The Turkish government is implementing drastic tax changes to scale back online consumer orders from foreign online stores. Import duties are set to rise significantly, while the exemption threshold might be lowered. Moreover, an additional tax might be introduced for certain product categories.
Ecommerce in Turkey is on the rise. Online spending greater than doubled last 12 months, the Ministry of Commerce reported this spring. This is basically the results of inflation, but there’s also considerable autonomous growth.
Significant growth is predicted again this 12 months in Turkey, where almost 560,000 corporations were registered as lively in ecommerce. The federal government in Ankara wants to guard them from foreign online stores, that are gaining in popularity.
Import duties and exemption treshold
The import duty on European packages will increase to 30 percent as of August 21, in accordance with the decree of Turkish President Erdoğan, in comparison with the present 18 percent. The import duty on packages from outside the EU was already 30 percent but might be doubled to 60 percent. This is applicable to goods arriving by mail or express cargo to a person in Turkey.
The duty might be 30% for packages from the EU.
Furthermore, the exemption threshold has been lowered from 150 to 30 euros. Because of this Turkish consumers can even should pay taxes on smaller online orders from abroad, driving up the prices for international orders and giving a lift to domestic online spending.
Extra fixed tax
On top of the speed changes and allowance reduction, an extra tax can even be applied. If the products fall under the category laid out in the Special Consumption Tax Law, comparable to luxury products, an additional fixed tax of 20 percent might be applied.
Temu and AliExpress
The tax measures follow recent hints from Turkey’s trade minister Omer Bolat about upcoming regulations concerning online shopping through platforms like Temu and AliExpress. This can also be a priority in Brussels. The European Union plans to abolish the import duty exemption as much as 150 euros for packages from outside the Union. That is planned to take effect by March 2028.
