Bosphorus Cruise Prices 2026: Public Ferry vs Tour Boat vs Dinner

Short version: if you have a full day, take the public Şehir Hatları long tour at 10:35 from Eminönü for 640 TL. If you have two hours, book a tour boat with an audio guide from about $9. If you want an evening out, the dinner cruise with a show is the most-booked thing in the city, but go for the show and the food, not the views.

The three ways to do it

Option	Price per adult	Length	Leaves from	Best for
Şehir Hatları long tour	640 TL (320 TL with Turkish ID)	About 6 hours with a 2.5-hour stop	Eminönü, 10:35 daily	A whole day, lunch at the Black Sea end
Şehir Hatları short tour	340 TL (170 TL with Turkish ID)	About 2 hours	Eminönü, 14:40 daily	Seeing the strait cheaply without a tour company
Private tour boat	From about $9 online, 250 to 300 TL at the pier	1.5 to 2 hours	Eminönü or Kabataş, roughly hourly	Flexibility, audio guide, sunset departures
Dinner cruise with show	From about $31, more with drinks and window seats	3 hours, evening	Hotel pickup or Kabataş area piers	A night out

Children under 6 travel free on the public ferry and under-12s pay half. The public fares above are from the operator’s own tariff page; the tour boat and dinner cruise prices are the lowest listed online on the day we checked, and they move with the season.

The public ferry: Şehir Hatları

Şehir Hatları is the city ferry company. Its Bosphorus tours use the same wide, open-decked boats as the commuter routes, and they are the only tours that go the whole length of the strait.

Long tour (Uzun Boğaz Turu). Leaves Eminönü at 10:35 every day, calls at Beşiktaş, Üsküdar, Kanlıca, Sarıyer and Rumeli Kavağı, and arrives at Anadolu Kavağı at 12:25. The boat waits there until 15:00, which is the point: Anadolu Kavağı is a fishing village with a ruined Genoese castle on the hill and a row of fish restaurants along the water. You are back in Eminönü around 16:40. You can also buy one way for 195 TL and come back by bus and metro if you want to stay longer.

Short tour (Kısa Boğaz Turu). Leaves Eminönü at 14:40, stops at Üsküdar and Ortaköy, and comes back around two hours later. It does not go as far as the second bridge on every run, so if the views north of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge matter to you, take the long tour or a private boat.

Where to board. The Bosphorus tour pier at Eminönü is on the Golden Horn side of the Galata Bridge, a few minutes’ walk from the Eminönü tram stop. Follow the signs for Boğaz Hattı or Boğaz Turu; the private operators’ touts will try to redirect you to their boats, so keep walking until you see the Şehir Hatları logo.

Buying tickets. Sold at the pier booth before departure. In summer, the 10:35 long tour fills up, so be there by 10:00. There is no online sale for foreign visitors that we could find on the official site; the third-party “public ferry tickets” you see online are resold at a mark-up.

Private tour boats

Turyol, Dentur Avrasya and a dozen smaller operators run 90-minute to two-hour loops from Eminönü and Kabataş roughly every hour from mid-morning to sunset, more often in summer. They go up to the second bridge and back, past Dolmabahçe, Ortaköy, the Bosphorus Bridge, Beylerbeyi, Rumeli Fortress and the Maiden’s Tower.

At the pier the walk-up price is around 250 to 300 TL. Online, the same class of boat is listed from about $9 with a phone audio guide in a dozen languages and a fixed departure time you can plan around. The audio guide is the reason to book online: the boats do not narrate, and without context the shoreline is just pretty houses.

• Our pick: the ★ day, sunset or night sightseeing cruise with audio guide (paid link), from about $9, rated 4.8 by about 18,800 people. Choose the sunset departure if you can.
• If you want drinks and a snack included, the ★ sunset and daytime cruise with drinks and snacks (paid link) is rated 4.7 by about 4,200 people and was listed from $6 on sale when we checked.
• Small boat instead of a big one: the ★ small-group yacht cruise with snacks (paid link), from about $41, rated 4.9 by about 4,200 people. Fewer people, quieter, better photos.

Dinner cruises

Dinner cruises leave around 19:00 or 20:00, sail for three hours, and serve a set menu with a folk-dance and belly-dance show on board. Most include hotel pickup from the centre. The base price usually covers soft drinks only; unlimited local alcohol, a window table or a stage-side table are paid add-ons and the listing will ask you to choose them at checkout.

Know what you are buying before you book. It is dark, the show is indoors, and the boat spends a lot of the evening moored. It is a dinner and a show that happens to float. If you want the Bosphorus, do a daytime or sunset cruise as well.

A cheaper alternative with the same format is the ★ dinner cruise with Turkish night show (paid link), from about $30, rated 4.8 by about 14,100 people.

The free version

Any commuter ferry crosses the Bosphorus for an ordinary Istanbulkart fare. Eminönü to Kadıköy gives you the Sultanahmet skyline and the Maiden’s Tower; Beşiktaş to Üsküdar is short but passes Dolmabahçe. Neither goes up the strait, so the palaces, bridges and fortresses north of Beşiktaş are out of reach. It is the right answer if you live here and just want to be on the water with a tea. For a full day on the water, the Princes’ Islands ferry is the other classic.

When to go

• Sunset is the best light and the most crowded departure. Book that one ahead.
• Morning boats are quieter and the light is flat; fine if you mainly want the audio guide.
• Winter tours still run daily, but the open deck is cold and wet. Sit inside on the upper level, port side going north for the European shore.
• Wind. Strong northerlies occasionally cancel private boats and shorten the public route. Check the day before if the forecast is bad.

What you will see, in order going north

Galata Tower and the old Karaköy waterfront, Dolmabahçe Palace, Çırağan Palace, Ortaköy Mosque under the Bosphorus Bridge, Beylerbeyi Palace on the Asian side, Arnavutköy and Bebek, Rumeli Fortress facing Anadolu Fortress at the narrowest point, then the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. The public long tour continues past Kanlıca, Sarıyer and the two Kavağı villages to where the strait opens into the Black Sea.

Combining it with Sultanahmet

Eminönü is a ten-minute walk from Hagia Sophia. A workable day: Hagia Sophia at opening, Basilica Cistern, lunch, then the 14:40 short tour or an early-afternoon private boat, and you are back for dinner. If you are doing the public long tour, that is your whole day; do Sultanahmet the day before.

Notes

GetYourGuide links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we get a small commission and you pay the same price. Public ferry fares and times are from the operator’s tariff and timetable pages on the date shown at the top; the operator changes fares during the year without much notice. If you find a different price at the pier, email hello@nomadistanbul.com with the date and we will update the page.