Turkey to Syria Shipping

Two Turkish gateways

Mersin and Iskenderun carry different cargo

Turkey ships to Syria through two Mediterranean ports that are not interchangeable. Mersin is the principal container port on Turkey's eastern Mediterranean coast and it is where a boxed consignment loads. Iskenderun, in Hatay province, is the steel and general cargo port, it lies closest to the Syrian border, and it is where cargo that has to be worked over the quay belongs.

We split the lane on that basis. Palletised manufactured goods, ceramic tiles, packaging, food ingredients and machinery in crates go into containers at Mersin. Steel coil, rebar, sections, plate, pipe, and project pieces that no container will take go breakbulk at Iskenderun with the lift plan agreed before the vessel is fixed. Project and heavy cargo is planned on that berth choice from the first enquiry.

The sea leg from either Turkish port into Latakia or Tartous is short, which changes the arithmetic against the road. A container that would otherwise be transloaded at a land gate can stay sealed from the Turkish stuffing point to the Syrian quay. Sea freight and road freight are quoted side by side on this corridor rather than one being assumed.

Border gates

The Turkish land crossings into Syria, named on both sides

The Turkey to Syria road corridor runs through a line of paired customs posts, each with a Turkish name and a Syrian name. Cilvegozu at Reyhanli in Hatay province faces Bab al-Hawa and serves Idlib. Oncupinar at Kilis faces Bab al-Salameh and serves Azaz and the Aleppo approaches. Karkamis faces Jarablus on the Euphrates. Further east, Akcakale faces Tell Abyad, Ceylanpinar faces Ras al-Ain and Nusaybin faces Qamishli.

The gate is chosen by where the Syrian consignee sits and which post is working commercial freight for that commodity, not by which post is nearest the Turkish loading point. We fix the gate before the trailer is loaded, because the Turkish export declaration names the customs office of exit and a change of gate after lodgement means the declaration is redone.

Gaziantep is the inland assembly point for this traffic. The industrial estates at Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras and Adana feed the gates directly by road without a port leg at all, and we consolidate part loads there for a single trailer to the border. The wider comparison across every regional crossing sits on our cross-border land freight routes page.

Transloading

Turkish trailers stop at the gate and the cargo changes vehicle

On the Turkey to Syria road lane the normal case is a back-to-back handover: the Turkish trailer is unloaded inside the customs yard at the gate and the goods are reloaded onto a Syrian trailer that carries them on to Idlib, Aleppo, Homs or Damascus. The trailer that leaves the Turkish factory is not the trailer that reaches the Syrian consignee.

That single fact governs how the load is built. The cargo is handled twice and tallied twice, so it travels palletised, strapped and shrink-wrapped, with marks and numbers on every package and a packing list broken down pallet by pallet. Loose cartons and unbanded stacks are what turn a two-hour handover into a day in the yard and what produces the shortage claims on this corridor.

We pack for the handover rather than discovering it. Pallet sizes are set to the yard's handling equipment, the tally sheet travels with the driver, and heavy single pieces that cannot be transferred without a crane are routed to sea through Iskenderun instead. Warehousing and consolidation covers the build before the trailer leaves.

Turkish export file

What a Turkish exporter lodges before the goods move

A Turkish export consignment travels on an export declaration, the ihracat beyannamesi, lodged with Turkish customs. Before that declaration is registered it passes through the exporters association, the ihracatci birlikleri, that the seller belongs to. This registration step is particular to Turkish exports and it is the one European suppliers on our other corridors never encounter.

The origin document is the mense sahadetnamesi, the certificate of origin issued by the Turkish chamber of commerce where the exporter is registered. It is attested and then legalised for Syria before the documents travel. The commercial invoice is legalised alongside it, and the description on both has to match the goods a Syrian examiner will see in the trailer.

One document does no work here. The A.TR movement certificate that accompanies Turkish goods into the European Union customs union has no function whatsoever in a Syrian import file, and a buyer who asks the Turkish seller for one is waiting for a paper that will not help. Where the trailer runs under the TIR system, the TIR carnet replaces the national transit declaration for the road leg. Our customs clearance in Syria page sets out what happens on the Syrian side.

Syrian entry

Clearing at the gate or running inland under transit

A trailer that enters Syria from Turkey has two ways to finish. The import declaration can be registered at the border customs office at the gate and the goods released there for a domestic road move, or the trailer can run inland under Syrian customs transit to the Aleppo or Damascus customs office and clear at destination.

We choose between them on where the consignee is and where the examination is best handled. Clearing at the gate suits a single consignee close to the border. Running inland suits a Damascus importer, a consolidated trailer with several consignees, and any file where the commodity needs an inspection that the inland office is set up for. Transit cargo covers the sealed inland movement.

Our Damascus office files the Syrian import declaration and attends the examination itself rather than handing it to a third party at the border. Customs clearance is quoted inside the freight price on this lane, not added afterwards.

Cargo on this lane

What actually moves from Turkey to Syria

The steady traffic out of Turkey is construction and finishing materials, ceramic tiles and sanitaryware, steel in every worked form, textiles and yarn, polymer raw material for Syrian converters, food ingredients, and the food processing, packaging and plastics machinery that Turkish builders supply to Syrian plants.

Midtrans Shipping And Services carries commercial and industrial consignments on this corridor: full trailer loads, part loads, full and less than container loads by sea, project and heavy cargo, industrial equipment, raw materials and manufactured goods, each booked against a commercial invoice and a registered Syrian consignee. LCL covers the part loads and air freight the urgent industrial spares.