Turkey short selling ban: BIST 50 status, breakers, VBTS

Short answer: As of 6 November 2026 there is no market-wide short selling ban in Turkey: short sales are allowed in BIST 50 shares only, under an uptick rule since 22 September 2026. Every other share stays under the Capital Markets Board (SPK) ban of 6 February 2023. Full bans ran from 24 March to 29 August 2025 and from 2 March to 26 June 2026. The latest SPK bulletin listed on 6 November, 2026/78 of 30 October, adds no ban; recheck the list before relying on this.

The position on short selling (açığa satış) at Borsa Istanbul has changed six times since February 2023, often over a weekend. This page is for funds and developers who need to know what an order can do today.

It is not a guide to shorting, names no shares and gives no view or forecast on whether a ban will return. Rules also depend on your country and intermediary; this is not legal advice.

Short selling ban Turkey: what applies on 6 November 2026

Six layers apply at once, from the market-wide decision down to single shares.

The exchange's weekly Short Sales file (opens in a new tab) for 26 to 30 October 2026 lists 50 series and TRY 33.82 billion traded short, and all 50 are on the current BIST 50 list (our comparison, code below).

Short selling ban history: every SPK decision since 2023

Four SPK decisions and two lapses changed the market-wide position six times since February 2023; the 2025 and 2026 ban decisions rest on Article 128(1)(a) of Capital Markets Law 6362 and cite only developments in Borsa Istanbul's markets.

• Weekends. All nine 2026 bulletins on the ban are dated a Saturday or Sunday, so a check must run before Monday's open, not only after Friday's close. One, 2026/13 of 8 March, is missing from the SPK list page (6 November 2026); 2026/15 cites it.
• Bans lapse. No bulletin announced the end of the 2025 or 2026 ban; the lack of an extension was the signal.
• Backtests. From 2 January 2025 to 6 November 2026, 276 of 674 calendar days (41%) fell under a full ban (our count), and BIST 50 membership changes quarterly. A simulation that assumes BIST 50 shorting throughout contains orders that could not be placed; see trading bot risk management.

Borsa Istanbul short selling: the uptick rule and order flags

Where shorting is open, the order must carry the short sale flag and, in the cases below, meet the uptick rule (yukarı adım kuralı): a price above the last trade, or at the last trade if that trade was above the one before (Communiqué V-65 Art. 29).

Short orders cannot enter in the opening auction, and special trade reports, quotes, midpoint and weighted-average-price orders cannot carry them (Procedure 5.8.2, 5.8.3).

A sale of shares not in the account when the order is given counts as a short sale unless the client declares they will be delivered by settlement, and a sale bought back the same day still counts, as the 2026 ban and the September notice repeat. Shares bought but not yet settled count as owned (V-65 Art. 24). The bulletins place compliance on investment firms.

Borsa Istanbul devre kesici: which circuit breaker numbers apply

The figures in force are interim ones: a 5% downward-only trigger on every share and 10 minutes of order collection.

Table 4 of the Procedure and the market operation page still print the general rule (devre kesici): 10%, 7.5% and 5% for the Star, Main and Sub-Markets. Footnote 10 says notices valid until further notice override it, and the segments page (opens in a new tab) lists what applies: a 10% price margin, a 5% downward breaker and 10-minute collection.

The exchange's General Manager may remove or change these thresholds when market conditions require (Procedure 5.3.4). Order systems should treat breakers as market states, not rejects to retry. Session times are in Borsa Istanbul trading hours and contracts in VİOP.

Borsa Istanbul tedbir listesi: the measures file and VBTS steps

The Volatility Based Measures System (VBTS) adds limits share by share, one month per step, and its first step stops short selling even in a BIST 50 share.

A share starts at the first step not already in its market rules, and earlier steps continue while the next runs. The exchange announces the share and dates on the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) after the close; the pages read give no numeric triggers.

The measures file (opens in a new tab) (tedbir listesi) has a time stamp line, a header, then one record per measure. Read on 6 November 2026, it held no records under the stamp 05.11.2026 18:12. We could not confirm on KAP whether any measure was in force, so treat an empty file as unconfirmed, not clear.

Turkish stock market crash: which rules apply, in order

Turkey has no single crash procedure; in a sharp fall, separate rules apply in turn, first at the exchange and then by decision.

1. BIST 100 down 2%. Uptick for all open short lines to the end of the session.
2. A share down 5% from its reference. That share's breaker.
3. A share at 10% below its base price. The price limit; no trade beyond it.
4. BIST 100 down 6%. The index breaker, once a day.
5. After the close. VBTS steps on individual shares, through KAP.
6. By SPK decision, any day. A short selling ban, margin relief or eased buyback rules, as in Bulletins 2025/18 and 2026/11.

From 17 September 2026 the SPK let firms ease margin maintenance on credit purchases from 35% to as low as 20% (Bulletin 2026/60; extended by 2026/68 and 2026/78 to 13 November), while the exchange added the uptick rule. None of bulletins 2026/39 to 2026/78 bans short selling.

That is 36.3% lower from August to October, then 6.6% higher to 5 November (our arithmetic). This guide adds no cause or forecast. Index-provider steps are in MSCI Turkey index freeze.

A daily pre-trade check against the official files

Public files cover most of this; the SPK bulletin and exchange notices still need a person or a text search.

This standard-library script ran on Python 3.11 on 6 November 2026. Synthetic files tested the measures branch: a record for a BIST 50 share blocks it; a blank code, a malformed line or an HTML error page holds.

import csv, io, re, urllib.request, zipfile

BASE = "https://www.borsaistanbul.com"

def fetch(path):
    req = urllib.request.Request(BASE + path, headers={"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0"})
    with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30) as resp:
        return resp.read()

def rows(path):
    text = fetch(path).decode("utf-8-sig")
    return [r for r in csv.reader(io.StringIO(text), delimiter=";") if any(r)]

# BIST 50 list
bist50 = {r[0] for r in rows("/datum/hisse_endeks_ds.csv")[2:] if len(r) > 2 and r[2] == "XU050"}

# Measures: stamp, header, records
m = rows("/erd/menkul_tedbir_listesi.csv")
records = m[2:]
readable = len(m) > 1 and m[1][:2] == ["Pay Adı", "İşlem Kodu"] and all(len(r) > 1 and r[1].strip() for r in records)
blocked = {r[1].strip().split(".")[0] for r in records if len(r) > 1}

# Weekly short sales workbook
book = zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(fetch("/datum/acigasat.zip")))
xlsx = zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(book.read(book.namelist()[0])))
strings = xlsx.read("xl/sharedStrings.xml").decode("utf-8")
found = re.search(r"\d\d\.\d\d\.\d{4} - \d\d\.\d\d\.\d{4}", strings)
sold = set(re.findall(r">([A-Z0-9]+\.E)<", strings))

def gate(series):
    if not (len(bist50) == 50 and series in bist50):
        return "block: BIST 50"
    if not (readable and records):
        return "hold: confirm measures on KAP"
    return "block: measure" if series.split(".")[0] in blocked else "pass"

print("BIST 50 rows:", len(bist50), "| measures:", len(records), m[0][0] if m else "no stamp")
print("short sales:", found.group(0) if found else "no period", len(sold), "series,", len(sold - bist50), "outside BIST 50")
print(gate("XXXXX.E"), "|", gate(min(bist50, default="NONE.E")))

Output:

BIST 50 rows: 50 | measures: 0 05.11.2026 18:12:00
short sales: 26.10.2026 - 30.10.2026 50 series, 0 outside BIST 50
block: BIST 50 | hold: confirm measures on KAP

The index list changes each quarter, with notice (opens in a new tab) at least 10 calendar days before the new period. Check the exchange's data license before redistributing this data. Fincode's algorithmic trading page covers software built from rules the client writes.

Frequently asked questions

Is short selling banned in Turkey right now?

Not across the market. As of 6 November 2026 it is open for BIST 50 shares with an uptick rule and closed for all others. A VBTS measure can close it for a single share.

When does the short selling ban end for other shares?

No end date has been published. The ban of 6 February 2023 was lifted only for BIST 50 shares from 2 January 2025.

Does selling and buying back the same day count as short selling?

Yes, if the shares were not owned when the order was given, and such orders must be flagged. Selling shares bought earlier but not yet settled does not count.

Can foreign investors short Turkish stocks?

The texts read apply by market and share, not nationality; orders reach the exchange through member firms. Your intermediary's terms and home-country rules may add limits.

Sources

• SPK: 2026 bulletin list, read 6 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2025/18 of 23 March 2025: decision 18/574, full ban from 24 March 2025 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2025/36 of 27 June 2025: decision 37/1177, extension to 29 August 2025 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2025/57 of 7 November 2025: fines, citing decisions 6/155 and 62/1863 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2026/11 of 1 March 2026: decision 11/417, full ban from 2 March 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2026/38 of 13 June 2026: decision 36/1097, last extension to 26 June 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2026/60 of 17 September 2026: decision 57/1706, margin flexibility on credit purchases (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK Bulletin 2026/78 of 30 October 2026: decision 76/1918, margin flexibility to 13 November 2026, no short selling ban (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: Equity market segments, rules valid until further notice (English) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: Equity market operation, VBTS and circuit breakers (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: Equity Market Procedure, revision 54 of 21 September 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: Letter 51491 of 22 September 2026, temporary uptick rule on BIST 50 short sales (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: Letter 38860 of 29 August 2025, breaker and uptick changes from 1 September 2025 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Borsa Istanbul: VİOP Procedure, revision 70 of 1 July 2026, section 16.1 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK: Communiqué Serial V No. 65, Articles 24 to 30 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)

This guide is general information, not investment, legal or tax advice. Amounts, rates and rules in Turkey change often: check the date given for each figure and the official source before you rely on it, and ask a licensed adviser about your own situation. Sources, checks and corrections: see the editorial policy.