Visibility Timelines in Turkish Grant Projects: One Month, Project Term, Three Years
A company holding a Turkish development agency grant carries three visibility deadlines, and all three start running on paper long before anyone notices them. The project signboard has to be up within one month of signing the contract. Labels and signboards then stay in place for the project term plus three years after the final payment. The project web page has to stay current for at least one year after the project ends. Those are the dates set out in the visibility guide published by Kuzeydoğu Anadolu Kalkınma Ajansı, the development agency covering Erzurum, Erzincan and Bayburt, known as KUDAKA.
The detail that catches companies out is where the three years is counted from, because agencies count it differently. KUDAKA ties the three years to the final payment. İpekyolu Kalkınma Ajansı, the agency for Gaziantep, Adıyaman and Kilis and known as İKA, ties it to the end of the implementation period instead. Since final payment often lands months after work finishes, the same phrase produces two different removal dates.
The one-month clock starts at signature, not at groundbreaking
KUDAKA’s guide requires the signboard to be installed within one month of signing the contract, after consulting the responsible agency expert, and in a visible location. The same one-month limit applies to having every visibility material checked for compliance by the responsible expert in the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. Neither deadline waits for site work to begin.
Material is part of the rule
The guide states the signboard must be made of durable material and explicitly rules out cloth and tarpaulin. A printed banner put up to meet the date is not compliance. Production and mounting take time, so the artwork approval is the step to start first.
Approval comes before installation
The sequence in the guide is approval, then installation. Contact the agency expert, get the design confirmed, then mount the board. A board installed first and corrected later costs the price twice.
Three years, counted from two different points
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- What KUDAKA says
- What İKA says
- Why the gap matters in practice
Both agencies require three years of continued visibility after the project, and both state it in a single sentence that is easy to skim past. The difference is the starting point. KUDAKA runs the clock from the date the final payment is made, while İKA runs it from the end of the project implementation period.
What KUDAKA says
KUDAKA states that the beneficiary’s obligation to make the agency’s support visible continues for three years after the project final payment. Its project signboard section repeats this, requiring the board to stand from project start until three years after final payment. Commemorative plaques matching the given format may stay permanently.
What İKA says
İKA’s guide requires the labels on equipment and vehicles purchased with agency support to be kept for the project implementation period and the following three years. Its project signboard provision uses the same formula, keeping the board at the implementation site for the implementation period plus three years.
Why the gap matters in practice
Final payment follows the final report, the audit and the agency’s own review. If that takes five months, a KUDAKA beneficiary keeps its board five months longer than an İKA beneficiary on an otherwise identical schedule.
The project web page has its own deadline
KUDAKA’s guide sets a separate rule for the project website: the page established by the beneficiary must stay online and keep its content current for at least one year after the project ends. The guide adds a consequence. If the page is not updated periodically during that year, the agency may request the return of all or part of the related budget line.
Current, not merely online
The requirement is that the page preserves its currency, which is a higher bar than leaving a URL resolving. The guide asks for project progress, photographs and short interviews about activities carried out. A page frozen on the launch announcement does not meet it.
What the page has to carry
KUDAKA lists the agency, ministry and beneficiary logos placed to the visibility standard, the funding statement with the contract number, the disclaimer text, project contact details, and a link to the agency’s own website. The build order is set out in grant project website requirements, and how that page sits alongside your main site is covered in website visibility.
What this means for you
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- Put four entries in the calendar
- Name one owner for the removal date
- Budget the obligation period
Three dates belong in your calendar on signing day, not at the end of the project. The one-month signage deadline is the only one most teams remember, and it is the one least likely to be missed. The two long obligations are where audit findings come from, because by then the project team has moved on and nobody owns the board.
Put four entries in the calendar
Signature plus one month for the board and the material approvals. Project end plus one year for the web page review. Final payment plus three years for removal, under KUDAKA. Implementation end plus three years for removal, under İKA.
Name one owner for the removal date
The person who signs the contract is rarely the person present three years after final payment. Write a named role, not a name, into the project file, and attach a photograph of each installed item with its date.
Budget the obligation period
KUDAKA treats visibility costs as part of the eligible expenditure total, shown in the work plan. That means replacement of a faded or damaged board during the obligation period is a foreseeable cost, and it belongs in the plan before you spend rather than after.
The timeline in one table
The table below puts the two agencies side by side on the dates alone. The physical specifications of boards, flags and backdrops are a separate matter, and they differ between agencies as much as the dates do. Those dimensions are collected in grant visibility requirements turkey.
| Obligation | KUDAKA, as published | İKA, as published |
|---|---|---|
| Signboard installed | Within one month of contract signature | Not stated as a month limit in the guide |
| Material approval | Within one month, by the monitoring unit expert | Not stated as a month limit in the guide |
| Signboard stays in place | Project start to three years after final payment | Implementation period plus three following years |
| Equipment labels stay | Covered by the three-year visibility obligation | Implementation period plus three following years |
| Three years counted from | The date of final payment | The end of the implementation period |
| Project web page | Current for at least one year after project end | Follow the annex to your own contract |
Read the blank cells carefully
A cell saying the guide does not state a month limit is not permission to delay. It means that document is silent and your own contract annex governs. Treat silence as a question for your agency expert.
The legal basis behind both
Both guides sit under the Regulation on Supporting Development Agency Projects and Activities, article 46. The regulation sets the obligation and the guides set the practical detail, which is why the detail varies by agency while the duty does not.
Which document is binding when guides disagree
The binding document is the visibility guide attached to your own contract. Every figure in this piece comes from a published agency guide, and a guide belonging to another agency or another programme year is a reference, not an instruction. Where your annex and an online guide differ, the annex governs and your agency expert confirms it in writing.
Check the programme year as well as the agency
Guides are reissued. The version that matters is the one attached to the contract you signed, not the newest file on the agency website. Save a dated copy of your annex in the project folder on day one.
Ask in writing, keep the answer
Questions about dates and placement go to the responsible expert in the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. KUDAKA’s own guide routes material approvals through that unit. The reply is what you show an auditor three years later. KUDAKA publishes its guides and contacts at kudaka.gov.tr.
Common mistake: taking the signboard down when the project closes, because the work is finished and the site is being tidied. Under KUDAKA the obligation runs three years past the final payment, and that payment usually arrives after closing. Removal is a calendar entry, not a judgment call.
Say a cold-storage operator in Erzurum signs a KUDAKA contract in March 2026 and finishes construction in December. The board went up in April, which the team remembers. Final payment clears in May 2027, which nobody records against the visibility file, so the removal date sits in May 2030 and the web page review falls in December 2027. Two dates, written once, closed the only gap that was left.
Open your contract annex today and write the four dates into a shared calendar with a named owner. If the project is already running and you are not sure which of them have passed, our visibility work starts with a dated inventory of what is installed and what is missing. Companies running the whole obligation from another city use grant visibility service turkey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick Summary
- Signboard up within one month of contract signature, in durable material, after expert approval.
- KUDAKA: labels and boards stay for the project term plus three years after final payment.
- İKA: the same three years are counted from the end of the implementation period.
- Project web page stays current for at least one year after the project ends.
- Failing to keep that page updated can trigger a request to return the budget line.
- The binding document is the visibility guide attached to your own contract.
Short Glossary
- Development agency
- Development agency is the Turkish regional body that runs grant programmes for companies and institutions in its provinces, with KUDAKA covering Erzurum, Erzincan and Bayburt.
- Final payment
- Final payment is the last disbursement an agency makes after accepting the project’s final report, and it is the date KUDAKA counts its three-year visibility obligation from.
- Visibility guide
- Visibility guide is the annex to a grant contract setting out logos, signage, materials and the dates each obligation starts and ends for that programme.
- Commemorative plaque
- Commemorative plaque is the permanent plate placed on a building or site after a project, which KUDAKA allows to remain indefinitely if it matches the published format.
Next Step
Pull the visibility annex out of your contract file and mark the four dates before you do anything else, because the two long ones cannot be recovered later. If the board is already up and the paperwork is thin, the gap is usually photographs with dates. Our visibility services cover that inventory alongside the signage itself, and the placement rules for each logo sit in grant logo usage rules.
Updated: October 2026
Author: News Desk · AINEO-assisted desk · Editor: Dilek Lök
Sık Sorulan Sorular
KUDAKA requires installation within one month of signing the contract, after consulting the responsible agency expert, in a noticeable location and in durable material rather than cloth or tarpaulin. The same one-month window applies to getting all visibility materials checked by the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. The binding document is the visibility guide attached to your own contract.
It depends on the agency. KUDAKA counts three years from the date the project final payment is made. İKA states the project implementation period plus the following three years, which starts the clock earlier. Because final payment usually follows project closure by several months, the two formulas produce different removal dates for identical projects.
KUDAKA requires the beneficiary’s project web page to stay published and keep its content current for at least one year after the project ends. The guide notes that if the page is not updated periodically in that period, the agency may request the return of all or part of the related budget line. Keeping progress photographs and short activity notes current is the practical test.