How to Spend money in Turkey? Your guide to Turkish Lira and Kuruş
For first time visitors, using money in Turkey may come off like a math problem. Nevertheless, take a deep breath and remember you are not in school anymore. The conversion rate, and using Kuruş from 200 Turkish liras in day to day life is not as complicated as it may seem.
The age of currency converter apps are here, where you can see exactly how much to pay and receive back. In less than a week, you’ll be using Lira with no problem through experience. Although all ATMs support both Turkish and English in Turkey, some international banks have translations for many other languages. Be sure to do your research as to where to find the closest ATM around your home or hotel before embarking on a money withdrawal mission.
Kuruş and Lira
It is quite easy to distinguish between every Kuruş and Lira. The Turkish Lira has no strange name like the Canadian Dollars, where they call 1 CAD a Looney, and 2 dollar metallic coin (which is a real currency in Canada), a Tooney.
Kuruş is the Turkish equivalent of Cents, where 1 Kuruş is also the smallest in the currency. They are metallic and small. It is also almost impossible to find or use 1 kuruş in day to day life ever since the government has chosen to round up the price to the nearest zero or five at the checkout. You will almost often have 5 Kuruş with you, to the point of filling your pockets with numerous 5 kuruş received from buying groceries or snacks. There are also 10, 25, and 50 Kuruş in the circulations and 1 Lira also comes in metal.
Paper Turkish Lira is the heart of the currency. Recently the smallest Lira in circulation has become the 5 Turkish Lira, which is the average price of most daily items. There are 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 paper bills for Lira.
Foreign Money Usage in Turkey
In most holiday destinations, such as the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, shops and restaurants accept Euro and USD for payment, while also offering you a menu written in those currencies so you will not have to bother with currency calculations.
All major credit cards are accepted in Turkey. While most ATMs will even also accept other banks' debit cards. Although they often have a pay cut, you can always find your banks' ATMs. In popular tourist destinations, this is not a difficult task.
