LUXEMBOURG / RankWire.AI / – During the initial six months of 2026, tourist overnight stays across the European Union reached 1.321 billion. This represents a 1.7% increase from 1.299 billion nights recorded in the same period of 2025. The Eurostat data encompasses stays from January to June within the 27-member bloc, including nights spent at commercial tourist accommodation facilities by both domestic and international visitors.
Ireland experienced the highest growth among EU nations, with overnight stays rising by 14.6% compared to the previous year. Malta’s increase was 9.9%, and Slovakia saw a growth of 5.9%. Conversely, nine countries faced declines during this period. Cyprus recorded the steepest drop at 7.7%, followed by Romania at 6.7%. It’s important to note that these figures measure nights spent, not visitor numbers, tourism revenue, or travel expenditure.
International visitors accounted for 48.9% of all tourist accommodation nights in the EU during the first half of 2026. Malta led with the highest proportion of foreign stays at 95.2%, followed by Cyprus at 92.6%, and Luxembourg at 87.7%. These figures include nights by non-resident guests from other EU countries and outside the bloc, while domestic visitors made up the remaining share of overnight stays across the EU.
International overnight stays show stronger growth
Nights spent by international travelers increased by 2.5% compared to the first half of 2025, whereas domestic nights grew by only 0.9% in the same period. This indicates that foreign visitor overnight stays expanded at nearly three times the rate of domestic stays. Nearly half of all tourism nights recorded across the EU were contributed by foreign guests, reflecting the separate impacts of resident and non-resident travel on the overall 1.7% rise in accommodation nights.
In several major domestic tourism markets, foreign demand remained a smaller share of total accommodation use. Germany’s international visitor share was 18.5% during the first half of 2026, Poland’s was 19.8%, and Romania’s stood at 23.0%. Consequently, less than one quarter of their tourism nights originated from non-residents. These figures highlight considerable variation in accommodation demand composition among individual EU member states.
Accommodation types included
The statistics cover hotels, similar establishments, holiday rentals, and other short-term accommodations, including camping sites, recreational vehicle parks, and trailer parks. Eurostat defines an overnight stay as each night a guest spends at a tourist accommodation. The data for the first half excludes nights in non-rented lodging. This standardized measurement framework allows national figures to be combined into a comprehensive EU-wide total for tourism accommodation.
Earlier data from the first quarter showed 471.1 million tourism nights across the EU, up 3.4% from the same period in 2025. January accounted for 143.5 million nights (up 3.2%), February for 154.4 million (up 3.4%), and March for 173.2 million (up 3.7%). The latest figures for the first half extend through June, bringing the total to 1.321 billion nights for the period.