Türkiye's energy import bill rose sharply, especially in October. In addition, according to the data shared by Ember Energy analyst Bahadır Sercan Gümüş, imports increased by 71.7 percent compared to the same month last year. Accordingly, the amount reached 8 billion 271 million 800 thousand dollars.
Moreover, this figure was the highest monthly imports since October 2022. Thus, the monthly bill approached the energy crisis period in 2022. For example, it was recorded as $4.82 billion in October 2025 and $4.99 billion in October 2024.
Energy import bill exceeded 61.5 billion dollars in the first 10 months
First of all, energy imports increased to 61.5 billion dollars in the January-October period. However, in the same period last year, this amount was 51.60 billion dollars. Therefore, imports in the first 10 months increased by 19.4 percent on an annual basis.
In addition, energy imports in all of 2025 were 62.53 billion dollars. However, this total was very close to this total in 10 months this year. Moreover, if the trend continues, an energy import bill of over 70 billion dollars is expected at the end of the year.
Hormuz crisis pushed costs up
First of all, the increase is behind the developments in global markets. Additionally, Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek spoke at the 19th Verona Eurasian Economic Forum held in Istanbul in October. According to Şimşek, when the war in Iran started, commodity prices rose and problems arose in energy supply.
Şimşek also said that the current energy supply shock has reached 7 times the magnitude of the 2022 crisis. As a matter of fact, the 2022 crisis deepened with the increasing demand after the pandemic and Russia's restriction of natural gas shipments to Europe. In fact, the price increases for residential natural gas that year reached approximately 174 percent in total.
Ember's previous analysis also supported this picture. Accordingly, the energy import bill may increase by more than 14 billion dollars in 2026 compared to the previous year. $7.7 billion of this additional cost may come from oil and $6.4 billion from natural gas.
Is electrification the solution to the energy import bill?
First of all, according to Ember, the biggest item in the energy import bill is road transportation. As a matter of fact, Türkiye spent approximately 15 billion dollars of the amount it paid for energy imports in 2025 in this field. Moreover, every 1 million electric cars on the roads can prevent fossil fuel imports of approximately $900 million annually.
In particular, 85 percent of final energy consumption can be met with electricity with existing technologies.
In addition, all consumption in buildings can be met with electricity.
In addition, 96 percent of transportation and 58 percent of industry can be covered by electricity.
However, in 2024, only 32 percent of the consumption in buildings was provided by electricity. Moreover, in industry this rate was approximately 30 percent. In fact, the share of electricity in transportation remained below 1 percent.
In addition, electric vehicles cover the same distance with approximately 3.6 times less energy than internal combustion vehicles. Accordingly, if all of the approximately 18 million cars in Türkiye are electric, annual consumption can decrease from 150 TWh to 45 TWh.
However, electricity must be produced from domestic and renewable sources. Because otherwise, fossil fuel demand would shift to electricity production. Therefore, solar and wind investments should be considered together with grid and storage capacity.
On the other hand, Türkiye aims to increase the electrification rate to 35 percent by 2035. By contrast, the rate could only reach 24.4 percent in 2035, according to Ember's calculation based on current trends.
