Data extracted 25 February 2026.
Planned article update: June 2026.
Highlights
EU tourism nights mark 2.2% yearly increase in 2025, reaching a record 3.1 billion nights spent.
International tourism was the motor for the growth in tourism in 2025
(+50 million nights, +3.4%).
540 million tourism nights spent in Q4 2025.
This article focuses on the short-term evolutions in the nights spent in tourist accommodation in the European Union (EU). The data from the most recent reference period available are compared with those of the same period of the previous year. The current article discusses the data for Q4 2025, and includes results for the entire year of 2025.
3% more nights spent in Q4 2025 compared to a year earlier
In the last 3 months of 2025, over 540 million nights were spent in EU tourist accommodation: 235 million nights in October, 146 million nights in November and 159 million nights in December (see Table 1). This corresponds to 15.9 million more nights (+3.0%) compared with the last 3 months of 2024. All but 2 EU countries (Romania and Luxembourg) reported a positive trend. The highest increases Q4 2025 were recorded in Ireland and Malta, with +12.0% and +10.9% respectively (see Figure 1). Nearly half of the 540 million nights spent in the EU in Q4 2025 were observed in the top 3 countries, Spain (97.9 million nights), Germany (96.2 million) and Italy (70.8 million), France followed closely with 70.3 million nights spent.
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
.png)
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
Nights spent in tourist accommodation reaching 3.1 billion in 2025
With the release of December 2025 data, estimates for the entire year of 2025 are now available. The year 2025 again, marked a record number of tourism nights spent in the EU, with 3.09 billion nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments across the EU (see Table 1). This marks an increase by 2.2% compared with the year 2024. In 24 out of 27 EU countries, the nights spent in 2025 exceeded the 2024 level. Malta recorded a double-digit growth rate (+10.1%) (see Figure 2), followed by Poland (+7.2%). The highest number of nights spent was observed in Spain, where over half a billion nights spent were recorded (514 million). Compared with 2024, 66.4 million more nights were spent. The biggest contributors to this growth, in absolute terms, were France (+14.0 million nights), Italy (+10.7 million) and France (+8.5 million). The increase by 66.4 million nights in 2025, means that on an average night 182 thousand more tourists stayed at EU accommodation compared to a year earlier. On an average night in 2025, 8.5 million beds in tourist accommodation establishments were occupied by tourists.
.png)
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
Looking at the monthly distribution of the nights spent (see Figure 3), the seasonal pattern in 2025 was similar to that of 2024, apart from the Easter effect in March and April (the Easter weekend fell largely in March in the year 2024, while in 2025 it fell entirely in April). The dominance of July and August was a little bit less pronounced (31.1% of all annual nights in 2025 compared with 31.1% in 2024). In July and August 2025, 962 million nights spent were spent in the EU, which is just below the number of nights spent in the 6 slowest months combined (January, February, March, April, November and December, 976 million nights).
.png)
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
Growth in the year 2025 was mainly driven by international tourism
The breakdown by origin of the guest (see Table 2) shows that in Q4 2025 compared with Q4 2024, the overall increase by 15.9 million nights spent (+3.0%) was mainly created in the segment of international tourism (+5.2%). This segment accounted for most of the overall increase (+12.7 million, compared with +3.3 million nights extra in the domestic segment). 4 out of 5 extra nights were spent by international tourists. In absolute terms, the biggest increases in international nights spent in Q4 2025 were observed in Spain (+2.2 million), Italy (+1.9 million), France (+1.7 million) and Austria (+1.5 million). In relative terms, Ireland (+17.9%), Romania and Slovakia (both +17.4%) and Malta (+13.2%) recorded the highest growth in nights spent by foreigners in Q4 2025 (note that the high growth figure for Lithuania was not considered in the analysis as it’s affected by a break in series due to a change in the data collection methodology). Hungary showed the highest growth rate in the number of domestic nights spent (+6.5%), followed by Sweden (+5.9%) and Poland (+5.7%), but in absolute terms the biggest increases were noted in Poland (+927 thousand domestic nights), Germany (+892 thousand domestic nights) and Sweden (+504 thousand domestic nights).
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
The dominant contribution of the international tourism flows to the overall growth, observed in Q4 2024, is confirmed when considering the results for the entire year (see Table 3 and Figure 4), with international tourism accounting for three quarters of the growth by 66.4 million nights (+49.7 million, +3.4%). The biggest contributors to the increase with nearly 50 million international nights were Italy (+10.8 million international nights, +4.3%), France (+10.1 million international nights, +7.2%) and Spain (+8.1 million international nights, +2.5%, jointly accounting for more than half of the increase in nights spent by foreign guests in the EU. The biggest drop in domestic nights spent was observed in Romania (-896 thousand nights, -3.5%), while Poland saw an increase with more than 5 million nights spent by domestic tourists (followed by Germany and France with an increase with 3.9 million and 3.7 million domestic nights respectively).
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
.png)
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
Hotels accounted for nearly two thirds of nights spent in 2024
Traditionally, the camping segment is relatively unimportant in Q4 (4.4% of all nights spent, with the majority recorded in October 2025). Hotels and similar accommodation accounted for 72.7% of the nights spent in Q4 2025, the remaining 22.8% was taken by holiday and other-short stay accommodation. At annual level, the dominance of the hotels segment was a bit less pronounced, with a share of 62.5% in the total nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in the EU (see Figure 5). Holiday and short-stay accommodation and campsites accounted for 24.1% and 13.4% of the market respectively.
.png)
Source: Eurostat (tour_occ_nim)
Data on tourism nights is included in the interactive European Statistical Monitor, which contains monthly and quarterly indicators from a number of statistical areas. The dashboard is updated every month with the latest available data for each indicator.
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
This article presents the short-term trends in nights spent in tourist accommodation in the EU, analysing monthly data provided by EU countries.
For a more comprehensive the year-to-year evolution of the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation and a detailed analysis of 2024 annual data, see Tourism statistics - annual results for the accommodation sector.
Eurostat also publishes separate series on platform tourism, re-using privately held data obtained directly from three major international platforms. For the most recent results, see the article Short-stay accommodation offered via online collaborative economy platforms - monthly data.
Context
The EU is a major tourist destination, with 6 European countries among the world's top 10 destinations for holidaymakers, according to UN Tourism [1] data. Tourism is an important activity in the EU which contributes to employment and economic growth, as well as to the development of rural, peripheral or less-developed areas. Tourism is estimated to account for 4.5% to the EU's gross value added. These characteristics drive the demand for reliable and harmonised statistics on this activity, as well as within the wider context of regional policy and sustainable development policy areas.
Footnotes
Explore further
Other articles
Database
- Tourism (tour)
- Tourism (t_tour)
Thematic section
Publications
Methodology
- Capacity and occupancy of tourist accommodation establishments (ESMS metadata file — tour_occ_esms)
Legislation
- Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 of 6 July 2011 concerning European statistics on tourism and repealing Council Directive 95/57/EC.
- Summaries of EU legislation: Tourism statistics