Send money from the UK to Turkey: Instarem or Wise, straight to a Turkish bank account

Compare Instarem and Wise to send £200 from the UK to a family member's Turkish bank account. On 4 November Instarem's regular price, with no fee, delivered about 13,405 lira on £200. The Wise fee on £200 was £2.46, at the real exchange rate, and 13,317 lira arrived, about £1.30 less. From about £750 up, Wise delivered more. On a first send, Remitly and Instarem offers delivered more still. If you are on Revolut already, check it too: £200 delivered 13,288 lira after a £1.70 transfer fee. WorldRemit or Remitly work if the recipient does not have a bank account and needs cash from a counter. From the UK, WorldRemit's cash is in US dollars or euros, not lira.

What you should not do without checking is send from your UK bank. Barclays charges no fee in its app or online, and puts the whole cost inside a worse exchange rate: up to 2.75 percent. HSBC charges £5 online. Premier and Private Banking customers, and people who use a Global Money Account, do not pay the £5. Santander is worse still: a flat £25 fee on a standard international payment, before the rate margin even starts. Its Edge accounts do not charge the £25. Either way, the number that matters is the number of lira that arrives at the other end.

Why the rate matters more than the fee

The lira is falling. In 2021, £1 bought about 12 lira. On 4 November 2026 it bought about 67. The same £1 now buys more than five times as many lira for the person receiving it.

That is the background to every send. It also changes what the sender should worry about. A "free" transfer that quietly shaves three percent off the exchange rate looks tidier on the screen than a small fee at the real rate, but it is not cheaper. On £200, three percent hidden in the rate is about £6, more than twice the Wise fee above.

HSBC adds its £5 fee on top of its hidden margin. Santander adds a flat £25, before the rate. On £200 a Santander send costs the sender close to £30 all in, more than ten times the Wise fee. That is not a small gap, and on a bigger send it only widens.

The rate to watch is the one Google shows you when you search what the pound is worth in Turkish lira. That is the real exchange rate. Any app that gets you close to that is a good one. Any app that gets you far below it is quietly keeping the difference.

Which app to open

Wise uses the real exchange rate and pays straight into your recipient's Turkish bank account. It shows the fee before you send. Wise will ask for your recipient's full name, their occupation, and their 26-character Turkish IBAN, which starts with TR. Ask for the IBAN before you open the app.

Instarem shows no fee when you pay by bank transfer, and its cost sits inside the rate. On 4 November its calculator showed a regular rate of 67.02 lira to the pound, about 0.6 percent below the real rate. On £200 that delivered about 13,405 lira, more than Wise. At about £750 the two were level, and above that Wise delivered more. Instarem's limits page allows up to 60,000 lira per transfer to Turkey, about £895 at that rate. Instarem also offers a special rate and no fee on a first transfer. On £200 that delivered 13,432 lira on 4 November.

Revolut's free Standard plan gives you £1,000 of currency exchange each rolling month with no exchange fee. Above that, Revolut adds 1 percent to the amount over the limit. It uses its own exchange rate, which it sets itself. A send to a Turkish bank account also has a transfer fee. On 4 November, a weekday, Revolut's calculator showed £1.70 on the Standard plan, and £200 delivered 13,288 lira, about 30 fewer than Wise. Revolut says those figures are an illustration, so confirm the cost in the app before you send.

There is also a weekend fee. From about 10pm Friday to about 11pm Sunday UK time, Revolut Standard adds 1 percent to every exchange. If you can, send Monday to Friday. On the Plus plan the weekend fee is 0.5 percent. Premium, Metal and Ultra have no weekend fee.

Use WorldRemit if your recipient does not have a Turkish bank account, or wants cash from a PTT branch counter. WorldRemit sends the money to a partner in Turkey called UPT, and your recipient collects it at a Turkish post office. WorldRemit says 90 percent of transfers reach its partner within minutes. The time to collect depends on branch opening hours. For a send from the UK, WorldRemit offers cash in US dollars or euros, and no cash in lira. Choose the currency with your recipient before you send. The fee depends on how the money is received, not on the amount. Type the amount into the app to see the total before you send.

Remitly gives new customers no fee on the first send, and a better rate on the first £500 of it. The no-fee offer does not apply if you pay by credit card. Remitly says the rates it shows apply when you pay by Easy bank transfer. Paying that way on 5 November, the better rate was 68.89 lira to the pound on £200, which beat Wise on that one transfer. After that, the fee is £1.99 and the rate settles back: on 5 November, paying the same way, £200 at the usual price delivered 13,294 lira with the fee taken out of the £200, about 10 fewer than Wise at the same time.

What to watch for

Check the type of Turkish account first. Wise cannot pay into a Turkish savings account, and Turkish banks reject these transfers. The account must accept EFT, the domestic Turkish transfer system. Ask your recipient to check the account type.

Arrival time depends on how you send. Wise shows an estimate before you press send, so read that first. On 4 November it showed seconds for £200 and about a day for £5,000. Wise's guide to lira transfers says the money usually takes 1 working day to arrive after Wise has received and converted it, and conversion can take up to 2 working days. Wise also says a send over a weekend or before a holiday may only get processed the next working day. From a UK bank, the money goes over the international bank system. Barclays, for one, says most payments arrive within one to two working days.

Watch for a "free" transfer that is not free. If your UK bank quotes zero fee on an international transfer, the cost is in the exchange rate it uses. To check, open your bank's quote and Wise side by side, enter £200 on the same day, and compare how many lira arrive at the other end. That is the only number that matters.

Some senders wait for a better rate. Over the last five years the pound has bought more lira each year. In European Central Bank rates since November 2021, a week later the pound bought more lira about two times in three, and six months later it bought more nearly every time. That is what happened, and it does not tell you what the lira does next. If the money is needed on Tuesday, send it in time and stop watching the rate.

For bigger one-off sends

For rent, a school payment, or a medical bill, the same apps still work. On bigger amounts the Wise fee takes a smaller share of what you send.

Check the receiving bank first. Wise limits personal sends to Akbank to 3 transfers and 50,000 lira a day, about £740. Sends to Yapi Kredi have the same daily limit, plus 100,000 lira a week and 150,000 lira a month.

For a send of several thousand pounds, run the same amount through both Wise and Revolut on a weekday, and choose on the number of lira that would arrive. On £5,000 with no allowance used, Revolut's calculator on 4 November showed a £40 exchange fee on the Standard plan, plus the £1.70 transfer fee.

If the money is for a house or land in Turkey, the right tool changes again at that size. Sending money from the UK to buy a home abroad covers it.

What to open

Corrections

• 2026-11-05: This page said Remitly's first send has no fee on up to £500. The £500 limit is on the better rate only, and the fee is also waived above it.
• 2026-11-05: This page did not say how the sender pays, so Remitly's figures are now for Easy bank transfer.
• 2026-11-05: This page said WorldRemit's cash in Turkey is paid in US dollars or euros depending on where you send from. For a send from the UK it offers both and no cash in lira, and the page now says so.
• 2026-11-05: This page told readers to check their UK bank's app. Santander says you cannot make an international payment in its Mobile Banking app, so the page now says your UK bank.
• 2026-11-05: This page said Remitly's first send has no fee and left out that the no-fee offer does not apply to a credit card. It also gave Remitly's usual price on £200 without saying the fee was taken out of the £200. The page now says both.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Wise is the cheapest way to send money to Turkey for most senders on most days. On 4 November 2026, Remitly and Instarem first-send offers delivered more on £200, and Instarem's regular price delivered more up to about £750, so the page now says to compare Instarem and Wise.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Revolut exchanges at close to the real rate, can be free inside the allowance, and differs from Wise by pennies on a small send. Revolut sets its own rate and charges a £1.70 transfer fee on this route, so the page now gives what it delivered on £200.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page put Revolut's weekend fee at late Friday to late Sunday. It runs from about 10pm Friday to about 11pm Sunday UK time.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said most Wise transfers arrive in seconds at any hour. Wise says a weekend or pre-holiday send may wait for the next working day, and its lira guide says usually 1 working day. The Turkish bank hours and the Monday morning example are gone because we could not source them.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Turkey introduced a purpose declaration on transfers above 200,000 lira in January 2026. Turkish press reported that the rule did not start that month and later reports disagree on its limit. We could not find the final text, or show that it reaches a send from the UK, so the line is gone.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said waiting a month was a coin flip and waiting six months usually cost the sender. In European Central Bank rates, the pound bought more lira a month later about three times in four, and more six months later nearly every time.
• 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Barclays can be close to Wise on £200, put HSBC at closer to £9 all in on £200, gave HSBC's and Santander's fees with no exceptions, said WorldRemit does not show its fee up front and left out that its cash pickup is paid in dollars or euros, and described Remitly's Economy and Express speeds on this route. It also said every major bank has a suitable account and why most first transfers bounce, it said Wise handles larger sends but left out Wise's limits by bank, and it said a UK bank's app may not show you its exchange rate. Those lines are corrected or cut, and Wise's Akbank and Yapi Kredi limits are now on the page.