Best Place for Exchange in Istanbul

Istanbul is a very large and magic city that generously welcomes a lot of tourists every day. Tourism has been accepted as ‘Factory without chimneys’ by Turkish governments since early periods of Turkish Republic. It is one of the most important inflow of foreign currency for Turkish economy. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express are widely accepted in Istanbul as it’s a touristic city as entrance gate of Turkey which is home of two large international airports such as Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gokcen Airport. However when you step out of Istanbul some of small business and shops don’t accept credit cards, even most of shops in Istanbul prefer cash instead of credit card due to bank commissions.

You can withdraw Turkish Lira, Dollars and Euros from ATM’s all over Istanbul. There are different language options to choose on the ATM machine. You can choose Turkish, English, Arabic, French, Russian or another language option for convenience. However please note that not all languages are available in machines. Finding ATM machines is not difficult in city centers but for guests who will be visiting other destinations of Turkey, you can use ATM locations on Gooogle Maps and choose closest one to your location. Every ATM charges different fees for exchange due to bank and exchange policies.

Where to Exchange Money in Istanbul?

The currency exchange in hotels or airports, unfortunately, won’t give you a fair exchange rate as those in crowded tourist areas will do such as Sultanahmet, Eminonu, Taksim, Beyoglu, Kadikoy, Laleli or Bosphorus vicinity. Since these are active tourist spots, surrounded by a generous amount of hotels, the likeliness of getting a good exchange rate is very high. Especially compared to the airport and shopping malls.Inside the airports, you can not get a favorable exchange rate as there are less options to choose. Exchanging a small amount at the airport to get city center and then changing the rest at touristic areas will make sense.

Despite there is difference between rates at the airport and city center, it’s not huge amount that will make difference if you are not changing a big amount, it’s only a few kuruş. Before going to exchange office you can check current rates in the following official website of Central Bank of Turkey. However, you will never ever get the rate displayed on the internet, because that is the rate for electronic currency. Basically, the more you exchange (around fifty thousand dollars) the closer you will get to the current exchange rate.

Safest Place to Exchange Currency in Istanbul

All exchange bureaus are safe in touristic areas, yet there will be slight variances in the currency exchange rates offered. Banks almost offer same exchange rates with exchange offices. The best rates, in general are to be found at the exchange bureaus inside the Grand Bazaar and neighbourhood.

But it would be ridiculous to spend hours of shopping around for better rates. Just check a couple of “doviz” bureaus and pick the one with better rates. Our suggestion would be to walk around a bit, and see what’s available, and then exchange. Please remember ALIŞ means BUY, and SATIŞ means SELL.

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