Key takeaways
- The Camino Portugués issued 190,344 Compostelas in 2025 (central 100,835, coast 89,509), 35.85% of the 530,987 total, according to the Santiago Pilgrim's Office via press releases and dashboard readings.
- The two Portuguese routes took 18.7% of Compostelas in 2016, 27.2% in 2019 and 35.85% in 2025; the share was about 40 per 100 in 2026 to 23 October (press).
- The coast grew 301% from 2019 to 2025 (22,292 to 89,509) against 39% for the central route and 27% for the Francés, so the Portuguese Way is fastest-growing only on its coastal branch.
- The claim that more than half of Portuguese Way pilgrims start in Porto is false: Porto is 27.1% of the Portuguese-route total on the Office start table (51,574) and 37.8% on the route-level shares (about 71,850), both derived.
- Tui and Vigo supplied 60,321 starts in 2025, 31.7% of Portuguese-route pilgrims (derived), who spend no night in Portugal; Portuguese-soil starts are between 69,695 and about 90,000.
- Portuguese nationals ranked fifth with 22,821 Compostelas in 2025 (4.3%), and about 16,540 of them walked a Portuguese route; 88% of central-route and 95% of coastal-route pilgrims are foreign (derived from Office shares to 14 December 2025).
- Portugal publishes no pilgrim count: the last hostel register found is Ponte de Lima's 13,558 for 2017, and tax exemptions are narrow (Porto exempts only the first night in a pilgrim hostel; Caminha exempts the first night anywhere).
- 2026 has already passed 2025: the Office dashboard read 543,960 on 23 October against 530,987 for all of 2025, and the Holy Year 2027 opens on 31 December 2026 with no published pilgrim forecast.
The Camino Portugués put 190,344 pilgrims into Santiago de Compostela in 2025, more than a third of every Compostela issued that year. Every one of those numbers was counted in Galicia. No authority in Portugal publishes a pilgrim count of its own.
The Santiago Pilgrim's Office records people who finish, ask for the certificate and say where they started. The central route took 100,835 in 2025 and the coastal route 89,509. Together that is 35.85% of the 530,987 Compostelas issued, up from 18.7% in 2016. The coast alone has grown 301% since 2019, while the Camino Francés has grown 27%.
What the figure hides is how much of it Portugal receives. Tui and Vigo, both in Spain, account for 60,321 starts, so those pilgrims slept no night on Portuguese soil. Porto accounts for 51,574 on the start-point table and about 71,850 if the route-level shares are applied, a gap of 20,000 that no source resolves. Meanwhile 2026 has already passed the whole of 2025: the Office dashboard read 543,960 on 23 October. This article sets out what the Office counts, how the Portuguese share grew, who walks, what Portugal can and cannot measure on its own side of the border, and which claims should not be repeated. It follows our work on Fátima's attendance figures, the other mass pilgrimage in the series, and on Porto's record year.
What the Pilgrim's Office counts, and what it does not
A Compostela is a certificate. The Office issues it free to a pilgrim who has walked or ridden on horseback the last 100 kilometres into Santiago, or cycled the last 200, and whose credential carries stamps from the route. The Office page adds that walkers who started abroad need at least 70 kilometres in Spain. Pilgrims who do not meet the religious or spiritual condition can buy a Certificate of Distance for €3, which records the kilometres walked. No count of those certificates has been published.
Every total in this article therefore counts finishers who asked for a Compostela. It does not count walkers. Sensors on the approach routes registered 736,000 walkers up to 22 September 2026 against 454,000 Compostelas issued by that date (Europa Press, 22 September 2026). The ratio of 1.6 is derived and is not a clean undercount, since sensors count passes, and an undercount of up to 40% appears in the press with no method attached.
The Office has two Portuguese categories, the central route and the coastal route. A pilgrim who walks the coast from Porto and joins the central route at Redondela is recorded under the route declared on the credential. Start points are declared too, so a Porto start tells us the pilgrim began in Porto and nothing about how long they stayed or where they slept.
Two routes, two growth stories
| Route | Compostelas 2025 | Share of total | Change on 2024 | Change on 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camino Francés | 241,996 | 45.6% | +2.4% | +27% |
| Portugués, central | 100,835 | 19.0% | +5.6% | +39% |
| Portugués de la Costa | 89,509 | 16.9% | +19.7% | +301% |
| Camino Inglés | 30,200 | 5.7% | +7.6% | +91% (derived) |
| Primitivo | 27,866 | 5.25% | +13.9% | +77% |
| Camino del Norte | 21,481 | 4.05% | +0.3% | +13% |
| Both Portuguese routes | 190,344 | 35.85% | +11.8% (derived) | +101% (derived) |
The central route has ranked second in every year for which figures exist. It passed 100,000 in a full year for the first time in 2025, after 72,357 in 2019. The coast has a steeper curve. It stood below 7,000 until 2017, issued 22,292 in 2019, fell back to 7,942 in 2021, and then recorded about 52,754 in 2023 (Vigo press reading), 74,759 in 2024 and 89,509 in 2025. In September 2025 the coast issued 15,445 and outran the central route for the month. Through July 2025 the split was 52,240 central and 46,097 coastal, so the two routes are now close to parity.
Because the claim that the Portuguese Way is fastest-growing is repeated widely, the details matter. The coast is the fastest-growing of the large routes. The central route grew 5.6% in 2025 and 39% since 2019, slower than the Primitivo at 13.9% and 77%. The line that the Camino Portugués grew "almost 400% in a decade" has no base year in the original and applies, if to anything, to the coast.
Where they start, and how many nights Portugal gets
| Start point | Compostelas 2025 | Share of total | Nights in Portugal on the way |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarria | 161,900 | 30.5% | None (Francés) |
| Porto | 51,574 | 9.7% | All of the route |
| Tui | 41,643 | 7.8% | None (starts in Spain) |
| Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port | 30,338 | 5.7% | None (Francés) |
| Ferrol | 28,883 | 5.4% | None (Inglés) |
| Vigo | 18,678 | 3.5% | None (starts in Spain) |
| Valença do Minho | 18,121 | 3.4% | Last night or two before Tui |
Start points explain why the Camino Portugués counts differently from how it feels. The Francés is dominated by one town, Sarria, which supplies 161,900 starts because it is the first town where a pilgrim can walk the minimum 100 kilometres. The Portuguese routes have a longer reach into Portugal, but the largest start points on them sit in Spain. Tui supplied 41,643 and Vigo 18,678, 60,321 together, which is 31.7% of the 190,344 Portuguese-route pilgrims (derived). Those pilgrims walk from Spanish towns and spend no night in Portugal.
Starts that are on Portuguese soil are Porto 51,574 and Valença 18,121, 69,695 together or 36.6% of the Portuguese-route total (derived). The other Portuguese towns, Barcelos, Ponte de Lima, Caminha, Coimbra, Santarém and Lisbon, are not published in any source we could read. An Observador opinion piece of 16 July 2026 states, without a source, that Porto exceeds 70,000 departures, Valença about 20,000 and Lisbon more than 3,000.
That claim matters because it is consistent with the Office's route-level start shares. On the central route, Tui supplies 41%, Porto 26% and Valença 18%. On the coast, Porto supplies 51%, Vigo 21% and Baiona 12%. Applied to 100,835 and 89,509, the Porto shares give about 71,850 (derived), against 51,574 on the start-point table. Tui and Valença reconcile to the table to within a few hundred. Porto does not, and the difference of roughly 20,000 is the largest unresolved discrepancy in the data. If the route shares are right, Portugal-start pilgrims are about 90,000, or 47% of the total. If the table is right, they are about 69,695. The truth lies in that range, and the dashboard would settle it.
There is a longer time series for the same idea. In 2018 the government said 81,000 of 327,378 Compostelas started in Portugal, or 24.7% (derived). In 2025 the range is 36.6% to 47%. The share of pilgrims who start in Portugal has risen, but the claim that more than half start in Porto is false on both readings. Porto is 27.1% of the Portuguese-route total on the table and 37.8% on the shares.
Who walks it
| Nationality | Compostelas 2025 | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 228,527 | 43.0% |
| United States | 43,980 | 8.3% |
| Italy | 26,680 | 5.0% |
| Germany | 24,356 | 4.6% |
| Portugal | 22,821 | 4.3% |
Spanish pilgrims are 43.0% of all Compostelas, and the United States is second at 8.3%. US numbers have grown quickly. From January to July they went from about 12,000 in 2019 to 25,500 in 2025 and 29,000 in 2026. We follow that rise in our work on American tourists in Portugal and in the US versus Spain analysis. Portugal ranks fifth with 22,821 Compostelas (Xunta), where it ranked fourth in 2017.
On the Portuguese routes themselves the mix is more foreign than the name suggests. To 14 December 2025 the central route's Compostelas were 38.12% Spanish and 11.88% Portuguese, and the coast's were 20.02% Spanish, 12.26% North American, 10.62% German, 6.34% Italian and 5.16% Portuguese (24notícias, quoting the Office). Applied to the route totals, that gives about 16,540 Portuguese pilgrims on the two routes (derived), about 72% of all Portuguese Compostela recipients and 8.7% of the Portuguese-route total. The foreign share is 88.1% on the central route and 94.8% on the coast (derived). The people who walk the Portuguese Way are mostly visitors, and our Spanish market analysis and Asian markets analysis cover the countries that supply them.
The Office's characteristics data apply to all routes. In 2025, 46% gave a religious motive, about 33% a mix of religious and other motives and 19% non-religious, with 2% undeclared (CaminoWays). On foot is 92.7% of Compostelas (derived), bicycle about 4%, with horses, wheelchairs and sailboats in the hundreds. Women are 53.45% of those with a recorded gender, a base that leaves about 28,100 unclassified (derived).
Season matters for Portuguese hosts. The busiest months of 2025 were September with 81,533, May with 78,648, August with 77,095 and July with 67,013, while April issued 54,642 and October 62,856. July and August together are 27.1% of the year (derived), a gentler peak than most Portuguese tourism, though it is measured on arrival in Santiago and not on departure from Porto. Monthly counts by route were not found, so no peak-to-trough ratio for the Portuguese routes can be stated. The coast is described by the Office as peaking in May and September.
The Portuguese side: no counter, a few albergues and a patchwork of taxes
Portugal counts pilgrims only in fragments. The Ponte de Lima municipal hostel recorded 13,558 pilgrims in 2017, up from 7,020 in 2011, an increase of 93% (derived). Of the 11,891 whose start was recorded in 2017, 9,044 began in Porto, or 76.1% (derived). Vila Nova de Cerveira's tourism office counted 4,957 pilgrims from 51 countries in 2022 and says the count is incomplete. Nothing was found for the Porto cathedral, Barcelos, Valença, Caminha, Viana do Castelo, Fátima, Tomar, Coimbra or Lisbon, and nothing for the associations that promote the route. The Ponte de Lima register stops in 2017.
Hostel capacity is also unpublished. The Ponte de Lima municipal albergue has up to 60 beds, charges €5 a night, allows one night and takes no reservations. Vila Nova de Cerveira built a 32-bed albergue with a budget of €383,644, 70% funded by Turismo de Portugal, or about €11,989 a bed (derived). We could not confirm that it has opened. No national inventory of beds exists.
Accommodation statistics show a weak and confounded signal. From 2019 to the latest published year, overnight stays rose 22.0% in Valença (to 59,171 in 2023), 15.2% in Ponte de Lima (105,189 in 2022), 11.1% in Viana do Castelo (293,750 in 2022), 10.0% in Barcelos (64,700 in 2022), 4.6% in Caminha (117,208 in 2022) and 5.1% in Porto (4,819,168 in 2022), all from INE through the GEE municipal profiles. The Alto Minho sub-region, which holds the Valença to Viana stretch, recorded 1,228,849 nights in 2025, up 2.7% on 2024 (Eurostat, derived). Valença and Ponte de Lima grew faster than Porto, which fits a pilgrim effect, but the end years differ and the general recovery explains much of it. INE also omits hostels and most small rentals, which are where pilgrims sleep.
| Municipality | Rate | Pilgrim exemption | Regulation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Porto | €3 a night, 13+, max 7 nights | First night only, in a pilgrim hostel in Porto, shown by credential or passport | Reg. 1387/2024 (rate); Reg. 1135/2022, Art. 4(2)(d) |
| Caminha | €1.50 May–Sep, €1 Oct–Apr, max 7 | First night of a pilgrimage stay, in any accommodation | Reg. 848/2024, Art. 7(2)(h) |
| Viana do Castelo | €1.50 May–Oct, €1 Nov–Apr, max 5 | None found | Reg. 179/2024 |
| Matosinhos | €2; hostels €0.50 from 31 Dec 2025 | None found | Municipal consolidated text |
| Coimbra | €1, March to October | None found | Aviso 5970/2023 |
| Tomar | €2 proposed | Proposed exemption for pilgrims; not in force | ECO, 19 May 2026 |
| Valença, Ponte de Lima, Barcelos, Cerveira, Esposende, Vila do Conde, Póvoa | No tax found | Not applicable, unverified | No source found |
The Porto case is the clearest example of how narrow the exemptions are. The city raised its rate from €2 to €3 in November 2024 and collected €32.3 million in 2025 (SuperCasa, 30 September 2026), though another report gives €30.2 million, which we flag as unreconciled. The exemption in force covers one night in a pilgrim hostel and nothing else. Our wider tourist tax analysis shows how little the rest of the country has said about pilgrims.
Public investment is thinner than the Galician side. The government approved a programme to certify the Caminhos on 7 February 2019 with no budget stated. Six routes are now certified. The coastal route was certified in February 2022 at 138 kilometres from Porto through Matosinhos, Maia, Vila do Conde, Póvoa de Varzim, Esposende, Viana do Castelo, Caminha and Vila Nova de Cerveira to Valença. The Caminho Português Interior, 214 kilometres from Viseu to Vilarelho da Raia, was certified in 2021 and renewed in 2025. The Interreg project Facendo Caminho had a total budget of €657,499.57. No national strategy exists and no Portuguese line within Xacobeo 2027 was found.
Transport is a live constraint. The Porto to Vigo Celta train has run as a replacement bus between Vigo-Guixar and Valença without stops since 6 April 2026, because of Adif works scheduled to last until 7 April 2027. Pilgrims who relied on the train to skip or reach a stage now use the bus or walk.
Ten claims, tested
The panel below tests ten claims. Two come from our own planning notes: the hook that Porto exempts pilgrims from its tourist tax, and the tracker entry that 51,574 pilgrims start in Porto, which we carried without the conflicting route-share reading. The panel also covers the most repeated claims on the other sites, and it verifies one, that the central route is second most popular.
The economic claims are the weakest. The only sourced total is €281.9 million spent by pilgrims in 2016, about €1,014 a pilgrim, reported in February 2018 from the Federación de Amigos del Camino. A Turismo de Galicia study of 2017, reported in 2022, put daily spending at €40 to €70. The 2016 total is almost a decade old and refers to Galicia. Portuguese tourists spent more than €230 million in Galicia in 2025 (Xunta), a figure unrelated to pilgrims on Portuguese soil. No study of Portuguese-side spending was found.
How big is it next to Fátima and the Porto corridor?
Scale is easy to misjudge because the units differ. Fátima counted 6,478,323 attendances at celebrations in 2025, about twelve times the Compostelas issued in Santiago, and our Fátima analysis shows that figure counts a crowd at ceremonies, which a headcount would not. The Camino number counts people who finished. Lourdes reports nearly 4 million for 2025. The Via Francigena issued more than 19,000 credentials and more than 12,000 testimonium certificates in 2025. The Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port reception office saw 54,979 visitors.
Against the nights recorded in northern Portugal, the Camino is small but visible. Porto municipality recorded 6,279,499 nights in 2024, as set out in our Porto statistics, and the Alto Minho recorded 1,228,849 in 2025. A pilgrim who starts in Porto and sleeps there one night adds at most 51,574 nights to the first figure, or 0.8% (derived, and an upper bound because many start without staying overnight). The northern region's wider picture is in the Norte article, and the Douro valley analysis covers the other big flow competing for northern beds.
2026 and the 2027 Holy Year
The numbers for 2026 are strong. The 500,000th Compostela was issued on 4 October, against 19 October in 2025. From January to July, the Office issued just over 311,000 against about 295,000 a year earlier, up 5.4% (derived). August brought 84,861 and September more than 91,000, a September gain of 11.8% (derived). July 2026 was a record month at more than 71,500. The foreign share is 61% against 57% in 2025. The Portuguese routes took 40 of every 100 Compostelas against 36, and the coast reached 100,209 by 8 October, above its full-year 2025 total of 89,503 (Europa Press, 8 October 2026). Sarria ran out of beds on 19 and 20 September.
The Holy Door opens on 31 December 2026, the feast day falls on a Sunday, 25 July 2027, and a Youth Pilgrimage runs from 15 to 18 July 2027. The Xunta has a €3 million call for events called "O teu Xacobeo" and almost €12 million over two years for its public hostel network. We found no numeric forecast for 2027 pilgrims from the Xunta or the Consorcio, and no cap, permit or registration scheme. Santiago has charged a tourist tax since 1 October 2025 and collected €1,141,816 from January to June 2026. Whether pilgrims in private accommodation are exempt was not confirmed.
Risks are modest on the evidence. The Camino Portugués was reported open and operating normally on 22 August 2025 during the wildfires in Galicia. We found no 2026 report of strikes or heat closures. The main near-term constraints are beds in peak weeks and the Celta rail replacement until April 2027.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. Choose the route first. The central route from Porto is about 240 kilometres to Santiago and the coast about 253 to 280, depending on the source. About 122 kilometres of the central route lie in Portugal (derived from 240 minus the 118 kilometres from Valença to Santiago). A Compostela needs the last 100 kilometres on foot, so a walker starting in Tui qualifies and spends no night in Portugal. September is the busiest month and May second, so April and October are the quieter windows, with 54,642 and 62,856 Compostelas in 2025. Book beds ahead in 2027. Bed prices are €5 at Ponte de Lima, €10 in Galician public hostels, €10 to €20 for a private bunk and €55 to €70 for a private room (Hosteltur, 27 May 2026). Porto charges €3 a night in tourist tax and exempts only the first night in a pilgrim hostel. Our Porto travel guide and Viana do Castelo guide cover the first stages.
Tourism businesses and investors. Portugal captures the pilgrims who start on its soil and almost nothing from those who start in Tui or Vigo. The range of 69,695 to about 90,000 Portugal-start pilgrims is the market, and the dashboard would show which end is right. Demand has a floor of volume and a ceiling of spend: pilgrims buy hostel beds at €5 to €20, which municipal and private hostels sell at low yield, while the private-room pilgrim at €55 to €70 is the segment hoteliers can target. Thresholds that would change the assessment are a Porto-start count above 70,000 on the dashboard, publication of any Portugal-side night count, a national strategy for 2027 to 2032 (proposed in the press but not adopted), the end of the Celta bus in April 2027 and a Holy Year reversal in 2028. Search interest is mostly foreign: "camino portugues" draws 14,000 searches globally, 4,400 in Spain, 2,900 in Germany and 300 in Portugal (Ahrefs, 23 October 2026).
Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: 530,987 Compostelas in 2025, 100,835 on the central route and 89,509 on the coast (Pilgrim's Office, January 2026 release), 35.85% for the two Portuguese routes combined, Portugal fifth by nationality with 22,821, the 2026 dashboard reading of 543,960 on 23 October, and the municipal tax rules in the table above. Not safe to repeat: that more than half of Portuguese Way pilgrims start in Porto, that Portugal is the second or third nationality, that the Portuguese Way grew 400%, that Porto exempts pilgrims from the tourist tax without saying first night and hostel only, that the Camino is worth a stated sum to Portugal, and that only a third of walkers collect a Compostela. Treat 51,574 Porto starts as one of two readings. The series finding this article adds is that Portugal's largest religious-tourism flow after Fátima is measured abroad. It joins the gaps already recorded for attraction admissions, Fátima visitors and cruise passengers in other articles.
Data & sources
Period covered: 2015–2025 annual, with 2026 to 23 October
- santiago.es: record pilgrims 2025 · Dashboard reading of the Pilgrim's Office, 23 October 2026: routes, start points, months, 2026 total. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Camino Mio: Camino de Santiago statistics · Dashboard reading of 2 September 2026 with route growth rates and shares. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- CaminoWays: Camino de Santiago statistics · 2025 nationalities, motives, modes and start points (28 May 2026). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Xunta de Galicia: flow control press note, 6 July 2026 · First-half 2026 Compostelas, top nationalities, coastal growth. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Pilgrim's Office: the Compostela and Certificate of Distance · Rules on the last 100 km, 200 km by bicycle, and the €3 certificate. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- El Correo Gallego, 21 October 2026 · 2026 year to date at 16 October, route shares per 100 Compostelas. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Europa Press via GaliciaPress, 8 October 2026 · Coastal route at 100,209 to 8 October 2026 against 89,503 in 2025. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- 24notícias: Caminho Português ultrapassou os cem mil peregrinos em 2025 · Nationality shares on the central and coastal routes to 14 December 2025. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Câmara de Ponte de Lima: pilgrim hostel statistics 2017 · Hostel register, 13,558 pilgrims and start points. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Câmara Municipal do Porto: tourist tax regulation · Rate and Article 4 exemptions, including the pilgrim hostel exemption. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Câmara Municipal de Caminha: tourist tax regulation 848/2024 · Rates and the first-night pilgrim exemption (Art. 7(2)(h)). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- GEE: Valença municipal profile (INE data) · Nights, guests and revenue for Valença, with the other corridor municipalities. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat: tour_occ_nin3 · Nights spent by NUTS III region, Alto Minho 2025. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Portugal.gov.pt: Caminho da Costa certified · Certification of the 138 km coastal route, February 2022. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Observador: Para onde vão os Caminhos Portugueses de Santiago · Opinion piece of 16 July 2026 with unsourced start-point counts. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
- Hosteltur: accommodation on the Camino, 27 May 2026 · 2026 bed prices and 2025 route counts. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
Methodology
Sources consulted: the Santiago Pilgrim's Office through secondary readings (santiago.es, Camino Mio, CaminoWays, Viaje Camino, Xunta de Galicia press notes, Europa Press, El Correo Gallego), the Portuguese government, municipal regulations in Diário da República, the GEE municipal profiles of INE data, Eurostat, Pordata, Banco de Portugal context from earlier articles, press reproductions of INE releases and Ahrefs search volumes. The INE site was not reachable, so INE figures come from GEE, Pordata and Eurostat.
Limitations: (1) the Pilgrim's Office dashboard and PDFs could not be read directly, so every Office figure is a secondary reading; (2) all totals count Compostelas issued, not walkers; (3) start points are declared by pilgrims and say nothing about nights spent; (4) no continuous Portugal-side pilgrim count exists; (5) INE accommodation data exclude most hostels and small rentals; (6) Holy Year effects distort comparisons for 2004, 2010, 2021, 2022 and 2027; (7) several derived figures rest on rounded shares.
Contested figures are reported with both values and the evidence favouring one. Claims that failed verification are named in the corrections panel and in the disclaimer. Derived numbers are marked as derived wherever they appear. Press-release totals are used for 2025 route counts and dashboard readings only where marked, and the gap between them is under 0.05%.
Notes on the data
What does not exist: a pilgrim count on Portuguese soil, a bed inventory for Portuguese hostels, monthly Compostelas by route, a count of Certificates of Distance, route and start-point tables for 2024 and 2026, Compostelas by nationality for Brazil and Poland, a verified Korean count, a Portugal-side spending study and any numeric forecast for 2027. The Pilgrim's Office dashboard could not be read, so every Office figure is a secondary reading.
Contested figures: the 2025 total is 530,987 (Office January release) or 530,919 (running counter) or 530,717 (dashboard of 23 October 2026), and we use 530,987. Central and coastal counts are 100,835 and 89,509 in the press and 100,803 and 89,503 on the dashboard. Porto starts are 51,574 on the start-point table and about 71,850 from the Office's route-level shares; an Observador opinion piece says more than 70,000 without a source. Primitivo is 27,866 on two dashboards and 21,521 in one press report. Korea is 14,800 in one source and 7,481 in another. Porto's 2025 tourist-tax revenue is €32.3 million in one report and €30.2 million in another. The 2022 total has five readings from 437,507 to 438,600.
Failed or unsupported claims: more than half of pilgrims starting in Porto (false); Portugal as second or third nationality (false); the CaminoWays statement that Portuguese municipalities have no pilgrim exemptions (false); the Porto exemption as a general pilgrim exemption (misleading, first night in a hostel only); the 400% decade growth (unsourced, no base year); only a third of walkers collecting a Compostela (unsourced); a typical hostel price of €10 to €20 (misleading). Two come from our own planning notes: the Porto exemption hook and the 51,574 start count carried without the route-share reading.
Derived figures: Portuguese-route totals (sum of two routes), shares of the total, 2016, 2022, 2023 and 2024 Portuguese-route counts, growth rates since 2019, the Porto share of 27.1% and 37.8%, Spanish-side starts of 60,321, Portuguese-soil starts of 69,695 and about 90,000, Portuguese nationals on Portuguese routes (about 16,540), the 2026 YTD count of about 217,600, kilometres in Portugal on the central route (about 122) and the sensor-to-Compostela ratio of 1.6.
Self-reported and press-derived figures: the 2026 route shares (40 per 100) and 2026 year-to-date counts come from press and dashboard readings; tax and hostel details come from municipal documents read through summarising tools, and wording should be confirmed before quotation. This is not legal or tax advice.
Frequently asked questions
How many people walk the Camino Portugués?
In 2025 the Pilgrim's Office issued 190,344 Compostelas on the two Portuguese routes: 100,835 on the central route and 89,509 on the coast, 35.85% of all Compostelas. These count finishers who asked for a certificate, not everyone who walks.
Is the Camino Portugués the second most popular Camino?
Yes for the central route alone, which has ranked second in every year with data, with 19.0% of Compostelas in 2025 behind the Francés at 45.6%. The coast alone ranks third at 16.9%, and the two together take 35.85%.
Where do most Camino Portugués pilgrims start?
The largest declared starts are Porto (51,574 in 2025), Tui (41,643), Vigo (18,678) and Valença (18,121). Porto is 27.1% of the Portuguese-route total on that table, and the Office's route shares imply about 71,850, so treat Porto as contested.
Do more than half of Camino Portugués pilgrims start in Porto?
No. Porto is 27.1% of the 190,344 Portuguese-route Compostelas on the start-point table and 37.8% on the route-level shares (both derived). Only about half of coastal pilgrims (51%) start in Porto.
How long is the Camino Portugués from Porto?
The central route from Porto to Santiago is about 240 kilometres and the coastal route about 253 to 280, depending on the source. About 122 kilometres of the central route lie in Portugal, derived from 240 minus 118 kilometres from Valença to Santiago.
What do you need to earn a Compostela on the Portuguese Way?
The last 100 kilometres on foot or horse, or the last 200 by bicycle, with a credential stamped along the route and a religious or spiritual purpose. The Office page adds that walkers who started abroad need at least 70 kilometres in Spain. The €3 Certificate of Distance is available to everyone.
When is the Camino Portugués busiest?
September 2025 issued 81,533 Compostelas across all routes, followed by May at 78,648, August at 77,095 and July at 67,013. April (54,642) and October (62,856) are quieter. Monthly counts by route are not published.
How much do hostels cost on the Portuguese Way?
The only municipal rate found is €5 a night at Ponte de Lima (60 beds, one night). Galician public hostels charge €10, private bunks €10 to €20 and private rooms €55 to €70 (Hosteltur, 27 May 2026).
Do pilgrims pay the tourist tax in Porto?
Porto charges €3 a night. The exemption covers only the first night, in a pilgrim hostel in Porto, shown by credential or passport (Regulation 1135/2022, Art. 4(2)(d)). Caminha exempts the first night of a pilgrimage stay in any accommodation.