An organ transplant in Turkey needs three separate document bundles from a foreign patient: the medical file, the ethics-commission kinship papers, and travel papers.
10.09.2026
An organ transplant in Turkey asks a foreign patient for three separate document bundles, not one folder: a medical file for the transplant centre, a kinship and consent file for the ethics commission, and travel papers for entry and stay. This page sets out what goes in each bundle, who issues it, what form it has to take, and the order to do things in — including the one step, official translation and legalisation of civil-status documents, that holds up more cases than any medical finding.
Each bundle answers a different question, and the people who read one never see the others.
The transplant centre asks whether the operation is medically sound for the recipient and safe for the donor. The ethics commission asks something quite different: whether the donation is genuinely voluntary and genuinely unpaid. The consulate and the border ask only whether you and your donor may enter Turkey and stay long enough.
The legal frame is Law No. 2238 of 29 May 1979 on the harvesting, storage, grafting and transplantation of organs and tissues, together with the Organ and Tissue Transplantation Services Regulation. For a Turkish citizen, a living donation may proceed on kinship alone where donor and recipient are related within the fourth degree of blood or marriage kinship, inclusive, or are spouses who have lived together for at least two years. For foreign nationals the rule is different: under Law No. 6458 of 4 April 2013 on Foreigners and International Protection, ethics-commission review is required regardless of kinship. A Turkish patient whose brother donates needs no commission; a foreign patient whose brother donates still does. The legal guide for foreign patients explains the rule in full. The practical consequence for your paperwork is simple: the second bundle is never optional.
Send this first, electronically, before anything is translated, notarised or legalised. It is the bundle that tells you whether there is a case at all, and nothing in it needs an apostille.
| Document | Who issues it | What form it must take |
|---|---|---|
| Current diagnosis and treatment summary (nephrology or hepatology report) | The treating specialist or hospital | On hospital letterhead, signed and stamped, with an English or Turkish translation |
| Blood group, tissue typing and any crossmatch already performed | Hospital or accredited laboratory | Original laboratory report identifying the laboratory |
| Recent full blood count, biochemistry, kidney or liver function panel | Hospital or accredited laboratory | Dated report; the centre will state how recent it must be |
| Virology screening (hepatitis B and C, HIV, CMV and others requested) | Accredited laboratory | Dated report, results in full rather than a summary line |
| Imaging: ultrasound, CT or MRI as requested | Radiology department | Written report plus the images themselves as DICOM files on disc or transfer link |
| Dialysis records, where the patient is on dialysis | Dialysis unit | Schedule, duration of treatment and recent session records |
| Biopsy and pathology reports, where they exist | Pathology department | Full report, not an extract |
| Current medication list with doses | Treating physician | Signed list, generic drug names where possible |
| Operation notes and discharge summaries from earlier admissions | Hospital archive | Copies bearing the hospital stamp |
| Vaccination record | Family physician or public health register | Official record |
A file that arrives complete usually gets a substantive answer quickly; a file that arrives in fragments generates weeks of back-and-forth. If your case is a kidney, the kidney transplant cost and donor rules page explains what the centre is looking for in that file.
This bundle is the one foreign patients underestimate. The commission is not assessing medicine — the transplant centre does that separately. Its purpose is to detect payment and coercion, and every document in the list exists because it makes one of those two things harder to hide.
| Document | Who issues it | What form it must take |
|---|---|---|
| Identity documents for donor and recipient | Passport authority and civil registry | Passport plus national identity document; certified copies |
| Documentation establishing the relationship: birth certificates, marriage certificate, family register extract | Civil registry office in the home country | Recent original or certified extract, official translation, plus apostille or consular legalisation |
| The donor's written consent | Given by the donor before two witnesses and confirmed by a physician | Signed in the prescribed form, with the witnesses physically present |
| Competency report for the donor | An authorised physician, with psychiatric assessment where required | Official medical report |
| Medical information and suitability forms for both parties | The transplant centre | Completed on the centre's own forms, not free text |
| Declaration of income | Employer, tax authority, or the declarant where self-employed | Official statement with translation |
| Declaration of debt | Bank or the declarant | Official statement with translation |
| Notification of the donor's spouse, where the donor is married | The donor's spouse | Written notification accompanied by the spouse's identity document |
The income and debt declarations surprise people most. They are there because a donation driven by debt is not a free donation. Answer them plainly and consistently; an inconsistency between two documents costs more than an awkward figure. The article on the ethics commission, its documents and its refusals goes through how the file is actually read.
These are ordinary, but they fail at the worst moment because nobody owns them. Assign one person to this list.
Plan the visa around the real timetable, not the operation date. A living-donor liver transplant means roughly two to three weeks in hospital and a total stay in Turkey of about a month or longer. A kidney case is shorter but still not a week. The timeline and eligibility page gives the realistic shape of it.
Civil-status documents — birth certificates, marriage certificates, family register extracts — are the ones that prove kinship, and they almost always need two things beyond the document itself: an official translation into Turkish, usually by a sworn translator and notarised, and then either an apostille or full consular legalisation.
Turkey is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention. A document issued in another member state carries an apostille from the competent authority in the issuing country and needs no further consular step. A document issued in a state outside the convention must be legalised: certified by that country's foreign ministry and then by the Turkish consulate. Which route applies depends entirely on the issuing country, so check it before you queue anywhere.
These are the failures that send people back to the registry office:
None of this is difficult. All of it is slow, and none of it can be started on the plane.
Patients arrive with a thick recipient file and almost nothing for the donor. The donor is assessed as a patient in their own right and appears in both of the first two bundles: identity and kinship documents, written consent before witnesses, a competency report, medical information and suitability forms, income and debt declarations, and spousal notification where they are married — plus a full medical screening of their own.
For a living liver donation the centre is also checking donor eligibility criteria: aged 18 to 60, good physical and psychological health, no substance-use history, a healthy liver on screening, and no financial compensation of any kind. The donor should begin collecting documents on the same day the recipient does, not after the recipient's file is finished. In practice, the donor is the critical path.
Some documents take weeks to obtain and some stop being valid within weeks of being issued. Doing this in the wrong order means paying for the same laboratory test twice.
There is a point at which more documents cannot help, and it is worth naming it plainly.
If the donor relationship does not meet the rules, no document set fixes it. The commission exists precisely to detect payment and coercion, and a file that is technically complete but describes a relationship that is not real does not pass — it fails, and it fails in a way that has consequences beyond a refused application. Buying, selling or brokering an organ is a criminal offence in Turkey, and a patient who takes part is not a bystander. Anyone who tells you to describe an unrelated donor as a cousin or a family friend is asking you to commit an offence and to submit false civil-status documents; the red flags of illegal offers are worth reading before you agree to anything.
Stop, too, if there is no living donor at all. Turkey's deceased-donor allocation system is built around patients within the Turkish health system; a non-resident cannot realistically obtain a place on it, and money does not change allocation order. Living donation is the route for foreign patients, and without an eligible living donor the answer is not a better folder. Finally, stop if the centre has identified a medical contraindication in the recipient or the donor. A document cannot make an unsafe operation safe.
Do I need an apostille or legalisation?
It depends on the country that issued the document, not on Turkey. If the issuing country is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, an apostille from its competent authority is enough. If it is not, the document must be certified by that country's foreign ministry and then by the Turkish consulate.
Should the apostille go on the original or on the translation?
On the original document. The usual sequence is: obtain a fresh certified extract, apostille or legalise that original, then have it translated by a sworn translator and notarised. Apostilling the translation is one of the most common reasons a file is sent back.
Can I translate the documents myself, or use an online service?
No. Kinship and consent documents need official translation by a sworn translator, normally with notarisation. An informal translation is not accepted, however accurate it is.
How long are the medical tests valid for?
The transplant centre sets this, and it differs by test — virology and biochemistry are treated as current for a short period, imaging for longer, blood group and tissue typing indefinitely. Ask the centre for its own list and schedule the short-lived tests close to travel.
Does my donor really need to file income and debt declarations?
Yes. They are part of what the ethics commission reads, for both parties, because a donation driven by debt is not a free donation. They are required whatever the kinship.
My donor is my brother and we are both foreign nationals. Do we still need the commission?
Yes. For foreign nationals, ethics-commission review is required regardless of kinship. Close kinship makes the file straightforward; it does not remove the review.
Prices referred to on this site are approximate 2026 market data and change with exchange rates and clinic policy. This page is general information, not medical or legal advice; eligibility, technique and outcome are determined individually by a licensed physician.
Send us what you already have — the pathology report, imaging on disc, discharge summaries. A specialist at a partner hospital will review it and tell you what is realistic in your case and how quickly treatment could begin. Reviewing your documents costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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