Real-time conversion between Turkish Lira (TRY) and 12 other currencies — USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, CHF, JPY, AED, SAR, SEK, CNY, INR. Rates from the European Central Bank via frankfurter.app, refreshed hourly, cached locally so the page loads instantly.
The Turkish Lira has depreciated significantly since 2018: at the start of 2021 a US dollar bought about 7 lira; by the start of 2026 it buys around 39 lira. The drivers are mostly monetary policy and inflation, both of which sit outside what a traveller needs to think about — but the practical implication is that any "Turkey is cheap" claim you read in an older article needs to be re-checked against today's rates. We rebuild the rate widget on every page load against ECB data, so the numbers you see here are current.
For travel-budgeting purposes, the rate you'll actually get when you exchange or withdraw cash is typically 0.5-2% worse than the mid-market rate this converter shows. Card payments at restaurants and shops generally use the network mid-rate (Visa/Mastercard daily rate) which is very close to ECB. ATM withdrawals in Turkey using a foreign card add a fee from both your bank and (sometimes) the ATM operator — our money guide lists the specific banks that don't surcharge.
Three options, in order of typical value:
If you have a multi-currency travel card (Wise, Revolut, Curve), it usually gives near-mid-market rates without the ATM-operator dance. Wise's Turkish-lira account in particular gets close to the rates on this page.
Cards: accepted everywhere in tourist areas — hotels, restaurants, mid/large shops, supermarkets, museums (where they take cards at all; some accept only cash for ticket purchase). Contactless is standard.
Cash: still needed for taxis (despite the meter), small shops, market stalls, the Grand Bazaar / Spice Bazaar (cards are accepted by most shops but cash gives you bargaining leverage), tea-garden bills, hammam attendant tips, and any service in small Anatolian towns. Carry roughly 500-1000 TL per day for a couple at mid-tier travel — adjust up if you're shopping at the bazaars.
The widget above fetches rates from frankfurter.app on page-load and caches them in your browser for one hour. The European Central Bank publishes daily reference rates each working day around 16:00 CET. So during weekdays the converter is at most one business day behind market mid-rate; on weekends and Turkish bank holidays it's Friday's rate. For tourist-budget purposes this is effectively live.
If you need second-by-second institutional rates (you're not doing tourism), use Bloomberg or Reuters. For travel, ECB daily fix is the right benchmark.
The exact plan we'd give a friend visiting Istanbul. Where to eat, what to skip, how to avoid tourist traps.
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