A zero percent dealer campaign in Turkey is a consumer credit contract, almost always issued by a finance company (finansman şirketi) licensed by the BDDK under Law 6361, with the dealer acting as the sales channel. Law 6502 defines consumer credit as lending in exchange for interest or a similar benefit, and the contract you sign carries an akdi faiz line, an effective annual rate line and a default clause even when the campaign rate is zero. Diyanet's Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu treats a fixed-price deferred sale as permissible and an interest-based credit contract as prohibited, so the question is which document you actually sign. Participation banks finance the same car through a murabaha sale, with the vehicle bought and resold to you at a disclosed profit, under the same BDDK value and tenor caps.
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What a dealer campaign is under Turkish law
When a showroom in Istanbul or Ankara offers a campaign such as a set amount of financing at zero percent for twelve months, the money is rarely the dealer's own. Law 6361 on Financial Leasing, Factoring, Financing and Savings Finance Companies describes the finansman sözleşmesi in Article 39: a finance company pays the purchase price directly to the seller on the buyer's behalf, the buyer repays the finance company in instalments, and the finance company must have a general agreement with the sellers whose goods it finances. That is the legal skeleton of every captive and independent dealer-credit campaign in the country.
The BDDK publishes a list of licensed finance companies. On 23 September 2026 it included captive lenders tied to car groups, among them Koç Finansman, Koç Stellantis Finansman, Mercedes Benz Finansman Türk, Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman, ALJ Finansman, MAN Finansman, Scania Finansman, VFS Finansman and Tırsan Finansman, alongside bank-owned firms such as TEB Finansman. If the lender on your pre-contract form is not on that list, ask who is actually lending the money.
Law 6502, the Consumer Protection Law, adds the consumer side. Article 22 defines a consumer credit contract as one where the lender grants or promises credit in return for interest or a similar benefit, through deferral of payment, a loan or a similar financing form. Article 30 then defines bağlı kredi (linked credit): a credit granted exclusively to finance a specific purchase, where the two contracts form an economic unit. Economic unity exists when the seller finances the buyer itself, or when a third-party lender uses the seller's services to sign the credit contract. A dealer campaign fits that description, which matters for your rights if the car is defective, but it does not change the nature of the credit itself.
Our wider guide to car financing in Turkey covers the participation bank route in detail; this article focuses on the dealer desk.
Why zero percent is still a credit contract
The sticker rate is not the contract. Law 6502 Article 25 requires the rate in a fixed-term consumer credit contract to be fixed and never changed against the consumer, and it says that if the contract omits the akdi faiz, the effective annual rate or the total cost of credit, the consumer uses the credit interest-free until the end of the term. Lenders therefore print all three lines on every campaign contract, including campaigns where the akdi faiz is 0.00 percent. The pre-contract information form that Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman publishes on its site is a typical example of the document you will be handed before signing.
Three features of the document decide its status for a Muslim buyer, regardless of the headline rate:
- The contract is a loan (ödünç) from the finance company to you, not a sale of the car to you by the finance company. The dealer sells; the finance company lends.
- Article 28 of Law 6502 governs temerrüt (default). Campaign contracts specify a default rate that applies to late instalments, so the zero percent is conditional on paying on time.
- The cash price and the campaign price are often different. A dealer may offer a cash discount that disappears if you take the campaign, which means the cost of credit is paid through the forgone discount rather than through a printed rate.
That last point is why a zero percent campaign is not automatically interest-free. If the same car costs less for cash than on the campaign, the difference is the price of time, and under a loan contract that difference is riba. Under a sale contract a higher deferred price is permitted, which is the basis of murabaha.
What Diyanet's Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu has said
The Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı's fatwa body has published several rulings that frame this question, even though none of the texts we checked on 23 September 2026 names zero percent dealer campaigns specifically. The relevant positions are these:
- Selling goods on instalments at a higher price than the cash price (vadeli satış, taksitli satış) is permissible, provided the price and the schedule are fixed when the contract is concluded.
- Once the sale is concluded, charging more because the buyer pays late, or having a third party restructure the debt for an additional amount, is riba.
- Buying goods with an interest-bearing bank or finance company loan makes the loan contract itself haram, while the ownership of the goods acquired is still valid. The sin attaches to the kredi sözleşmesi, not to the car.
- A person who arranges or guarantees an interest-based loan for someone else shares in the responsibility.
Put together, these rulings place the dealer campaign where Law 6502 places it: it is a credit contract, and its permissibility depends on whether it contains an interest element in practice, including a cash price that is lower than the campaign price and a default clause that adds to the debt on late payment. A buyer who wants to stay inside Diyanet's published framework has two clean options: pay cash, or buy through a sale-based contract such as murabaha. Our is-it-halal checker walks through the same logic for other products, and our summary of Diyanet's banking and money fatwas collects the full texts.
How participation banks finance the same car
Participation banks do not lend you the purchase price. In taşıt finansmanı, the bank buys the vehicle from the dealer and sells it to you at a higher, fixed, deferred price, which is murabaha. The profit is set at signing, printed as a monthly kâr payı oranı, and cannot rise during the term. Late payment does not add to the debt in the way a default interest clause does; participation banks instead apply a penalty that their advisory boards direct toward charity, a point worth asking about at the branch. Our explainer on how murabaha works in Turkey covers the mechanics.
The practical difference at the showroom is small. Albaraka Türk markets a Bayide Finansman service so that the application and signing happen at the dealer, and Kuveyt Türk takes vehicle financing applications in its mobile app with the dealer's invoice uploaded by the customer. The car comes from the same dealer; the paper comes from the bank instead of a finance company.
Participation banks apply the same BDDK caps as finance companies, because the caps are set by vehicle value, not by lender type. Kuveyt Türk's and Türkiye Finans's vehicle financing pages both reproduce the current rules:
| Vehicle invoice value (TL) | Maximum financing share | Maximum tenor (months) |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 400,000 | 70 percent | 48 |
| 400,001 to 800,000 | 50 percent | 36 |
| 800,001 to 1,200,000 | 30 percent | 24 |
| 1,200,001 to 2,000,000 | 20 percent | 12 |
| Above 2,000,000 | Not financed | Not applicable |
Kuveyt Türk adds a used-car rule on its page: vehicles aged zero to five years can be financed for up to 48 months, and vehicles aged six to ten years for up to 36 months, within the same value tiers. A dealer campaign that appears to offer more than these caps is usually bundling a down payment or a trade-in into the headline.
Published participation bank rates on 23 September 2026
Participation banks print their vehicle financing profit rates, which makes a like-for-like comparison with a dealer contract possible. The table shows what three banks had on their pages when we checked. A dealer campaign contract, by contrast, prints its rate only in the individual pre-contract form, so you have to ask for the form before you can compare.
| Provider | Monthly profit rate | Annual total cost shown | Allocation fee | Maximum tenor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Türkiye Finans (with kasko and güvence insurance) | 3.33 to 3.48 percent | 67.06 to 76.12 percent | 0.5 percent of financing | 48 months |
| Türkiye Finans (without insurance) | 3.93 to 4.08 percent | 82.73 to 92.57 percent | 0.5 percent of financing | 48 months |
| Vakıf Katılım | 3.40 to 3.50 percent | 68.87 to 72.55 percent | 0.5 percent of financing, BSMV excluded | 48 months |
| Kuveyt Türk | Not printed; calculator only | Not printed | 0.5 percent of financing | 48 months |
| Dealer campaign (typical) | Printed in pre-contract form only | Printed in pre-contract form only | Varies | Usually 12 to 36 months |
Two things stand out. First, Türkiye Finans's rate is lower when you take its kasko and güvence insurance, which is legal under Law 6502 Article 29 only if the bank also offers you a contract without the tied insurance, and it does. Second, the annual total cost figures are high because they include BSMV and, for individual buyers, KKDF; Vakıf Katılım notes on its page that individuals do not benefit from a KKDF exemption. A dealer campaign's effective annual rate is calculated on the same legal basis, so compare that line to these figures, not the monthly headline.
Be clear about what the comparison shows. A participation bank will not beat a genuine zero percent campaign in cash terms; its advantage is the one that matters to a Muslim buyer, which is that the contract is a sale, not a loan. Run the bank's own calculator with your invoice value and tenor before deciding.
How to read a dealer campaign contract before you sign
These are the lines to find in the document before you sign, following the structure Law 6502 imposes on every consumer credit contract.
- Identify the lender. Check the name against the BDDK list of finance companies or banks. The dealer is the seller, not the lender.
- Compare the cash price with the campaign price in writing. If the cash price is lower, the gap is the real cost of the credit.
- Find the akdi faiz, efektif yıllık faiz and toplam maliyet lines required by Article 25. On a zero percent campaign the first two should read zero; if they do not, the campaign is not what was advertised.
- Read the temerrüt clause under Article 28. A default rate that increases the debt is the interest element that Diyanet's rulings describe as riba.
- Check the insurance tie-in under Article 29. You must be offered a version without linked insurance, and you may bring your own insurer.
- Note your 14-day right of withdrawal under Article 24 and your right to early repayment with a full cost reduction under Article 27.
- If you prefer a sale-based contract, ask the dealer which participation banks it has a bayi agreement with. Albaraka Türk, Kuveyt Türk, Türkiye Finans and Vakıf Katılım all finance vehicles within the BDDK caps.
For a step-by-step view of the participation bank application itself, see our guide on how to apply for vehicle financing at a participation bank, and compare the four banks' current terms on our provider comparison page.
Verdict
A zero percent dealer campaign in Turkey is a consumer credit contract from a BDDK-licensed finance company. Its permissibility is decided by its contents, not by its headline: a cash price lower than the campaign price and a default clause that adds to the debt are the interest elements that Diyanet's published rulings describe as riba, while the underlying purchase of the car remains valid. Participation bank murabaha finances the same vehicle under the same BDDK value and tenor caps, at printed monthly profit rates of 3.33 to 4.08 percent at Türkiye Finans and 3.40 to 3.50 percent at Vakıf Katılım on 23 September 2026, and it is a sale rather than a loan. If a genuine zero percent campaign exists with no cash discount forgone and you are confident you will not miss a payment, some buyers conclude the credit element is nil; a buyer who wants the clean route takes cash or murabaha. Facts checked against mevzuat.gov.tr, bddk.org.tr, kurul.diyanet.gov.tr, turkiyefinans.com.tr, vakifkatilim.com.tr, kuveytturk.com.tr, albaraka.com.tr and vdf.com.tr on 23 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is sıfır faizli dealer credit in Turkey halal?
Not automatically. It is a consumer credit contract under Law 6502, issued by a finance company rather than the dealer. Diyanet's rulings treat an interest-based credit contract as prohibited while leaving the purchase itself valid. Whether a given campaign contains an interest element depends on whether the cash price is lower than the campaign price and on the default clause that applies if you pay late. Read the pre-contract information form before deciding; the law requires the lender to give it to you in advance.
Who actually lends the money in a dealer campaign?
A finansman şirketi licensed by the BDDK under Law 6361, or occasionally a bank. Article 39 of Law 6361 describes the arrangement: the finance company pays the dealer directly and you repay the finance company. The BDDK list on 23 September 2026 included captive lenders such as Koç Finansman, Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman, Mercedes Benz Finansman Türk and ALJ Finansman. The dealer itself is the seller under Law 6502 and is jointly responsible for defects when the credit is a bağlı kredi.
How is participation bank vehicle financing different from a dealer loan?
The participation bank buys the car and sells it to you at a fixed, higher, deferred price, which is murabaha. You owe the bank a sale price, not a loan plus interest. The profit is printed as a monthly rate and cannot change during the term. Late payment penalties exist but are directed to charity under the bank's advisory board rules rather than added as default interest. Several banks, including Albaraka Türk and Kuveyt Türk, let you complete the application at the dealer or in their app.
What are the BDDK limits on car financing in 2026?
The caps are set by invoice value and apply to banks and finance companies alike. Up to 400,000 TL: 70 percent financing and 48 months. From 400,001 to 800,000 TL: 50 percent and 36 months. From 800,001 to 1,200,000 TL: 30 percent and 24 months. From 1,200,001 to 2,000,000 TL: 20 percent and 12 months. Above 2,000,000 TL, no financing is permitted. Kuveyt Türk also limits used cars aged six to ten years to 36 months.
What rates do participation banks charge for vehicle financing?
On 23 September 2026 Türkiye Finans printed 3.33 to 3.48 percent per month with its kasko and güvence insurance and 3.93 to 4.08 percent without, with annual total cost figures of 67.06 to 92.57 percent including taxes. Vakıf Katılım printed 3.40 to 3.50 percent per month and an annual cost of 68.87 to 72.55 percent. Kuveyt Türk did not print a rate and directs you to its calculator. All three charge a 0.5 percent allocation fee and cap tenor at 48 months.
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See side-by-side comparisons of Shariah-compliant products, or let our matcher recommend the best options for your situation.
Can I cancel a dealer credit contract after signing?
Yes. Law 6502 Article 24 gives you fourteen days to withdraw from a consumer credit contract without giving a reason or paying a penalty, and the lender must prove you were informed of this right. Article 27 separately lets you repay early, in part or in full, with a proportional reduction of all interest and cost elements. Participation bank financing contracts are subject to the same consumer law provisions, so the withdrawal and early repayment rights apply there too.
