Mobile Games and AdMob Income in Türkiye: A Tax Guide for Individuals and Companies (2026)

The first distinction: individual or company?

Once a mobile game or application begins to earn AdMob income, the same practical questions usually arise: Will the bank withhold 15%? Who should receive the invoice? Is Turkish VAT due? A reliable answer begins by identifying who earns the income.

An individual publishing in their own name and a taxpayer operating through a Turkish limited or joint-stock company may use the same advertising model, but they are not taxed under the same regime. We will therefore examine the two structures separately and bring them together where the invoicing, VAT and accounting rules overlap.

One advertising stream, two tax routes

Article 20/B simplifies taxation and documentation for an eligible individual. A company, by contrast, determines profit after allowable expenses and follows a broader compliance framework. The appropriate structure should therefore not be selected by tax rate alone; legal liability, partners, funding requirements and retained profit also matter.

Does the 15% bank withholding apply to every AdMob payment?

No. An AdMob transfer is not automatically reduced by 15% merely because it arrives from abroad. This is not a general tax on digital income; it is the collection mechanism attached to repeated Article 20/B of the Turkish Income Tax Law.

The recipient must be an individual, obtain the exemption certificate, open or designate a Turkish bank account for this purpose, and collect all covered receipts through that account. The bank withholds 15% from the gross amount transferred into that designated account on the transfer date.

A payment reaching an ordinary personal account without withholding is not automatically tax-free; ordinary business-income rules may apply if the Article 20/B framework has not been established. Payments to a Ltd./JSC account carry no Turkish bank withholding under Article 20/B. Any deduction made by the platform or a foreign jurisdiction is a separate matter and should be reviewed for documentation and foreign-tax-credit purposes.

The Article 20/B route for an individual developer

An individual who develops applications for mobile devices may use the exemption when the application is offered through an electronic application-sharing or sales platform and the remaining statutory conditions are satisfied. Paid downloads, in-app sales, subscriptions, advertising and sponsorship income can fall within the regime when properly connected to the covered activity.

The annual gross-receipts ceiling for 2026 is TRY 5,300,000. Remaining below it is not enough: the exemption certificate must be obtained and all covered receipts must be collected through the designated account. If the ceiling is exceeded, the full income for that year enters the annual income tax return, while bank withholding may be credited. At that stage, continuing as an individual or moving to a company should be reassessed with liability, funding and growth in view.

What changes for a Ltd. or joint-stock company?

When a Turkish Ltd. or JSC develops and publishes the game, AdMob earnings are corporate business revenue. The company cannot use the individual Article 20/B exemption. It may, however, account for documented business expenses such as development staff, servers, licences and professional services under the ordinary rules.

The general Turkish corporate income tax rate for 2026 is 25%. The domestic minimum corporate tax calculation—broadly a 10% floor before specified deductions and exemptions—must also be checked. The final liability depends on the company's full income, expenses, losses carried forward and applicable special provisions. AdMob income is recognised, documented, assessed for VAT and included in the corporate tax cycle.

Is AdMob income treated as exported software income?

A mobile game is a software product, but the AdMob payment is generally not the price of that software. It is consideration for making advertising inventory available inside the game. The transaction producing the income determines its tax character.

For qualifying services supplied to customers abroad, the deduction under Income Tax Law Article 89/13 and Corporate Tax Law Article 10/1-ğ increased to 100% for tax periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026. Yet the rules jointly require a listed service such as software or design, a foreign customer, exclusive use abroad, proper invoicing and timely transfer of the earnings to Türkiye.

Developing the game in Türkiye therefore does not automatically turn AdMob advertising income into qualifying exported software-service profit. A separate software-development contract with a foreign client should be ring-fenced from advertising income and tested on its own facts.

The decisive VAT question: Where is the service used?

Payment by an overseas entity such as Google Ireland does not, by itself, make the transaction an export of services. The Turkish VAT exemption requires both a customer abroad and use of the service abroad.

In a Revenue Administration ruling dated 8 December 2020 concerning AdSense, invoicing a foreign Google entity was not treated as decisive; attention turned to where the advertising service was economically used. The ruling is not an AdMob ruling, but it is an important indicator of the administration's approach to place of use.

The player's country is relevant evidence, though it may not be sufficient in every case. Advertiser location, target market, traffic and country reports, and the contract should be considered together.

Three defensible VAT approaches

Invoicing and the correct counterparty

An eligible individual who fully complies with Article 20/B is relieved from issuing invoices and similar documents for the covered activity only. That relief does not migrate to unrelated business activities.

Companies and taxpayers outside the special regime remain subject to ordinary invoicing. The customer should be identified from the AdMob payment profile and contract, not from the brand name on a bank statement. Google Ireland Limited may be the counterparty for many Turkish accounts, but the payment profile should decide the point.

The finalised monthly earnings report, Google's payment receipt and the bank statement do not replace a Turkish invoice where one is required. They form the evidence chain behind it. If the service is measured monthly, the invoice should follow the finalised—not estimated—earnings within the statutory invoicing period.

Accrual, collection and exchange differences

A company should not recognise AdMob income solely by watching the bank account. The monthly service period, finalised earnings report, accrual principle and matching rules work together. Exchange differences between accrual and collection are recorded separately.

AdMob's finalised amount is normally the publisher's advertising revenue. A fictional platform commission should not be manufactured if neither the contract nor the report shows one. App-store sales with an identifiable commission are a different stream and should be accounted for separately.

Does receiving AdMob income create reverse-charge VAT?

Where the Turkish company supplies advertising-display services to Google and receives payment, the principal transaction is a sale of services. The mere collection of that income does not create an imported service or Turkish reverse-charge VAT return.

If Google or another foreign provider separately supplies advertising purchases, cloud hosting, licences, subscriptions or store services to the company, that is a different inbound service. Reverse-charge VAT and any withholding must be reviewed by reference to that document. AdMob income and Google Ads expenditure should therefore be kept separate.

Separate the revenue streams within the same application

Income generated by the same game does not necessarily carry the same tax character. Advertising, store sales, subscriptions and commissioned development should be kept in separate sub-accounts with their supporting documents.

Monthly documents and control checklist

• Current AdMob payment profile and contractual counterparty
• Finalised monthly earnings, separated from estimates
• Country, traffic and advertising-revenue breakdowns
• For Article 20/B: exemption certificate, designated account and bank withholding record
• Where invoicing applies: e-document and written VAT assessment
• Google payment receipt and bank statement
• Accrual-to-collection and foreign-exchange reconciliation
• Invalid-traffic adjustments and prior-period differences
• For companies: foreign-service purchase documents and reverse-charge review

Conclusion and professional assessment

AdMob income may be earned either by an individual or through a Turkish Ltd./JSC, but each structure must follow its own tax and documentation rules. An eligible individual may use the 15% bank-withholding regime under Article 20/B. A company remains outside that mechanism and accounts for the income under invoicing, VAT and corporate tax rules.

In practice, the publisher, contractual entity in the payment profile and the precise revenue stream—advertising, store sales or software services—should be identified from the outset. A monthly reporting and reconciliation process established before the income becomes material substantially reduces future tax, penalty and interest exposure.