issue 33075: resmigazete.gov.tr (accessed October 2026)
• The same regulation, consolidated text: mevzuat.gov.tr (accessed October 2026)
• Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK): mevzuat.gov.tr (accessed October 2026)