Documents: Turkish to English Turkish → English
Turkish custody and maintenance orders (velayet, nafaka) translation
Certified English translation of Turkish court orders on custody (velayet), contact (kişisel ilişki) and maintenance (nafaka), whether inside a divorce judgment or made separately, for the family court, child visa and passport applications, the Child Maintenance Service and schools.
What the receiving body requires
“Where an affidavit, a witness statement or an exhibit to either is in a foreign language – (1) the party wishing to rely on it – (a) must have it translated, and (b) must file the foreign language document with the court, and (2) the translator must sign the original statement and must certify that the translation is accurate.”
Source:
· checked 29 August 2026The orders a Turkish family court makes
When a Turkish court decides a divorce it also decides the children, and the same orders can be made or varied later in separate proceedings. Custody (velayet) is granted to one parent; joint custody (ortak velayet) remains the exception in Turkish practice. Contact (kişisel ilişki) is set out as a timetable: for example the first and third weekends of each month from Saturday 09:00 to Sunday 17:00, half of the school holidays, and alternate religious festivals (bayram). Maintenance (nafaka) comes in four kinds: interim maintenance during the case (tedbir nafakası), child maintenance paid to the custodial parent (iştirak nafakası), spousal maintenance (yoksulluk nafakası) and support for a relative in need (yardım nafakası). Amounts are fixed in lira and most orders add an annual increase tied to the consumer price index or a fixed percentage. Orders are enforced through the enforcement offices, and a custody order can be varied on application (velayetin değiştirilmesi).
We translate the operative paragraphs with their amounts and increase clauses, the contact timetable as a table, the reasoning where it is included, the finality note and any enforcement annotation. The same rules of style apply as on our divorce page, so that a custody order and a divorce judgment translated at different times read alike.
Where the order is used in the UK
- Family court. Child arrangements and relocation cases where a Turkish order already exists. Türkiye and the UK are both parties to the 1996 Hague Convention on child protection and the 1980 Convention on abduction, so a Turkish custody measure is a document the court expects to see in translation. See translations for the family court and our guide to Turkish court documents for the UK family court.
- Home Office. A child's visa depends on the parent in the UK having sole responsibility or the other parent's consent, and a velayet order is the primary evidence of who has custody.
- HM Passport Office, when a child's British passport is applied for by one parent and the office asks who has parental responsibility.
- Child Maintenance Service and the courts, which ask whether a maintenance order already exists abroad; the UK's reciprocal enforcement arrangements extend to Türkiye, and a translated order is the starting point of an application.
- Schools and councils deciding which parent they may deal with.
What the translation must contain
Family proceedings follow the Family Procedure Rules, whose practice direction on evidence mirrors paragraph 23.2 of Civil Procedure Rules Practice Direction 32, quoted below: the translation is filed with the original and the translator certifies its accuracy. Our certificate does so, dated and signed, with our company details, and it also satisfies the Home Office and HMPO. One rendering deserves a warning. Velayet is translated as custody, with the Turkish word in brackets, and never as parental responsibility: under Turkish law the non-custodial parent loses velayet but keeps contact, whereas in England both parents normally keep parental responsibility. A translator who writes parental responsibility would be stating something the Turkish court did not decide.
Points that cause confusion
The lira figure on the order is not the sum being paid today if the order carries an increase clause and is several years old; we translate the figure and the clause and, if you supply the enforcement office's calculation, translate that too, so the reader sees both. An interim order (tedbir) is not a final one. And where the custody order is a paragraph of the divorce judgment, the whole judgment must be translated, since UK bodies reject an extract; see our divorce decree page. Court decisions carry a Turkish e-Apostil through e-Devlet if a solicitor asks for one; the Home Office and HMPO do not.
Price and turnaround
A separate custody or maintenance order is 2 to 4 pages of 1,000 characters, £20.00 to £40.00; an order embedded in a divorce judgment is priced with the judgment. The certificate is included in the price and no UK VAT is charged on it. Delivery is 2 to 3 working days as a certified PDF, with the fast option for hearing dates that are close and the economy option for those that are not. A signed hard copy from Ankara by courier is £30; there is no collection because we have no UK office.
What you receive
- Translation of the order with amounts, increase clauses, contact timetable, finality note and enforcement annotations
- Consistent rendering of velayet, kişisel ilişki and the four kinds of nafaka, with a translator's note on custody versus parental responsibility
- Signed certificate of accuracy meeting CPR PD32, the Family Procedure Rules and the gov.uk wording
- Certified PDF by e-mail; courier hard copy optional
Frequently asked questions
Does a Turkish velayet order give me parental responsibility in England?
That is a legal question for a solicitor. The order gives you custody under Turkish law, and we translate it as exactly that. Whether and how an English court treats it is decided under the 1996 Hague Convention and English law.
The other parent will not consent to my child's UK visa. Is the custody order enough?
The Home Office decides that on the evidence. A velayet order in your favour is the strongest single document for sole responsibility, and caseworkers have accepted it with our translation, but they look at the whole picture.
The maintenance is a few hundred lira, which is almost nothing in pounds.
Turkish orders are set in lira and lose value quickly, which is why most carry an increase clause. We translate the figure and the clause; if you have the enforcement office's current calculation, send it and we translate that too.
Can Turkish maintenance be enforced against a parent living in England?
The UK has reciprocal maintenance arrangements that include Türkiye, and applications go through the courts with the translated order. A family solicitor or the REMO unit can explain the route; we provide the translation.
The court granted joint custody. Is that translated differently?
Yes, as joint custody (ortak velayet), which is still uncommon in Türkiye. Where the order splits decisions between the parents, the translation follows the split exactly.