Türkiye or China: which should you source from?
The honest answer is that it depends on your product and your order size — but the factors that decide it are few enough to work through in ten minutes.
Customs duty: the biggest structural difference
This is the factor most first-time importers miss, and it is the one most likely to change your answer.
The EU and Türkiye have been in a customs union since 1995. For most industrial and processed goods, this means products move between Türkiye and the EU without customs duty, provided the goods qualify and travel with a valid A.TR movement certificate. Agricultural products, and coal and steel, sit outside or only partly inside that arrangement.
Goods of Chinese origin, by contrast, attract duty on entry to the EU at whatever rate applies to their commodity code. Depending on the product that might be a couple of per cent or it might be double digits.
Import VAT is payable either way, in the country of import, and is not a difference between the two origins.
A Chinese quote that beats a Turkish quote by 15% at the factory gate can still lose once duty and freight are added. Always compare landed cost, never unit price.
One caution: duty rates and trade measures change, and the position for a US importer is different again — the customs union is an EU arrangement and gives you nothing when importing into the United States. Confirm the rate for your commodity code and your destination before you commit.
Lead time and working capital
Road freight from Turkish manufacturing regions to a Nordic warehouse typically takes around a week. Sea freight from China to North European ports usually runs four to seven weeks port to port, before any inland movement.
That gap is not just an inconvenience. It is money. Stock in transit is capital you have paid for and cannot sell. A one-week lane lets you reorder a fast-moving line in response to actual demand; a seven-week lane forces you to forecast a season ahead and to fund that forecast.
For a smaller buyer with limited working capital, this often matters more than unit price.
Minimum order quantity
As a working generalisation, Turkish factories are more willing to run smaller batches than their Chinese equivalents — particularly in textiles, home goods and furniture. This is not a rule and there are plenty of exceptions in both directions, but the quantity at which a supplier stops replying to a small buyer does tend to be lower in Türkiye.
Chinese manufacturing is optimised around volume. That optimisation is exactly why the unit prices are attractive, and it is also why the minimum order is higher.
More on why minimum orders exist, and how to get around one.
Freight and product shape
Freight cost is driven by volume as much as weight, so the shape of your product changes the comparison significantly.
- Bulky, low-value goods — furniture, packaging, ceramics, anything that is mostly air or mostly weight — are punished hardest by long-distance freight. Türkiye usually wins decisively.
- Small, dense, high-value goods — electronics, accessories, components — carry freight cost easily as a share of value. China stays competitive.
- Part-loads are disproportionately expensive by sea. If you cannot fill a container, the per-unit freight from China rises sharply, which is where consolidation and pooling earn their keep.
Category strengths
Neither origin is better at everything. Broadly:
Türkiye is strong in textiles and apparel, home textiles, furniture and wood, carpets, ceramics and tiles, domestic appliances, machinery and metal parts, automotive components, plastics and packaging, food, and cosmetics.
China is strong in consumer electronics and accessories, lighting and LED, small appliances, tools and hardware, toys and sporting goods, and essentially anything needing a deep electronic component supply chain.
If your product needs a circuit board, a battery or a motor, the component ecosystem sits in Asia and no amount of geographic convenience changes that.
Side-by-side summary
| Factor | Türkiye | China |
|---|---|---|
| Duty into the EU | None on most industrial goods, with a valid A.TR | Payable at the commodity-code rate |
| Typical transit to the Nordics | About a week by road | Four to seven weeks by sea |
| Minimum order quantity | Often lower | Generally higher |
| Unit price at volume | Competitive | Usually lower |
| Category breadth | Deep in specific sectors | Very broad |
| Electronics & components | Limited | Unmatched |
| Bulky goods | Far cheaper to move | Freight can exceed goods value |
| Reordering speed | Weeks | Months |
| Ease of factory visits | A short flight from Europe | A significant trip |
Generalisations to orient a decision. Every product and factory is its own case.
So which one?
If you are a smaller buyer in the Nordics, ordering hundreds rather than thousands of units, and your product is textiles, homeware, furniture or something similarly non-electronic — start with Türkiye. Duty-free entry, a one-week lane and lower minimums stack up in your favour, and each of those advantages compounds for a business with limited capital.
If your product is electronic, highly specialised, or you are buying at a volume that genuinely fills containers — look at China, and budget for the longer cycle and the duty.
And if the answer is not obvious from those two paragraphs, that is the normal case. It is what we do: we quote the origin that actually suits the order rather than the one we would prefer to sell you.
Not advice. This guide describes general trade arrangements as we understand them and is not legal, tax or customs advice. Duty treatment depends on your specific goods, their origin, their commodity code and your country of import, and the rules change. Verify before you commit.