Croatia is Europe's most seasonal country: 54.5% of its 2025 tourist nights fell in just two months. Malta is the least, at 21.8%. In 28 of 35 countries September was quieter than June, so the right month depends on where you are going.
All 35 countries, most seasonal first
The measure is simple: what share of a country's 2025 tourist nights fell in its two busiest months. A high number means the year is squeezed into a short summer. A low number means visitors are spread out, so the month you pick matters less.1
| Rank | Country | Nights in busiest two months | Busiest | Quietest | Quieter: June or September | Nights by guests from abroad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Croatia | August | January | September | 90.3% | |
| 2 | Bulgaria | August | November | September | 55.8% | |
| 3 | Albania | August | February | Same | 73.8% | |
| 4 | Greece | August | January | September | 83.8% | |
| 5 | Montenegro | August | January | September | 88.2% | |
| 6 | France | August | November | September | 32.0% | |
| 7 | Slovenia | August | November | September | 74.9% | |
| 8 | Italy | August | November | September | 56.3% | |
| 9 | Sweden | July | January | September | 26.6% | |
| 10 | Iceland | July | December | September | 87.1% | |
| 11 | Denmark | July | January | September | 41.5% | |
| 12 | Romania | August | March | September | 17.9% | |
| 13 | Norway | July | January | September | 34.9% | |
| 14 | Luxembourg | July | January | September | 88.6% | |
| 15 | Cyprus | August | January | June | 92.8% | |
| 16 | Türkiye | August | February | June | 61.3% | |
| 17 | Latvia | July | February | September | 61.8% | |
| 18 | Ireland | August | January | September | 59.0% | |
| 19 | Hungary | August | January | September | 48.9% | |
| 20 | Spain | August | January | Same | 64.1% | |
| 21 | Czechia | August | January | September | 45.2% | |
| 22 | The Netherlands | August | February | September | 43.6% | |
| 23 | Poland | August | January | September | 19.3% | |
| 24 | Belgium | July | January | September | 50.6% | |
| 25 | Estonia | July | January | September | 56.5% | |
| 26 | Portugal | August | January | June | 67.1% | |
| 27 | Slovakia | August | March | September | 34.7% | |
| 28 | Liechtenstein | August | November | June | 96.3% | |
| 29 | Switzerland | July | November | September | 46.9% | |
| 30 | Austria | August | November | September | 72.2% | |
| 31 | Lithuania | July | January | September | 41.7% | |
| 32 | Germany | August | January | September | 18.9% | |
| 33 | Finland | July | April | September | 30.9% | |
| 34 | Serbia | August | February | September | 49.4% | |
| 35 | Malta | August | January | Same | 94.3% |
Bars share one scale from 0 to 60%. "Same" means the two rounded figures were no more than 0.2 of a percentage point apart.
Want to go below country level? 123 regions in 13 countries, ranked the same way.
Weighing up a quieter alternative, such as Trieste instead of Venice? Twelve pairs of places, checked against regional figures.
What the ranking shows that opinion misses
Albania is more seasonal than Greece. Albania put 42.4% of its nights into its two busiest months, against 41.6% for Greece.1
"Shoulder season" does not mean the same months everywhere. September was quieter than June in 28 countries, but June was quieter than September in 4: Cyprus, Türkiye, Portugal, Liechtenstein.1 In Ireland the gap was 12.1% in June against 7.5% in September.
The quietest month is not always January or February. In Bulgaria, France, Slovenia, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria and Finland, the quietest month of 2025 was March, April or November rather than January or February.1 The data shows when; it does not show why, and we have not guessed.
Where do guests from abroad outnumber residents?
Guests living abroad spent the largest share of 2025's tourist nights in Liechtenstein (96.3%), Malta (94.3%) and Cyprus (92.8%). They spent the smallest share in Romania (17.9%), Germany (18.9%) and Poland (19.3%).1
In 14 countries, guests from abroad spent more than half of the nights in every month. In 7, residents did. In 14 countries, residents spent more than half in some months and guests from abroad in others: Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Türkiye, Ireland, Hungary, Czechia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Lithuania, Finland, Serbia.1 Each country page shows which months.
Eurostat counts guests by the country they live in, not by nationality.2
Countries not included, and why
Four countries in Eurostat's dataset are not on this list. We would rather leave a country out than publish a figure we cannot stand behind.
- North Macedonia — 11 of 12 months published. One missing month is enough to make every share wrong. For all 12 months from its own statistics office, see North Macedonia by month.
- United Kingdom and Moldova — no 2025 figures in this dataset. For Northern Ireland, see hotel figures from NISRA. For the whole UK, see non-British arrivals at the border (a border count, not visitors).
- Kosovo* — complete figures exist, but Eurostat's terms allow commercial reuse of data only for EU and EFTA members and official EU candidate countries. Kosovo is a potential candidate, and this site is set up to earn affiliate commission, so we have not republished its data.3 For figures from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, see Kosovo by month.
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.
How long do guests stay, and did accommodation get more expensive?
Guests stayed longest per check-in in Cyprus (4.7 nights on average in 2025) and shortest in Iceland (1.5).5 Accommodation prices rose most in Croatia (up 12.7%), and fell most in Finland (down 3.4%), against a rise of 4.1% across the EU.6
| Country | Average stay (nights) | Accommodation prices, 2025 vs 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Albania | 2.3 | – |
| Austria | 3.1 | +4.6% |
| Belgium | 2.3 | +3.7% |
| Bulgaria | – | +4.3% |
| Croatia | 4.6 | +12.7% |
| Cyprus | 4.7 | +6.3% |
| Czechia | 2.5 | +7.9% |
| Denmark | 4.1 | +7.4% |
| Estonia | – | +8.7% |
| Finland | 1.8 | −3.4% |
| France | 2.5 | +3.7% |
| Germany | 2.4 | +3.0% |
| Greece | 4.1 | +2.4% |
| Hungary | 2.4 | +5.9% |
| Iceland | 1.5 | +3.9% |
| Ireland | 3.3 | +0.5% |
| Italy | 3.3 | +3.1% |
| Latvia | 1.8 | +5.9% |
| Liechtenstein | 1.8 | – |
| Lithuania | 2.3 | +8.2% |
| Luxembourg | 2.2 | +1.2% |
| Malta | 4.4 | +2.1% |
| Montenegro | 3.4 | – |
| The Netherlands | 2.8 | +3.0% |
| Norway | 1.9 | +3.3% |
| Poland | 2.4 | +5.3% |
| Portugal | 2.7 | −0.2% |
| Romania | 2.1 | +10.4% |
| Serbia | 2.8 | – |
| Slovakia | 2.5 | +4.9% |
| Slovenia | 2.6 | +2.8% |
| Spain | 3.4 | +6.4% |
| Sweden | 1.9 | +3.9% |
| Switzerland | 2.3 | +1.6% |
| Türkiye | 2.5 | – |
Average stay is our calculation: nights divided by arrivals, where Eurostat counts an arrival each time a guest checks in. Price change is Eurostat's: accommodation services on the harmonised index of consumer prices. A dash means no figure: Bulgaria and Estonia have gaps in 2025 arrivals or nights; for Albania, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Serbia and Türkiye, Eurostat publishes no accommodation price figure or marks it as having a different definition.
How we checked the method
Before publishing, we recalculated Eurostat's own published figures from the raw monthly counts, to make sure our method measured the same thing theirs does.
| Country | Our calculation | Eurostat published, July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Croatia | 54.5% | 54.5% |
| Bulgaria | 43.4% | 43.4% |
| Greece | 41.6% | 41.6% |
| Malta | 21.9% | 21.9% |
| Finland | 24.1% | 24.1% |
| Germany | 24.1% | 24.0% |
Five match exactly. Germany differs by 0.1, consistent with Eurostat revising its data between the July release and the September update used here.4
What these figures cannot tell you
These figures are good at one thing: showing when a country's registered tourist accommodation fills up. Four things they cannot do.
They miss some small places. The counts cover hotels, holiday and short-stay accommodation and campsites, but countries may exclude establishments with fewer than ten bed places, so small guesthouses can be missing.2
Nights are not queues. A national monthly total cannot see how busy one old town, beach or museum is on a given day.
They say nothing about weather or prices. A quiet month may be quiet for reasons that matter to your trip. 28 of the country pages add 30-year weather averages from one station each. Country pages show the yearly change in accommodation prices where Eurostat publishes one, not prices themselves.
They are one year. These are 2025 figures. Patterns shift from year to year, and Eurostat revises its data as countries update their returns.
Key takeaways
- Croatia is Europe's most seasonal country on this measure, with 54.5% of its 2025 tourist nights in two months. Malta is the least, at 21.8%.
- Albania, at 42.4%, was more seasonal than Greece, at 41.6%.
- September was quieter than June in 28 of 35 countries, not all of them.
- The less seasonal a country, the less your choice of month changes how busy it is.
- Guests living abroad spent the largest share of nights in Liechtenstein (96.3%) and the smallest in Romania (17.9%).
- What we would skip: any single rule for when shoulder season is. It changes country by country, and the data shows it.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, which receives it from each country's national statistical authority. We downloaded the monthly counts directly and calculated the shares, rankings and comparisons ourselves. 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.
- Eurostat, Tourist accommodation reference metadata, on collection by national authorities under Regulation (EU) 692/2011, the definition of a night spent, country of residence, and the ten-bed-place threshold. Read it. Checked 17 September 2026.
- Eurostat, Copyright notice and free re-use of data, on the conditions for commercial reuse. Read it. Checked 16 September 2026. Candidate status from Eurostat, Glossary: candidate countries. Read it.
- Eurostat, Summer peak: 31% of tourism nights in August and July, 7 July 2026. Read it. Checked 16 September 2026.
- Source: Eurostat, Arrivals at tourist accommodation establishments – monthly data, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_ARM, with the nights data (tour_occ_nim), accessed 25 September 2026. Extract: number of arrivals and nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests, January–December 2025. Average stay is our calculation: nights divided by arrivals.
- Source: Eurostat, HICP – annual data (average index and rate of change), doi:10.2908/PRC_HICP_AIND, accessed 22 September 2026. Extract: accommodation services (COICOP CP112), annual average rate of change, 2025.
Modified data. The monthly shares, residence shares, rankings and comparisons are our own calculations from Eurostat's counts. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place, so they may not add exactly. Eurostat bears no responsibility for these calculations or for how the figures are presented here.
Download the full calculated table: offseason-europe-2025.json. For Japan, see Off-season in Japan: 47 prefectures by month. The two sets of figures are measured differently, so we do not rank them together.