Turkey-Ukraine trade pact takes effect, with duty cuts split across two dates

Turkey and Ukraine put a free-trade agreement into force on 1 October, four and a half years after they signed it, and they set a short-term target of 10 billion dollars in two-way trade. The duty cuts do not all start on the same day.

Turkey's trade ministry said on Thursday, on the platform NSosyal, that the agreement had entered into force. The text was signed on 3 February 2022, three weeks before Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Customs-duty rules on goods take effect on 1 January 2027, the ministry said. Ukraine's State Customs Service drew a sharper line. For Ukrainian exports to Turkey, the new terms took effect on 1 October 2026. Preferential treatment for Turkish-origin goods entering Ukraine starts on 1 January 2027.

That split is the part of the announcement easy to miss. One side's exporters get the preference now. The other's wait a quarter. A Ukrainian firm shipping to Turkey can claim the new rate this month if it has the paperwork. A Turkish firm shipping the other way waits until the new year. The agreement covers goods in Harmonized System chapters 01 to 97 that originate in either country. Preferences follow the tariff schedules the two sides agreed. To qualify, a Ukrainian exporter needs proof of origin: a EUR.1 movement certificate, or a declaration of origin, including an exporter's declaration for consignments worth up to 6,000 euros.

The deal is wider than a tariff list. It includes services, investment, electronic commerce, trade facilitation and customs cooperation, and it was written around sectors each side called sensitive. Quota-free bilateral and transit road transport is part of the package, meant to keep goods moving when other routes are constrained. The joint target is 10 billion dollars in bilateral trade in the short term. The ministry did not publish the current total next to that target, so the gap to 10 billion is a goal rather than a measured distance.

The delay between signature and entry into force is the other number. February 2022 to October 2026 is 56 months. In that time Ukraine's ports, grain routes and land borders have been fought over, reopened, and rerouted. A trade text signed before the invasion is entering into force during it. The predictable framework the ministry described is predictable only on paper until trucks and ships can use it. The January 2027 start for duty rules on the Turkish side is a further three months of the old schedule for goods moving one way.

Origin rules will decide who actually gains. A EUR.1 certificate is a customs form, not a political statement. A shipment that cannot prove Ukrainian or Turkish origin does not get the rate. The 6,000-euro threshold for a simpler exporter declaration is a small-parcel rule. Larger consignments need the movement certificate. Firms that already trade in agricultural goods, metals and machinery, the chapters where both sides have sensitive lines, will read the schedules before they read the press release. The agreement says it was drawn with those sectors in mind. It does not say which lines were carved out.

The political setting is a wartime partnership that is also a commercial one. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Volodymyr Zelensky met in New York on 23 September, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, days before the agreement took effect. The meeting did not create the text. The text was four years old. What changed on 1 October is that customs officers have a legal basis, on the Ukrainian export side immediately and on the Turkish import side from January, to apply a rate that was not available last month.

For a Ukrainian exporter the practical change this week is the right to claim a preference into Turkey, if the origin form is in the packet. For a Turkish exporter the practical change is a date, 1 January 2027, and a wait. The 10 billion dollar aim sits above both. Until the two customs services publish how many certificates they stamp, the agreement is in force and the trade it was written to grow is still a target.