Russia, Germany and the UK month by month: when Türkiye’s top source markets travel

In 2025, August was the peak month for all three of Türkiye's largest source markets: Russian nationals made 990,709 arrivals, German nationals 989,839 and UK nationals 638,937, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin. Russia's season runs June to October, Germany's July to October, the UK's May to August.

The annual table says Russia is first, Germany second and the UK third. It says nothing about the week in February when your Russian-speaking receptionist has nobody to talk to, or the October evening when a German charter group fills the last room. That gap between the annual rank and the monthly reality is where staffing, language cover and contracting decisions are actually made. After reading this, you will be able to read the monthly arrivals for Russian tourists in Türkiye by month, and for Germany and the UK, and set them beside your own guest curve.

Why does the monthly shape matter more than the annual rank?#

An annual rank tells you which market is biggest over twelve months; the monthly shape tells you when you need that market's language at the desk, when to call its operators and when its contracts release.

Rostering and language cover are decided week by week. A market that arrives in four months needs cover in those four months, whatever its annual total says. Contracting conversations follow the market's own booking window, which sits before its arrival months, not in the middle of them.

Two markets with similar annual totals can have very different months. Germany made 983,346 arrivals in October 2025 against 989,839 in August, while Russia had already fallen to 865,472 in October from 990,709 in August (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin, table 7). An annual figure also hides the trough: Russia's February 2025 stood at 167,611 arrivals against its August 990,709, a difference no yearly total shows.

Everything here describes 2025 as published. It is a record of what happened, not a forecast for the next season.

Where do you find arrivals by nationality and month?#

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism's General Directorate of Investment and Establishments publishes Türkiye's border statistics on its Tourism Statistics pages at yigm.ktb.gov.tr (opens in a new tab), and the yearly bulletin carries a table of foreign visitors by nationality and month.

Border statistics sit on the Tourism Statistics page (TR-9851). Ministry-certified accommodation statistics sit on a separate page (TR-201121). They are two different datasets and should never be merged into one sentence. On 2 November 2026 the latest releases listed on those pages were the 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin and the September 2026 monthly border bulletin, plus the August 2026 monthly and 2025 yearly accommodation bulletins.

The 2025 yearly border bulletin (opens in a new tab) is a spreadsheet. Table 6 gives foreign visitors by nationality for the year; table 7 gives the same visitors by nationality and month, which is the table this article uses. Border counts record arrivals at the frontier. They include same-day visitors and count a person again each time that person crosses, so they measure movement across the border, not people in beds.

The Ministry publishes its monthly border statistics as provisional data. Before you quote an accommodation figure, check the label on the bulletin itself and follow it. Quote the publisher, the bulletin and the year in the sentence whenever you use a number.

When do Russian, German and UK visitors come to Türkiye?#

August was the highest month for all three markets in 2025, and the lowest was February for Russia and January for Germany and the UK, according to table 7 of the Ministry's 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin.

Russia climbs from 203,733 arrivals in January to 745,174 in May, then holds above 865,000 from June to October: 887,283 in June, 954,077 in July, 990,709 in August, 971,226 in September and 865,472 in October, before dropping to 287,524 in November and 225,364 in December.

Germany starts slowly at 150,558 in January, 179,512 in February and 241,995 in March, then rises through 571,042 in April, 597,348 in May and 683,122 in June to 987,176 in July and 989,839 in August. Germany's autumn is unusual in the table: September falls back to 817,182 and October returns to 983,346, close to the August level, before November drops to 278,393 and December to 265,677.

The UK is the smallest of the three and the most compressed: 72,356 in January, 102,408 in February, 129,126 in March, then 373,922 in April, 547,138 in May, 527,933 in June, 611,108 in July, 638,937 in August, 539,605 in September and 510,408 in October, before 120,903 in November and 96,192 in December.

For the year, Russian nationals made 6,903,981 arrivals (13.08% of foreign visitors, up 2.89% on 2024), German nationals 6,745,190 (12.78%, up 1.88%) and UK nationals 4,270,036 (8.09%, down 3.69%), out of 52,775,055 foreign visitors (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin, tables 6 and 7). Read the numbers as published. The bulletin gives counts, not reasons, so resist adding explanations about holidays, exchange rates or politics.

Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin, table 7.

For the wider picture of how these months form Türkiye's season, see Türkiye's tourism season month by month: reading the official monthly data.

How do the three markets differ in their peaks and shoulders?#

Russia has the longest high season and the deepest winter, Germany has two high months with a dip between them, and the UK is the most compressed into late spring and summer with an October tail.

Russia holds five consecutive months above 865,000 arrivals, then steps down sharply: November at 287,524 is a change of level, not a gentle slope. Germany's shape is a double peak. August and October are within about 6,500 arrivals of each other, with September lower in between, which matters because a hotel that plans only for August will misread October.

The UK arrives later and leaves earlier in proportional terms: April is already substantial at 373,922, the four months from May to August carry the weight, and October at 510,408 is still a real month before the drop to 120,903 in November. All figures are from table 7 of the Ministry's 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin.

The bulletin reports counts only. Any statement about why a month is high or low is your interpretation, and should be labelled as one.

Is a Russian national at the border the same as a Russian guest in your hotel?#

No. Border statistics count arrivals by nationality, while your guest list records people by the document they present and the address they give, and the Ministry's certified accommodation statistics split foreign and domestic nights rather than nationalities.

Nationality is a field recorded at the frontier. A hotel records identity documents and contact addresses, which are different fields and can point to a different country. A holder of a Russian passport may live in Germany and fly from there; a German passport holder may be returning from a second home on the coast. Neither case breaks the statistics, but both break a naive reading of them.

The certified accommodation bulletins report arrivals and overnight stays split into foreign and domestic, not by nationality, so there is no public monthly nationality series for hotels to match against. Border counts include same-day visitors, so part of every monthly figure never needed a room.

Use the two series for different jobs: border nationality data for market timing, accommodation data for capacity and nights. Say which one you are quoting. For the deeper definitional question, see Russia or Germany? Why Türkiye's source market rankings differ by nationality and residence.

How do you put your own curve next to the national one?#

Export your own arrivals by country of residence and month for the same twelve months, turn both series into a share of their own annual total, and compare the shapes rather than the levels.

Pull arrivals by residence and month for 2025 from your property management system, using the same twelve calendar months as the bulletin. Index each series: divide each month by that series' own annual total, so a 40-room hotel and a national figure can sit on one page without pretending to be the same size.

Compare three things: the peak month, the shoulder months, and the month in which the market effectively disappears from your building. Check the definition of the date. An arrival date and a stay date give different curves, and a guest staying from 28 December into January belongs to two months.

Separate group and long-stay business before comparing. One charter group can move a small hotel's curve for a whole month. Record the source and the date you pulled the data, so next year's comparison is honest about what changed.

What do you do differently once you know the shape?#

You align language cover, sales calls, contract release dates and offers to each market's own months instead of to the national season as a whole.

Language cover comes first: match Russian, German and English cover to the months each market is actually present, rather than spreading it evenly across the year. A fuller approach to staffing for your guest mix is described in Multilingual hotel service: a language plan for your guest mix.

Sales calls and contracting follow the market's booking window, which sits ahead of the arrival months shown in the table. Contact an operator before that window opens. Release dates and allotments should be set against the market's arrival curve, so rooms are not released into a month when that market is already gone. A special offer for an operator has to be loaded and live before the shoulder month it targets, not during the peak it cannot change; the mechanics are covered in Special offers (SPO) for tour operators: rules, combinations and loading.

Do not convert the 2025 shape into a projection. The bulletin records what happened, and 2026 is flat; a curve is a planning input, not a promise. Re-pull table 7 every year. The shape moves, and last year's peak month is not automatically this year's.

What to do next#

Download table 7 of the Ministry's 2025 yearly border statistics bulletin, build the index for your own three markets, and set your own curve beside it before the next contracting round. The national table tells you when each market travels; only your own data tells you how much of it you win. Our Türkiye page collects the public sources this series draws on.