Turkey is where European road freight meets Asian ocean freight, and both halves changed hands recently. Turkish ports handled 13,996,578 TEU in 2025, up 3.5%, though the national figure hides real movement underneath: Ambarli grew 13.9% while Aliaga lost almost a fifth of its volume in a single year. Turkish Cargo carried 2,168,640 tonnes, up 8.4%, and remains the world's third-largest air cargo carrier by IATA's count, yet its revenue fell 3% because yields dropped faster than volume grew. On the roads, the Turkey to Europe market now splits roughly 51/49 between ferry and truck, with ferry gaining five percentage points since the start of 2024, and the incumbent Istanbul to Trieste service shrank 12.8% in 2025 as a rival deployed four freight ferries against it. Two of the biggest Turkish logistics names sold themselves in the same period. This 2026 guide profiles ten providers with the strongest footprint in Turkey, listed in no particular order, drawn from Ministry of Transport statistics, annual reports and company disclosures.
How we chose this list
This is an editorial guide, compiled from public sources such as annual reports, company accounts, regulatory filings and trade media, rather than from paid placements or our own directory data. We weighed four things:
- Scale in Turkey: revenue, sites, fleet and employees based in the country.
- Breadth of services: freight forwarding, contract logistics, haulage, parcels and terminal operations.
- Track record: years operating in Turkey and publicly verifiable results.
- Network: domestic coverage plus international connections.
Figures are the most recent publicly reported at the time of writing. The companies appear in no particular order. A provider further down the page may well be the better fit for your specific lane or freight type.
The 10 companies at a glance
| Company | Type | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| DFDS Turkiye | Ferry and road logistics operator | The Turkey to Italy roll-on roll-off network, formerly UN Ro-Ro |
| Turkish Cargo | Air cargo carrier | The world's third-largest air cargo carrier, hubbed at Istanbul |
| Arkas Holding | Shipping line, logistics and terminal group | Turkey's largest home-grown container line and short-sea operator |
| Marport | Container terminal operator | The largest container terminal at Ambarli, Istanbul |
| DP World Turkiye | Container and liquid bulk terminals | The merged Yarimca and Korfez terminals in the Gulf of Izmit |
| Asyaport | Transit container hub port | Turkey's only dedicated transhipment hub, at Tekirdag |
| Aras Kargo | Domestic parcel and courier network | The largest Turkish parcel network under European ownership |
| DHL eCommerce Turkiye | Domestic parcel network | The former MNG Kargo, now folded into DHL |
| Mars Logistics | International road freight and contract logistics | One of the largest privately held Turkish road-freight operators |
| Omsan Lojistik | Multimodal logistics and rail operator | Turkey's first licensed private rail freight operator |
DFDS Turkiye
DFDS runs the Pendik, Yalova and Mersin services to Trieste, Sete, Bari and Patras, and since buying Ekol's transport arm on 15 November 2024 for 1,678 million Danish kroner it also owns the road legs at each end. Its Mediterranean network moved 5,319 thousand lane metres in 2025, down 2.7%.
The competitive picture matters more than the volume. A rival began deploying freight ferries on the Turkey to Italy corridor in September 2024 and had four running by the end of 2025. DFDS responded by cutting Istanbul to Trieste to six weekly departures, removing three ferries from the route, and introducing new pricing from September 2025. Its Turkey and Europe South unit made a significant loss in its first full year and is expected to stay lossmaking through 2026, so expect continued pricing and capacity changes rather than a settled market.
Best for: full trailers between Turkey and Italy or France where one operator owning both the sea and road legs is worth paying for.
Turkish Cargo
Turkish Cargo carried 2,168,640 tonnes in 2025, up 8.4% on 2,001,233 tonnes, of which 2,106,334 tonnes was international. Its largest regions were the Far East at 776,052 tonnes, Europe at 625,647 and North America at 288,965. Turkish Airlines stated on its fourth-quarter earnings call that it maintained its position as the world's third-largest air cargo carrier on IATA data, which is worth noting because a lot of older coverage still says fourth.
The revenue line tells a different story from the tonnage. Cargo revenue was about 3.39 billion US dollars in 2025, down 3.0%, so the carrier moved 8% more freight for 3% less money. It ended the year with 27 freighters inside a 516-aircraft fleet, and guided to tonnage growth of 5 to 6% for 2026.
Best for: airfreight to and from Asia, Europe and North America through a single Istanbul hub with genuine freighter capacity.
Arkas Holding
Founded in Izmir in 1902 as an import agency, Arkas moved into international transport in 1944 and was responsible for the first container shipment out of Turkey in 1978. The holding company now brings together 66 companies spanning Arkas Line, Arkas Logistics, Arkas Rail, Arkas Heavy and the terminal businesses Marport, Limar, Autoport and Railport.
Arkas Line's published fleet runs to 49 vessels sized between roughly 900 and 2,900 TEU. That is deliberately a feeder and intra-Mediterranean fleet rather than a deep-sea one, which is exactly what makes it useful: it is the practical way to move boxes around the Mediterranean and Black Sea without waiting for a mainline carrier's schedule.
Best for: short-sea container moves around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and Turkish feeder connections.
Marport
Marport was formed in 2001 as a partnership between Arkas Holding's Limar and Terminal Investment Limited, the terminal arm of MSC, and governance is genuinely shared: its four-member board is appointed two by Arkas and two by TiL.
The terminal covers about 460,000 square metres with five berths totalling 1,675 metres, 14 ship-to-shore gantries, five mobile harbour cranes, 41 rubber-tyred gantries and annual capacity of 2.3 million TEU. It handled 1,472,811 TEU in 2023, the most recent year it has published, making it Turkey's third-largest container terminal at roughly 12% of national volume.
Best for: container volumes through Istanbul where berth capacity on the European side matters.
DP World Turkiye
This one is commonly described using a name that no longer applies. After Turkish competition approval on 22 July 2024, DP World and the Evyap Group combined their Marmara terminals: DP World took 58% of Evyapport and Evyap took 42% of DP World Yarimca. Yarimca became DP World Evyap Yarimca and Evyapport became DP World Evyap Korfez.
Combined, the two run five berths with more than two kilometres of quay, over 2 million TEU of container capacity and more than 1.1 million tonnes of liquid bulk capacity, with around 1,900 people across the terminals, warehouses and logistics offices. Kocaeli as a whole handled 2,505,678 TEU in 2025, up 7.9%.
Best for: containers and liquid bulk serving the industrial belt east of Istanbul.
Asyaport
Asyaport was built by Global Terminal Limited, the port investment arm of MSC, together with the Soyuer family, purely to run a transit container port. It entered service on 8 July 2015 with 2,010 metres of quay, depth to 18 metres and capacity heading toward 2.5 million TEU a year.
The Ministry of Transport data shows what that means in practice: of the 2,138,327 TEU handled in the Tekirdag harbour-master area in 2025, 1,198,999 TEU was pure transit, by far the largest transhipment volume in Turkey. If your box is passing through Turkey rather than into it, this is very likely where it changes ship.
Best for: transhipment rather than Turkish import or export, and connections onward into the Black Sea.
Aras Kargo
Austrian Post holds 80% of Aras Kargo and describes it as its largest group company. The Turkey-plus segment, which also covers Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan, generated 485.9 million euros in 2025, down 6.0% after a 45.5% surge the year before. Austrian Post attributes the decline to intense competition, large e-commerce players bringing delivery in-house, and lira and inflation effects. Turkey carries around 6,200 acceptance points.
Two 2025 developments are worth knowing. An amendment on 12 May 2025 pushed the option windows on the remaining 20% out by a decade, to a put in 2035 or 2036 and a call in 2037, so anyone expecting Austrian Post to buy out the minority soon is working from stale information. And capacity was restricted in the fourth quarter of 2025 by an IT infrastructure incident.
Best for: domestic Turkish business-to-consumer parcel at national scale with a European parent's governance.
DHL eCommerce Turkiye
DHL completed its acquisition of MNG Kargo on 5 October 2023 after Turkish competition and telecoms regulatory clearance, taking on a network of 27 mid-mile sorting centres and more than 800 last-mile branches.
The rebrand is now complete: mngkargo.com.tr redirects to dhlecommerce.com.tr and the consumer brand is DHL eCommerce. That matters commercially, because it is currently the only Turkish domestic parcel network that hands off directly into DHL's cross-border European parcel product rather than through a partner.
Best for: Turkish domestic parcel that needs to continue into Europe on one carrier.
Mars Logistics
Mars runs road, air, sea, rail and intermodal services alongside fairs and events, project cargo, milk-run collection, domestic distribution and warehousing, with road coverage across Europe, the Balkans, the Turkic republics and North Africa.
Independent confirmation of its scale is easier to find than its own figures: DFDS names Mars Logistics as one of its four main competitors in the Turkey to Europe market in its 2025 annual report, alongside Borusan, Netlog and Sarp Intermodal. It has publicised launching its 5,000th trailer and a 10,452 square metre warehouse at Tuzla in Istanbul. It publishes no revenue or headcount.
Best for: international road freight from Turkey into Europe, the Balkans and Central Asia.
Omsan Lojistik
Part of the OYAK group and operating for around 48 years, Omsan holds the distinction of being Turkey's first private train operator with a railway operation authorisation certificate, and runs mutual train services on an import and export line between Turkey and Slovakia. It also holds the Green Logistics Certificate under the Ministry of Transport's combined transport regulation.
That rail licence is the reason to shortlist it. With European road transit permits running out mid-year, as Austrian cabotage permits did in September 2026, an operator that can genuinely move your freight by rail rather than only claiming intermodal capability is worth having quoted alongside the road carriers.
Best for: rail and intermodal freight between Turkey and Central Europe, and automotive or project cargo.
Names you might expect that are not on this list
A few companies appear in almost every guide to this market but should not, because their situation has changed:
- Borusan Lojistik: Named in almost every guide to Turkish logistics, and named by DFDS as a competitor as recently as its 2025 annual report. It is no longer a Borusan company: 100% of Borusan Tedarik was transferred to CEVA Logistics, part of the CMA CGM group, on 5 November 2025 for 383,227,206 US dollars. Only Borusan Port stayed inside the Borusan group.
- Ekol Lojistik: Still widely described as a major Turkish international intermodal carrier. It is not one any more. Its international transport network was sold to DFDS on 15 November 2024, and the services listed on its own site today are warehouse management, e-commerce and national delivery. It is now a domestic contract-logistics business.
- UN Ro-Ro: The name most Turkish exporters still use for the Italy ferries. The brand is gone: the network is operated by DFDS and reported inside its Mediterranean ferry network and its Turkey and Europe South logistics unit.
How to choose between them
The right provider depends less on overall size than on fit with your freight and lane:
- Trailers to Europe: DFDS if you want the ferry and both road legs from one operator, Mars Logistics for pure road, Omsan where rail can replace a scarce transit permit.
- Airfreight: Turkish Cargo, with genuine freighter capacity through Istanbul rather than belly space alone.
- Containers: Marport at Ambarli for the European side of Istanbul, DP World Turkiye for the Izmit industrial belt.
- Transhipment: Asyaport, if your box is passing through Turkey rather than clearing into it.
- Domestic parcels: Aras Kargo for national reach, DHL eCommerce where the parcel continues into Europe.
Whoever you shortlist, get more than one quote, because rates for the same lane can vary widely, and confirm licences, insurance coverage and references for your specific freight type. Our guide to the best websites to find a freight forwarder covers how to run that comparison, and the credentials you can check yourself covers verifying them.
Compare Turkey logistics providers in one place
The ten companies above are the biggest names, but they are not always the best-priced option for a specific shipment, and independent forwarders often handle SME import and export work more attentively than the majors. CargoLinked's directory lists more than 800 logistics companies and freight forwarders based in Turkey, which you can browse by service and location. If you have cargo to move, you can also post your shipment for free and collect quotes from interested forwarders instead of contacting providers one by one.
