The unit of currency in Turkey is the Turkish Lira (TL). The Turkish Lira (TL) banknotes and Kuru (Kr) coins are officially in circulation as of January 1, 2009. The Turkish Lira is divided into 100 kurus. Types of available coins are 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 kurus and 1 lira. Bills or bank notes types are 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 liras.
You can legally use your foreign currencies (mostly USD, EUR or GBP) in most places, such as the bazaar, shopping malls, etc. You may have difficulty with other currencies.
It is strictly recommended that you have some
Turkish Lira with you for some small restaurants, pharmacies or shops. If you want to pay in foreign currency in such places, you may experience difficulties with currency rates or change.
Using very large bills for very small payments may upset the sellers. Therefore, it is always recommended that you pay with bills that are about equal to twice the amount of your purchase. By this way you will always have smaller bills or coins.
Banks and ATMs
Turkey has many
banks and bank branches can be found almost everywhere. The big retail banks all have sophisticated
ATMs, most of which give cash advances against foreign credit cards. While using ATMs, if anyone offers you any help, it is safer not to accept it. Banks will exchange foreign currency and traveler’s checks with your passport as proof of identity. Commissions are charged at around 1% and 3% per transaction. Exchange rates change daily and can be checked from the daily press. Banks are usually open between 9:30 AM to 12:00 AM and 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM on weekdays. On Saturdays and Sundays banks are closed. In case you have an important thing to do on weekends, Almost all shopping malls have some bank branches that are open on weekends with a few employees.
Holiday bank loans can be found from loanrater.co.uk.
Exchanging Money
Exchange offices (“Doviz Burosu” in Turkish) offer fast service in and outside normal banking hours and at better rates than banks or hotels. They have their buying and selling rates announced on the wall and do not charge any commission and only change foreign cash currency. Passports are not required. In case you have any extra Turkish currency left with you before your departure from Turkey, you can always change this into whichever currency you like at some change offices available at the airport. Traveler’s checks are becoming less efficient and used in Turkey due to the extensive availability of credit card acceptance. If you want to cash your traveler’s checks, your two choices are banks or big hotels’ receptions. Only a few change offices will accept traveler’s checks. All of these places will charge a commission. In addition, you may have to wait in line and show your passport if you are at a bank. Therefore hotels’ receptions are rather more practical. Please check the website of the
Turkish Central Bank for daily foreign exchange rates.
Credit Cards
Credit cards are extensively used in Turkey. For your safety, don’t send your card away with a waiter or a shopkeeper, etc. It is better to go to the cashier with the card or just tell the waiter to bring the POS machine to your table so that no one will be able to steal or copy the number on your card. It should be noted that credit card commissions charged by the various credit card companies might sometimes be added to a client’s bill particularly if shopping in tourist places (but not in restaurants). Also, with the rate of inflation affecting the daily exchange rate, the international rate used by the credit card company’s banking agents may differ from that used by the vendor; clients may win or lose small amounts either way. entering your pin number on the POS machine instead of signing the slip is becoming more common in Turkey.