Türkiye has channelled TRY 31.5 billion into 4,291 green-transformation and climate projects over 23 years, according to Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır, signalling that Ankara is trying to turn decarbonisation from a regulatory burden into an industrial investment strategy. For foreign investors, the important development is not the headline funding total alone. Türkiye is combining research support, investment incentives, development-bank finance and a new emissions-trading framework just as the European Union begins charging for the carbon embedded in certain imports.
From Research Funding to Industrial Policy
Kacır disclosed the figures at the Global Cleantech Innovation Programme Türkiye 2025 awards ceremony in Ankara on February 11, 2026. Demirören News Agency reported that support distributed through the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye, known as TÜBİTAK, covered 4,291 projects and 4,318 researchers focused on climate change and green transformation.
The minister also said TÜBİTAK’s seed-stage BiGG programme had supported 235 green-technology ventures. The latest GCIP accelerator attracted 96 applications, from which 39 teams were selected. Seventeen of those teams were led by women. TÜBİTAK’s 2025 activity report confirms those application and selection figures and says the programme covered energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste valorisation, water efficiency, green buildings, transport, and advanced materials and chemicals.
These numbers point to a widening domestic innovation pipeline, but they require careful interpretation. The TRY 31.5 billion figure is cumulative across 23 years, not a new annual appropriation, and the public statement did not provide a breakdown by project, technology, disbursement year or commercial outcome. Inflation and lira depreciation also make a nominal total accumulated over more than two decades difficult to compare with present investment costs.
The more consequential indicator may therefore be the connection being built between research support and industrial deployment. At the ceremony, Kacır said the Green Transformation Programme could provide cash support of up to TRY 226 million and tax reductions covering up to 40 percent of qualifying investment. He linked this support to circular production, waste management, resource efficiency and lower carbon emissions.
For international companies, that creates opportunities in industrial software, energy management, recycling, low-carbon materials, water technologies and factory electrification. It also creates an acquisition and partnership market around Turkish clean-technology ventures that have received early-stage technical validation but still need commercial customers and growth capital.
Incentives Are Expanding, but Certificates Are Not Cash
Kacır said Türkiye had issued incentive certificates since 2012 for 16,641 investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental activities, representing project values exceeding TRY 2.1 trillion. He added that the incentive system facilitated 6,716 megawatts of solar and 5,009 megawatts of wind projects in 2025, while renewables reached 62 percent of national installed electricity capacity.
Those figures illustrate the scale of the investment pipeline, but an incentive certificate is an authorisation to receive specified state support, not proof that a project has been fully financed, constructed or commissioned. Investors must distinguish announced capacity, certificated investment and operating assets when evaluating suppliers, grid access and market saturation.
Türkiye revised its investment incentive framework through Presidential Decision No. 9903 in May 2025. The Ministry of Industry and Technology’s HIT-30 guidance states that qualifying high-technology projects generally require at least TRY 2 billion in fixed investment. Applications are assessed under project-based incentive legislation, and successful preliminary evaluation does not automatically produce an incentive certificate. Projects must pass ministerial and presidential approval before the investor applies through the E-TUYS electronic system.
That procedural sequence matters to foreign sponsors. A green industrial project may potentially combine customs-duty exemptions, value-added tax relief, tax reductions, financing support and location-based benefits, but eligibility depends on the legal entity, investment category, expenditure composition, technology, location and implementation timetable. Land, construction, imported machinery, local equipment and research spending may also receive different treatment.
Market-entry and investment-incentives analysis should consequently begin before the Turkish subsidiary commits to a site or signs equipment contracts. Company incorporation and corporate structuring affect which entity owns the assets, employs personnel, imports machinery, receives the incentive certificate and records the resulting tax benefits. Incentive assumptions should then be tested against the base-case financial model rather than treated as guaranteed funding.
Multilateral Finance Is Raising the Available Capital
Türkiye’s domestic programmes sit alongside a substantial pool of international finance. The World Bank approved $450 million for the Türkiye Green Industry Project in 2023, allocating $250 million to the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization, KOSGEB, and $175 million to TÜBİTAK. Another $25 million was assigned to government coordination and institutional development.
The World Bank said the programme would help industrial companies invest in renewable power for self-consumption, energy and water efficiency, waste management and cleaner production. It also noted that manufacturing accounts for more than 90 percent of Turkish exports and is more carbon-intensive than the EU average.
Kacır said three World Bank-linked programmes, covering green industry, organised industrial zones and a socially inclusive transition, had made more than $1 billion of international funding available to industrial companies, small businesses and technology ventures.
At a larger scale, the Türkiye Industrial Decarbonisation Investment Platform, coordinated by the Ministry of Industry and Technology with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, aims to mobilise more than $5 billion by 2030. According to the EBRD, the platform targets steel, aluminium, cement and fertiliser, with an ambition to reduce annual emissions by more than 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Glass, ceramics and chemicals may be added as further low-carbon pathways are prepared.
The EBRD invested a record €2.7 billion across 54 Turkish projects in 2025, with two-thirds of that financing supporting the green transition. Its figures show that 91 percent of new investment went to private enterprises, reinforcing the relevance of multilateral finance for corporate projects rather than only public infrastructure.
Access is not automatic, however. Development lenders typically require technical due diligence, measurable emissions reductions, environmental and social controls, procurement discipline and credible financial projections. Project management therefore becomes central, particularly when a foreign sponsor must coordinate engineering, local permits, incentive milestones, lender conditions and construction schedules.
CBAM Turns Carbon Data Into a Trade Requirement
The commercial urgency comes from Europe. The European Commission reports that EU-Türkiye goods trade reached a record €217.6 billion in 2025. The EU purchased €103.3 billion of Turkish goods and absorbed 42.7 percent of Türkiye’s merchandise exports, making European climate regulation a direct competitiveness issue for Turkish production.
The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase on January 1, 2026. It initially covers cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. EU importers exceeding the applicable 50-tonne threshold must obtain authorised CBAM declarant status, report embedded emissions and surrender certificates whose price is linked to EU Emissions Trading System allowances.
For a factory in Türkiye, the legal obligation to surrender certificates normally falls on the EU importer, but the commercial burden travels through the supply chain. A Turkish producer that cannot provide verified installation and product emissions data may expose its customer to default emission values or a higher carbon cost. Buyers can respond by demanding price concessions, selecting lower-carbon suppliers or relocating orders.
This changes the economics of foreign investment in Türkiye. Electricity sourcing, furnace technology, recycled content, process heat and measurement systems now influence access to the EU market. Import-export facilitation is no longer confined to tariffs, customs classification and shipping documents. It increasingly includes carbon-data exchange, verification records, origin documentation and contractual allocation of CBAM liabilities.
Türkiye’s Carbon Market Is Moving Into Operation
Türkiye’s first Climate Law, Law No. 7552, entered into force in July 2025 and established the legal basis for a national emissions-trading system. The Turkish ETS regulation followed in August 2026, while detailed pilot rules were published by the Climate Change Presidency in October.
The 2026-2027 pilot covers qualifying installations in electricity generation, cement, iron and steel, aluminium and fertiliser. According to the Climate Change Presidency, 2026 is primarily a reporting year, while allowance-surrender obligations begin with 2027 emissions. The pilot framework addresses sub-installations, benchmarking, free allocation, activity-level reporting and third-party verification.
The timing creates both alignment and transition risk. Türkiye is building a domestic carbon-pricing structure that could eventually reduce the CBAM charge when an eligible carbon price has demonstrably been paid. Yet the European Commission determines whether such payments qualify for deduction, and Türkiye’s pilot rules do not by themselves guarantee full recognition or price equivalence.
Foreign operators must therefore manage two overlapping systems. Legal and tax compliance in Türkiye must cover emissions permits, monitoring methodology, verified reports and future allowance obligations. Export compliance must separately meet EU product-level CBAM requirements. Government relations and regulatory liaison will be important because benchmark methodologies, sector coverage, free allocation and implementation deadlines can materially change project economics.
What This Means for Foreign Investors
Türkiye’s green transition is becoming an investable industrial programme, but the TRY 31.5 billion research figure should be viewed as evidence of ecosystem-building rather than a single pool available to new entrants. The stronger investment case rests on the combination of manufacturing depth, access to EU supply chains, revised incentives, multilateral financing and emerging carbon regulation.
An investor should first conduct market-entry analysis at the level of specific technologies, customers and provinces. A supplier of heat pumps, recycling equipment or emissions software faces a different addressable market from a developer of utility-scale renewable generation. Location analysis should account for organised industrial zone infrastructure, grid capacity, water availability, logistics, labour and regional incentive treatment.
The next step is to align incorporation and corporate structuring with incentive eligibility, import arrangements, intellectual-property ownership and financing. Incentive applications should be mapped against E-TUYS procedures, qualifying expenditure and implementation deadlines before binding procurement decisions are made.
Compliance work should establish a dual carbon-data architecture capable of supporting both the Turkish ETS and EU CBAM documentation. Import-export planning must identify customs classifications, covered products, embedded-emissions responsibilities and contractual exposure. Government relations can help investors follow secondary legislation and coordinate with the relevant ministries, KOSGEB, TÜBİTAK, development agencies and industrial-zone authorities.
Finally, on-the-ground project management is needed to convert approvals into operating capacity. Construction permits, equipment imports, incentive reporting, environmental obligations, lender conditions and commissioning milestones must be managed as one programme. For technology suppliers seeking local customers, expo and trade-fair representation can also provide a practical route to Turkish manufacturers under immediate pressure to cut energy use and document emissions.
An FDI advisory firm such as fdiconsultancy.com can support these steps across market entry, incorporation, incentives, legal and tax compliance, government relations, import-export facilitation, expo representation and project execution. The central investor question is no longer whether Türkiye will regulate industrial carbon. It is whether a project can use the country’s support architecture quickly enough to reduce emissions, control compliance costs and preserve access to European markets.