Türkiye’s foreign trade settled in Turkish lira expanded in the first nine months of 2026. A compilation based on Ministry of Trade data put the January–September total at TRY 1.200822 trillion, up 13% from TRY 1.063128 trillion in the same period of 2025. The figures cover exports and imports recorded or settled in lira; they should not be read as Türkiye’s entire foreign-trade total.
Lira-denominated exports increased 23.4% year on year, rising from TRY 242.952 billion to TRY 299.923 billion. Imports conducted in lira rose 9.8%, from TRY 820.176 billion to TRY 900.899 billion. Export growth therefore outpaced import growth in percentage terms. In nominal amounts, the export total increased by roughly TRY 57 billion, while the import total added about TRY 81 billion over the comparable nine-month period.
September stood out because of the acceleration in lira-denominated exports. Exports using the Turkish currency climbed 58.6% from a year earlier to TRY 43.184 billion. Lira-denominated imports rose 15.8% to TRY 106.091 billion, bringing the month’s combined volume to TRY 149.275 billion. The comparison shows a much faster annual increase on the export side during the final month of the reported period.
The monthly path was not uniform. Lira-denominated exports declined 6% year on year in January and 2.1% in February before returning to growth with a 2.6% increase in March. The rate jumped to 57.3% in April, eased to 2.6% in May, then reached 26% in June, 32.1% in July and 49.3% in August. Import movements also varied: May recorded an 8.4% annual decline, while several other months posted increases.
The Ministry of Trade’s broader September bulletin, published on 3 October, provides a separate US-dollar picture for Türkiye’s total foreign trade. It reported September exports of $25.976 billion, up 15.4% year on year, and imports of $31.208 billion, up 5.9%. For January–September, total exports were $210.973 billion and imports were $281.998 billion. That general series and the lira-settlement series measure different scopes and should not be combined.
The increase in lira-denominated transactions is one indicator of how often the local currency is being used in cross-border commerce. The release, however, does not by itself establish the effect on company costs, exchange-rate exposure, contract terms or profitability. It also does not break the lira totals down by company, sector or partner country, so the published figures cannot identify which markets drove the increase.
The figures also show a widening difference between monthly export growth and import growth late in the period. That comparison describes settlement currency rather than trade competitiveness. Companies may still price contracts in other currencies, and the released compilation does not identify how currency conversion was handled in individual transactions or whether the payment currency matched the original invoicing currency.
The full-year outcome will depend on trade flows in October through December. For now, the nine-month data show that lira-denominated export growth was faster than import growth and that the combined volume crossed TRY 1.2 trillion. Whether that pattern continues will be assessed with subsequent monthly releases from the Ministry of Trade and related official statistics.
