Two records, not one — and only one of them disappears quietly.

The short answer. From abroad, a Turkish criminal record certificate (adli sicil kaydı) can be obtained in three ways: by you, through the Ministry of Justice e-Devlet service Adli Sicil Kaydı Sorgulama; through a Turkish embassy or consulate (Law no. 5352, art. 8); or through a lawyer whose power of attorney expressly authorises the request (art. 7/1-a). The apostille is a separate step: Turkish embassies and consulates have no apostille authority, so it is added either online through the e-Apostil application on e-Devlet or, on paper, by a justice commission presidency (adalet komisyonu başkanlığı) in Türkiye. An apostille works only where the country that will receive the certificate is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention. Published by Av. Onur Çalışıcı, Istanbul Bar Association (İstanbul Barosu), roll no. 83426, the lawyer responsible for this site.

Turkish criminal records law (Law no. 5352) maintains a judicial record — adli sicil — of convictions, and a separate archive record — arşiv kaydı — to which entries are transferred once the sentence has been executed or otherwise concluded.

A certificate can therefore come back clean on its face while an archive entry still exists, and some authorities ask specifically for the version that includes it. When someone says "nothing showed", the useful question is always: which certificate, requested how?

Three routes lead to the same certificate. They differ in what you need before you start, and in what happens about the apostille afterwards.

The e-Devlet route depends on credentials that many people living abroad never had. The other two do not, and where an apostille is needed the lawyer route includes it.

1. Obtain the certificate. Choose the route from the table and state the purpose of use: under Law no. 5352, art. 7/1, judicial record information is given with the purpose for which it will be used stated. If the receiving authority also wants the archive record, say so. Under art. 10/1-a, that record may be requested by the person concerned, or by a lawyer whose power of attorney says so expressly, again with the purpose stated; a general power of attorney is not enough.
2. Check whether the receiving country is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention. Apostille rules apply only between states that are parties to it. The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) publishes the current list.
3. If it is a party, add the apostille. Online, through the e-Devlet application Adli Sicil Belgesi e-Apostil Başvurusu, run by PTT, where you sign in with your e-Devlet credentials; the e-Apostil document can be verified online. On paper, at a justice commission presidency in Türkiye: a criminal record certificate for use abroad is a judicial document, and judicial documents are apostilled by justice commission presidencies, not by governorships.
4. If it is not a party, an apostille is not the route. The certificate has to be legalised through a chain of certifications instead. Ask the receiving authority, or that country’s consulate, which certifications it requires before you apply.
5. Translate it if asked. If the receiving authority needs a translation, check its rules on who may make it, and have the translation made from the apostilled document.

The whole sequence takes time, so start it well before the deadline you are working to. What the certificate will show is a separate question: see whether a deferred case shows on a Turkish criminal record, and how a deferred judgment (HAGB) bears on the record and on leaving Türkiye.

Entries do not remain indefinitely in every case. Archive entries are erased by operation of law rather than on application: for ordinary convictions, five years after the conditions for transfer to the archive arose; for convictions that carry a disqualification under Article 76 of the Constitution or under a law outside the Penal Code, fifteen years where an order restoring prohibited rights has been obtained and thirty years where it has not (Law no. 5352, art. 12). Where the act has ceased to be an offence, the record is erased without any request at all. What does take an application is the separate court decision restoring prohibited rights (art. 13/A), and the correction of an entry that is wrong — wrong identity, an entry that should have been removed, an outcome recorded incorrectly.

Whether an application is available in your case depends on the outcome recorded, not on how long ago it felt. The first step is always to read the record itself rather than to argue about what it probably says.

Archive entries surface at the least convenient moments: residence and work permit applications, citizenship applications, visa applications to third countries, professional licensing, and adoption or guardianship processes. They can also surface at the Turkish border years after the underlying matter closed.

If you are planning any of these, obtaining and reading your own record first — rather than discovering its contents through a refusal — is a small piece of work with a large payoff.