Prices in Turkey

Posted by BethFL on 06/02/26 10:27 AM

I am presently at Istanbul airport with a four hour layover so lots of time in my hands. I am shocked by the prices. I paid 6.5 euros (prices are in Euros) for a small can of Diet Coke. It was 5 euros (still way over priced I know) for a much larger 20 oz bottle in Athens. I was going to buy a doner sandwich till I saw the small one was 24 euros while the large was 32. I paid 5 euros last night in Thessaloniki.

I have not been to Turkey yet and had planned to go. But I did not expect it to be this expensive. Is Turkey now more expensive than the US? The food is priced here is certainly more than my home airport.

Posted by Tammy (aka Diveloonie) 🤿

Palm Springs area, CA. USA (winters)🌴☀️ Nomadic (Spring thru Fall)

06/02/26 10:47 AM

3960 posts

We were in Turkey for 3 weeks in April and we found it just a little cheaper than US prices. Certainly no bargain! The airport would probably not be an accurate representation of prices outside the airport as we usually find airport food/snacks more expensive.

Posted by BethFL OP

06/02/26 11:04 AM

3496 posts

Interesting. I would say Greece is a lot cheaper than the US. I had expected Turkey to be the same.

Posted by Simon

Singapore

06/02/26 11:44 AM

1285 posts

I can't compare with the US, but my experience of Türkiye is the food is fairly cheap, hotels reasonable, tourist attraction tickets relatively pricey (albeit there's a lot of free stuff to do as well). The airport is an outlier - notoriously expensive. Your döner would be more like ₺150 (ie €3) downtown.

You do have to bear in mind that Türkiye has experienced sky high inflation over the last few years, and the attack on Iran has exacerbated that. This year inflation was 32.37%. The airport concessions are protecting themselves by charging in Euros rather than Lira.

Posted by me.crewe

06/02/26 11:56 AM

188 posts

the internet is full of complaints about this, it's not representative of Turkey. It's not even representative of the whole of Istanbul airport! This guy shows the prices about 8 months ago, it's airside at the domestic terminal and the prices are in Lira, $1 is currently just over 45 Lira. He is complaining about prices at his usual Dalaman airport, which is mostly international.

https://www.tiktok.com/@donny_knight/video/7561044746236349718

yup, the prices in domestic departures are much cheapet than in international!! Apparently it's how they paid for the new airports, obviously the locals know so won't pay - so they get hit with a Turkish citizens international departure tax of about $28....

Posted by cala

Charleston & Birmingham

06/02/26 12:05 PM

5305 posts

Were the Greek prices in the airport?

Posted by BethFL OP

06/02/26 12:15 PM

3496 posts

We bought excellent sandwiches in Athens airport for 7 or 8 euros. Something similar was 15 euros in Istanbul.

Posted by Barbara

Brooklyn, NY

06/02/26 12:23 PM

4991 posts

We were in Istanbul last October for 11 nights. We also found the restaurants to be very expensive, we were quite surprised. We filled up on our hotel breakfast and just had one other meal during the day. Another thing we noticed was there isn’t a big variety of restaurants or food.
My husband is in Chois, Greece now, just a hop from Turkey. His friend has a house there. He complains the island is overrun with Turkish tourists and one thing they comment on is the cheap restaurants.