The automotive sector once again took the lead, emerging as the top performer with the highest amount of exports from Türkiye last year, amounting to $41.5 billion (TL 1.79 trillion), according to foreign trade data released on Saturday.
The automotive industry, one of the sectors coming under the umbrella of the industrial group, exported goods worth $41.52 billion in 2025, up 11.6% compared to the year before that, according to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM). The sector accounted for 17.5% of all exports last year.
Türkiye's total goods exports hit a record high of $273.4 billion in 2025, up 4.5% from a year earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Saturday.
Erdoğan, speaking at an event at the Istanbul Congress Center, said that combined goods and services exports were estimated to have reached $396.5 billion last year. This, he said, surpassed the target that the government set at $390 billion.
Among the sectors with the highest exports, chemicals and chemical products ranked second with $31.9 billion, while the electrical and electronics sector ranked third with $17.7 billion, according to the data.
In 2025, the sector that achieved the highest export growth was the defense and aviation industry, with an annual increase of 48.8%.
The industrial group, which accounts for 82% of Türkiye’s total exports, saw its overseas sales rise by 6% last year to $194.8 billion.
In 2025, exports by the agriculture group, which made up 15.3% of total exports, rose by 0.6% yearly to $36.4 billion, while exports by the mining group, accounting for 2.6% of total exports, surged by 3.4% to $6.2 billion.
Last year, the top three export destinations were Germany with $19.8 billion, the United Kingdom with $14.2 billion, and the United States with $13.2 billion.
In the same period, the top three exporting cities were Istanbul with $95.2 billion, Kocaeli with $22.9 billion, and Bursa with $17.9 billion, respectively.
