In 2025, Spain's busiest month was August (14.6% of its tourist nights) and Portugal's was August (14.1%). The quietest were January (4.5%) and January (4.4%). Spain's two busiest months carried 27.6% of its year, against 26.0% for Portugal, so Spain's year was more concentrated.
Spain and Portugal, month by month
Each chart shows what share of the place's 2025 tourist nights fell in each month, on the same scale; the two busiest months are highlighted.1
Share of the year, every month
Spain had the smaller share of its own year in seven months (February, March, April, May, October, November and December), and Portugal in five. A smaller share means a quieter month for that country, not fewer visitors than the other.1
| Month | Spain | Portugal |
|---|---|---|
| January | 4.5% | 4.4% |
| February | 4.9% | 5.0% |
| March | 5.9% | 6.6% |
| April | 7.7% | 8.5% |
| May | 9.2% | 9.3% |
| June | 10.6% | 9.8% |
| July | 13.1% | 11.9% |
| August | 14.6% | 14.1% |
| September | 10.5% | 10.4% |
| October | 8.7% | 9.1% |
| November | 5.3% | 6.0% |
| December | 5.0% | 5.1% |
The key facts side by side
| Spain | Portugal | |
|---|---|---|
| Busiest month | August, 14.6% | August, 14.1% |
| Quietest month | January, 4.5% | January, 4.4% |
| Two busiest months | 27.6% of the year | 26.0% of the year |
| Busiest vs quietest | 3.2 times as busy | 3.2 times as busy |
| From abroad | In 2025, guests living abroad spent 64.1% of Spain's tourist nights. Source page | In 2025, guests living abroad spent 67.1% of Portugal's tourist nights. Source page |
| Length of stay | Guests stayed an average of 3.4 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Spain in 2025. Source page | Guests stayed an average of 2.7 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Portugal in 2025. Source page |
| How seasonal | July and August together carried 27.6% of the year, making Spain the twentieth most seasonal of 35 European countries we measured. Source page | July and August together carried 26.0% of the year, making Portugal the 26th most seasonal of 35 European countries we measured. Source page |
| Public holidays | 8 days were holidays in every region of Spain in 2026; each region adds its own. Source page | In Portugal, public holidays fall on 13 days in both 2026 and 2027. Source page |
Each sentence is copied from the page it links to, where its source is cited.
Weather
We do not yet publish weather for Portugal, so there is no weather comparison here. Weather for Spain
What this comparison cannot tell you
- A share of each place's own year, not a crowd count. A low share means that month was quiet for that place. It does not mean the place had fewer visitors than somewhere else, and a small country's busy month can still be far quieter than a big country's quiet one.
- Nights, not queues. A national or prefecture total cannot show crowding at one sight, beach or old town. Day trips do not count at all, because nobody stays the night.
- One year. These are 2025 figures. Another year can differ, for example when Easter moves between March and April.
- We have not been to these places and make no judgement about which is better to visit.
Want a different pair? Open these two in Compare and add or swap places.
Key takeaways
- Busiest in 2025: Spain in August, Portugal in August.
- Quietest: Spain in January, Portugal in January.
- Two busiest months: 27.6% of Spain's year, 26.0% of Portugal's.
- What we would skip: picking one over the other on these figures alone. They show when each is busy, not which you would enjoy more.
Sources
The tourism figures come from Eurostat and the weather from the World Meteorological Organization's 1991–2020 normals, published by NOAA. We copied every figure from the two places' own pages, where each source is cited in full. See how we research.
- Source: Eurostat, Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments – monthly data, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_NIM, accessed 25 September 2026. Dataset last updated by Eurostat on 22 September 2026. Extract: number of nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests and split by guests resident in the country and abroad, January–December 2025.
- Weather: WMO Member Nations (2023). WMO Climatological Standard Normals for 1991-2020 (NCEI Accession 0253808), the station named for each country in the table (the same station its country page uses), mean daily maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation and number of days with at least 1 mm of precipitation, normals computed from at least 24 years. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. doi:10.25921/800j-vn07. Accessed 22 September 2026. Released by NOAA under CC0.
Modified data. The monthly shares, orderings and comparisons are our own calculations from Eurostat's counts and the Japan Tourism Agency's figures (「宿泊旅行統計調査」（観光庁）を加工して作成). Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Neither body is responsible for these calculations or for how the figures are presented here.