Why does Turkish inflation have two different numbers?

Any honest discussion of Turkish investment returns runs into a problem within about two sentences: there is more than one inflation number, and they do not agree.

The two series

TÜİK (Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu) is the state statistical institute. Its CPI is the official measure — the one used in legislation, in contract indexation, in pension adjustments, and in every international comparison. It is the number in the sense that matters legally.

ENAG (Enflasyon Araştırma Grubu) is an independent group of academics publishing their own CPI estimate using their own basket and methodology. For several years ENAG's figure has run substantially above TÜİK's — at times more than double.

We are not going to adjudicate this

The gap has been the subject of sustained public argument in Turkey, involving methodology, basket composition, and institutional trust. It is not a dispute a fund data site can settle, and we are not going to pretend otherwise by quietly picking one.

What we can say is narrower and more useful: which number you use changes the sign of the answer. A fund returning 45% in a year is comfortably ahead of inflation on one series and behind it on the other. Any site that shows you a single "real return" without telling you which denominator it used is hiding the most consequential assumption in the calculation.

So we publish both, we label which is which, and we let you switch.

What this means for a reader outside Turkey

If you are not spending lira, this dispute may matter less to you than you think — and a third framing may matter more. Your real question is usually not "did this beat Turkish inflation" but "did this beat my own currency", which is a different calculation entirely (see the currency guide).

Where the inflation series does matter to you:

• Understanding local behaviour. Turkish savers' preference for gold, FX-linked and short-dated instruments is a rational response to a lira-inflation problem. The funds exist in the shape they do because of it.
• Reading Turkish commentary. A domestic article claiming a fund "lost money in real terms" is using one of these two series, and often does not say which.

How this site uses them

Every return on the site can be shown nominal, inflation-adjusted against TÜİK, inflation-adjusted against ENAG, or converted to USD or EUR. The switch is deliberately prominent, and the label always says which denominator produced the figure you are reading. That is the honest position available to us: not a verdict, but no hidden choice either.