A New Era in Turkey’s Automotive Market: Six-Year Vehicle Leasing Becomes a Strategic Model

Turkey’s automotive market is entering a paradigm-shifting transformation. As of 2026, six-year vehicle leasing in Turkey is no longer merely a “reasonable option,” but a rational strategic model. High interest rates are making traditional three-year operational leasing financially inefficient, turning it into a costly structure rather than a sustainable solution. The only realistic way to reduce financing costs is to extend asset ownership from three to six years and spread depreciation over a longer period. In this context, a six-year TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) model emerges as the only effective mechanism to ease the burden of high interest rates.

One of the strongest structural drivers of this shift is the nature of Turkey’s second-hand vehicle market. In Turkey, the used-car market is approximately four to five times larger than the new-car market, while this ratio is around three in the European Union. Nearly 25% of the national vehicle fleet consists of cars aged 20 years and older, highlighting a deeply aging vehicle stock. Renewing this aging fleet is not achieved by releasing fleet vehicles into the market after three years, but through OEM-guaranteed six-year “dual-cycle” models that combine leasing and individual ownership structures.

Driving habits in Turkey further reinforce this transformation. With an annual average mileage exceeding 18,000 km, usage intensity is significantly higher than in most European markets. As mileage increases, the cost advantage of electric vehicles creates a multiplier effect. For a user driving approximately 20,000 km per year, an electric vehicle generates substantial savings over a six-year period purely from fuel costs when compared to a fossil-fuel vehicle.