BIST Katilim Indices Explained: KATLM, KAT30 and KAT50

When a katilim fund says it holds screened Turkish equities, the practical meaning is almost always membership of a BIST Katilim index. The indices are where the TKBB screening standard stops being theory and becomes a list of tickers. Three of them matter, one is directly investable through an ETF, and their structure explains a lot of return behavior that surprises investors coming from the BIST 100.

The three indices

• BIST Katilim Tum (KATLM): every Borsa Istanbul name that passes the TKBB screen, per quarterly KAFIF disclosures. The full compliant universe.
• BIST Katilim 30 (KAT30): the 30 largest screened names, the headline benchmark. Its total return variant, Katilim 30 Getiri, underlies the Z30KP ETF.
• BIST Katilim 50 (KAT50): broader mid-cap inclusion between the two.

Membership is mechanical, not discretionary. Companies file KAFIF compliance disclosures quarterly on KAP; Borsa Istanbul applies the results at index reviews; names failing the 33/33/5 thresholds exit. The screening logic itself, activity exclusions plus debt, interest-asset and impermissible-income thresholds, is dissected in our TKBB standard explainer.

Why the indices matter beyond benchmarking

• Universe definition: KAP fund rules define permissible equities for katilim equity funds and pension funds as Katilim index members plus committee-icazet additions. Index membership is the compliance boundary for the whole fund industry.
• Brokerage screening: Kuveyt Turk Yatirim's buy-side screen executes only index-compliant names, about 240 at our last check.
• Direct investment: Z30KP, Ziraat Portfoy's Katilim 30 ETF, tracks the total return index at a published 0.50% fee with around 8.69 billion TL in assets, tradable through any brokerage.

That last point deserves emphasis: Z30KP's 0.50% is one of only three published fee figures in the entire Turkish katilim fund market, a transparency story we tell in full in our fees explainer.

How katilim indices behave differently from the BIST 100

No banks

Conventional banks and insurers, a huge share of mainstream BIST indices, fail the activity screen. Katilim index performance therefore decouples from Turkish financials: in periods when bank stocks drive the BIST 100, the Katilim indices will lag or lead for reasons that have nothing to do with the screened companies' own results. Comparing your katilim fund to the BIST 100 is comparing different economies.

Concentration

The cap-weighted Katilim 30 leans on large industrials, holding companies with compliant profiles, aviation, defense-adjacent manufacturers, retail and telecoms. The top names can dominate returns. The equal-weighted Z30KE ETF exists precisely to manage this: same universe, flattened weights, different risk profile.

Turnover at reviews

KAFIF-driven exits force screened products to sell names that breach thresholds, a structural source of turnover that conventional index funds do not carry. It is a modest ongoing cost of running money to a compliance standard, and an honest one.

Total return format

Z30KP tracks the Getiri (total return) index, so dividends accrue inside the NAV rather than paying out. Investors wanting income need dividend-paying funds instead; investors wanting compounding are getting exactly the right structure.

Using the indices in a real portfolio

For most savers the indices resolve into a simple decision: passive Katilim 30 exposure through Z30KP at a known 0.50%, or active katilim equity funds hunting outperformance at fees you must dig out of KAP prospectuses. We argue that trade in our active versus passive piece. Stock pickers can use index membership as a free first-pass screen, per our screening guide. Either way, the portfolio construction question, how much screened equity belongs next to sukuk funds and gold, is covered in our TEFAS portfolio guide and the wider investing hub.

Frequently asked questions

Is index membership a fatwa on each stock?

It is the mechanical application of the TKBB Advisory Board's standard through quarterly self-reported disclosures. That is sector-level assurance, stronger than a fund manager's private methodology and weaker than a scholar individually auditing each company. Most Turkish participation investors treat index membership as sufficient; stricter investors can layer their own checks on top.

Why does my katilim fund hold a stock that is not in KAT30?

The fund universe is Katilim index members plus committee-icazet names, and KATLM is far broader than the headline 30. A holding outside KAT30 is usually inside KATLM or carries a specific committee approval. If a holding appears in neither category, that is a genuine question for the fund's committee, and worth asking.

Should I choose Z30KP or Z30KE?

Same screened universe, different weighting, genuinely different portfolios. Cap-weighted Z30KP concentrates in the largest compliant names, so a handful of industrials and holding companies can dominate your outcome, for better and worse. Equal-weighted Z30KE spreads the bet across all thirty members, trading concentration risk for larger positions in the smaller names. Neither is objectively superior; Z30KP is the market's own shape, Z30KE is a deliberate diversification choice. Investors uneasy about single-name dominance in a compliance-constrained index have a reasonable case for the equal-weighted version, or for splitting between the two.

Do the indices include dividends?

The price indices do not; the Getiri (total return) variants do, and Z30KP tracks the total return version of Katilim 30, so dividends compound inside the fund rather than paying out. When you compare an active katilim equity fund's performance against the index, make sure the comparison uses the total return variant; measuring a dividend-reinvesting fund against a price index flatters the fund by the entire dividend yield.