Key takeaways
- Poles spent 1,581,721 nights in Portuguese accommodation in 2025 (Eurostat, incl. campsites), up 11.3% on 2024 and 61.3% on 2019; INE's headline series shows +11.4% for 2025.
- Poland is the fastest-growing of Portugal's ten European markets above one million nights, but eighth of 29 European origins on 2019–2025 growth: Ukraine, Türkiye, Czechia, Slovakia, Greece, Romania and Latvia grew faster.
- Poland added 600,874 nights since 2019, the third-largest gain of any European market after Germany (758,831) and the UK (686,383).
- TravelBI puts 43.6% of Polish nights in Madeira, about 681,000 nights (derived), more than Lisbon and the Algarve combined; Madeira's Polish nights fell in every DREM release from December 2025 to July 2026.
- Eurostat counts 997,582 air passengers between Portugal and Poland in 2025 (+80.5% on 2019); the five winter months now carry more traffic than the four summer months, and January 2026 matched August 2025.
- Banco de Portugal recorded €506M of travel receipts from Poland in 2025 (provisional, +20.5%), €320 per registered night (derived), the lowest of the large European markets; Poland's central bank records only €150.2M for the same flows.
- Portugal received 240,723 Polish trips in 2025, 1.49% of Polish trips abroad, against 1.24 million to Spain; about nine in ten Polish nights in Portugal are captured in registered accommodation (derived), far more than for France or Germany.
- In 2026 air passengers rose 33.6% in January–April while Polish nights fell 0.6% in the first quarter; July nights rose 10.8% to about 201,000 (INE via Presstur) as mainland growth offset Madeira's decline.
Poles spent 1,581,721 nights in Portuguese tourist accommodation in 2025, 61.3% more than in 2019. Of Portugal's ten European markets that sleep more than a million nights a year, none grew even half as fast. Switzerland was next, at 28.7%, and France and Spain went backwards.
That makes Poland the growth story of Portugal's big European markets, and the plan for this article called it "Portugal's fastest-growing European market". On the same Eurostat table that claim fails. Ukraine, Türkiye, Czechia, Slovakia, Greece, Romania and Latvia all grew faster from 2019 to 2025, from much smaller bases. In 2025 alone Poland ranked fifth. We have changed the title to say what the data supports.
The more interesting finding is where the growth went and what it earns. Almost half of all Polish nights in Portugal are spent in Madeira, a concentration no other large market comes close to. Flights between the two countries now carry more passengers in January than they did in August 2019. And Poles spend €320 per registered night, less than any other sizeable European market. This article measures the market on six counts, tests ten claims, and sets Poland against the series' earlier work on the UK, German, French and Spanish markets.
Fastest-growing, but only among the big markets
Eurostat publishes nights in Portuguese tourist accommodation by country of residence for 29 European origins with at least 50,000 nights in 2019. Ranked by growth between 2019 and 2025, Poland comes eighth. The seven ahead of it are all small markets: Czechia had 448,547 nights in 2025 and Ukraine 340,762, against Poland's 1.58 million. Iceland grew fivefold from 24,025 nights, which shows how little a growth rate means on a tiny base.
Size changes the picture. Poland added 600,874 nights between 2019 and 2025, the third-largest absolute gain of any European market after Germany (758,831) and the UK (686,383). Ireland added 512,920. France lost 408,192 and Spain 46,866. Portugal's foreign nights as a whole rose 16.3% over the period and only 0.6% in 2025, so Poland grew roughly four times faster than the market since 2019 and about eighteen times faster in the last year.
The one-year picture is similar. In 2025 Polish nights rose 11.3% on Eurostat's count, which includes campsites, and 11.4% on INE's headline series, as reported by ECO on 9 July 2026. Türkiye (+28.7%), Finland (+22.4%), Ukraine (+16.0%) and Latvia (+12.6%) grew faster. Arrivals tell the same story: Poland ranks seventh on 2019–2025 growth and fourth on 2024–2025.
The claim survives only in a narrower form. Poland is the fastest-growing of Portugal's large European markets, and it is the fastest-growing European market with a 2019 base above about 225,000 nights. It is Portugal's eighth-largest European market and eleventh-largest overall, behind the United States, Brazil and Canada as well.
| Rank | Origin | Nights 2019 | Nights 2025 | 2019→2025 | 2024→2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ukraine | 155,071 | 340,762 | +119.7% | +16.0% |
| 2 | Türkiye | 97,698 | 206,333 | +111.2% | +28.7% |
| 3 | Czechia | 214,650 | 448,547 | +109.0% | +0.7% |
| 4 | Slovakia | 63,859 | 122,237 | +91.4% | +0.6% |
| 5 | Greece | 98,100 | 168,009 | +71.3% | +6.2% |
| 6 | Romania | 223,379 | 381,762 | +70.9% | +3.9% |
| 7 | Latvia | 58,059 | 98,990 | +70.5% | +12.6% |
| 8 | Poland | 980,847 | 1,581,721 | +61.3% | +11.3% |
| 9 | Croatia | 57,441 | 88,953 | +54.9% | +4.3% |
| 10 | Slovenia | 59,272 | 91,079 | +53.7% | −1.7% |
| 15 | Switzerland | 946,254 | 1,217,847 | +28.7% | +0.9% |
| 16 | Ireland | 1,826,292 | 2,339,212 | +28.1% | 0.0% |
| — | All foreign markets | 51,592,254 | 60,022,455 | +16.3% | +0.6% |
Fifteen times bigger in twenty years
In 2005 Poles spent 106,507 nights in Portuguese accommodation. Twenty years later the figure was almost fifteen times higher. Growth came in two waves. The first ran from 2014 to 2017, when low-cost airlines opened routes from Polish regional airports and nights doubled from 540,606 to 1,090,029. The market then fell 11% in 2018 and barely moved in 2019, before Covid cut it to 231,471 nights in 2020.
The second wave is larger. Polish nights passed the 2017 peak in 2023 and have set a record every year since. Poland's share of foreign nights in Portugal rose from 0.42% in 2005 to 1.90% in 2019 and 2.64% in 2025. Its share of foreign arrivals reached 2.20%.
Poles stay a little under four nights. Eurostat's count gives 3.67 nights per arrival in 2025, the same as in 2019. That is shorter than the British (4.51), Dutch (3.92) and German (3.90) averages and longer than the French (2.95), American (2.39) and Spanish (2.36). TravelBI's figures, which exclude campsites and use INE's guest count of 456.8k, give 3.42 nights. The two bases should not be mixed.
Hotels take most of the business. They held 82.1% of Polish nights in 2025 on Eurostat's classification, holiday and short-stay accommodation 16.6% and campsites 1.3%. The holiday and short-stay category, which includes local accommodation units of ten beds or more, almost doubled from 132,136 nights in 2019 to 263,263, while hotel nights grew 56.1%.
The Madeira market
The most distinctive thing about the Polish market is its geography. TravelBI's market page puts 43.6% of Polish nights in 2025 in Madeira, 16.3% in Grande Lisboa, 14.5% in the Algarve, 10.5% in Norte and 7.8% in Oeste e Vale do Tejo. Applied to the page's own total, that is roughly 681,000 Polish nights in Madeira (derived), more than in Lisbon and the Algarve combined.
No other large market looks like this. British and Irish visitors concentrate in the Algarve, which took 57.3% of UK nights and 73.1% of Irish nights in 2025 according to INE figures reported by ECO. Madeira's largest market, Germany, spreads its nights between Madeira (30.3%) and the Algarve (28.9%). Poland sends almost half its Portuguese nights to one island.
DREM, Madeira's statistics office, confirms Poland's weight without publishing an absolute count in its releases. Its 2025 final results list Poland fourth among foreign markets in collective accommodation, behind Germany, the UK and France, and third in hotels, ahead of France. Polish nights in Madeira rose 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Our Madeira tourism statistics article covers the island's own counting, which records far more nights than INE's.
Card data points the same way, with a twist. Polish cards spent €90.1 million in Portugal in 2025, according to TravelBI. Grande Lisboa took 33.9%, Madeira 25.7% and Norte 13.5%. Lisbon's share of spending is twice its share of nights, which fits a pattern of short city breaks on scheduled flights alongside longer Madeira packages paid for in Poland.
The Azores are small but moving fast. SREA, the Azores statistics office, counted 95,774 Polish nights across all accommodation in 2025, up 41.3% from 67,769. Poland was the tenth external market, just ahead of Czechia, and recorded the largest year-on-year increase of any external market in August 2025, at 54.0%. There is no scheduled flight from Poland to the Azores, so these visitors connect through Lisbon or arrive on tour-operator programmes. The Azores tourism statistics article explains why the islands' total fell in 2026 while Polish visitors kept arriving.
| Region | Share of Polish nights | Implied nights (derived) | Other evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madeira | 43.6% | ≈681,000 | DREM: 4th foreign market (collective), 3rd in hotels |
| Grande Lisboa | 16.3% | ≈255,000 | 33.9% of Polish card spend |
| Algarve | 14.5% | ≈226,000 | No Polish figure from AlgSTO or AHETA |
| Norte | 10.5% | ≈164,000 | 13.5% of Polish card spend |
| Oeste e Vale do Tejo | 7.8% | ≈122,000 | — |
| Other regions | ≈7.3% | ≈114,000 | Azores (SREA, all lodging): 95,774 nights, +41.3% |
A winter air bridge
Eurostat counts 997,582 passengers on flights between Portugal and Poland in 2025, up 80.5% on 2019 and 28.2% on 2024. The two countries' reports agree to within 1%. In 2005 the figure was 28,897. These are passengers of every nationality, so the count includes Portuguese and Polish residents of both countries and some transfer traffic, but it is the best available measure of the capacity Polish tourism depends on.
Air traffic tells the same story as accommodation. Czechia (+113.6%), Greece (+112.9%) and Türkiye (+96.4%) grew faster than Poland between 2019 and 2025, from bases of 126,000 to 298,000 passengers. Romania grew faster in 2025 (+57.8%) and in January–April 2026 (+80.2%). Among partners with more than half a million passengers, Poland grew fastest on every period. It was Portugal's tenth-largest air partner in 2025, just behind Luxembourg, and overtook Luxembourg in early 2026. The Portugal airports passenger traffic article sets these routes against the national total.
The shape of the year has changed more than the size. In 2019 the Polish market was a summer market: June to September carried 51.4% of passengers, November to March 21.0%, and the busiest month carried 4.2 times as many as the quietest. By 2025 the five winter months carried 38.2% of passengers and the four summer months 36.7%, and the peak-to-trough ratio had fallen to 1.47. Winter traffic in 2025 was 3.3 times its 2019 level. July and August were only 1.24 times higher. In January 2026 the route carried 94,598 passengers, within about 1% of August 2025.
Madeira explains most of it. In Eurostat's latest airport-pair data, for 2024, Warsaw Chopin–Funchal carried 113,086 passengers and Katowice–Funchal 96,960. Together that is 210,046, more than Warsaw–Lisbon (174,917), the busiest single route. Other pairs with published data include Modlin–Lisbon (47,876), Wrocław–Porto (44,015), Poznań–Lisbon (37,568) and Modlin–Porto (24,270). The published pairs add up to only 69% of the country total, so several routes, including Kraków's and Gdańsk–Funchal, are missing from the 2024 data.
The network kept growing in 2025 and 2026. LOT started Warsaw–Lisbon in February 2025, daily from 26 February, and Warsaw–Porto on 25 May 2026. LOT says its Lisbon flights flew more than 86% full in 2025, a figure it has not published in detail. Wizz Air added Gdańsk–Funchal in October 2024 and Warsaw–Faro and Katowice–Faro at the end of March 2026. Ryanair opened Warsaw Chopin–Porto in October 2025, and Pasażer.com lists Ryanair's Gdańsk–Porto and Poznań–Porto starting on 25 October 2026. We found no route cancellations for 2025–26 or winter 2026–27.
Charters still matter. Non-scheduled flights carried 111,301 passengers in 2025, 11.2% of the total, up from 7.4% in 2019. Before the low-cost boom they were the main channel, with 55% of passengers in 2014. Itaka sells charter seats to Funchal from Warsaw, Katowice, Poznań and Wrocław for winter 2026–27 and added a Porto Santo charter from Warsaw in 2026. Rainbow flies Madeira from Warsaw and Katowice and the Algarve from Poznań in summer.
Poland's civil aviation authority, ULC, counted 856,474 scheduled passengers between Polish airports and Portugal in 2025, up 27.0% and ranked sixteenth among countries. On scheduled traffic Portugal has now passed Croatia (826,864). It remains far behind Italy (6.67 million), Spain (4.89 million) and Greece (1.45 million).
What Poles spend, and two central banks that disagree
Banco de Portugal recorded €506 million of travel receipts from Poland in 2025, a provisional figure published through Eurostat. That is up 20.5% on 2024 and 162% on 2019's €193 million. In 2015 the figure was €95 million. Poland accounts for 1.74% of Portugal's €29.1 billion of travel receipts (derived) and ranks thirteenth by country on TravelBI.
Pordata's table of receipts by partner country does not include Poland, which is why most Portuguese coverage never quotes the figure. The Polish press did quote it in August 2026 and attributed it to INE. It is Banco de Portugal's figure.
On receipts, too, Poland is not the fastest-growing European market. Czechia's receipts grew 187% between 2019 and 2025 and Lithuania's 171%, both from small bases. In 2025 alone Finland grew faster, at 25.0%. Among markets that spend more than €300 million a year in Portugal, Poland grew fastest on both periods.
The money per night is the weak point. Dividing receipts by registered nights gives €320 per night for Poland in 2025 (derived). That is the lowest of any large European market: the UK comes out at €412, Germany €474, Spain €520, France €668 and Switzerland €788 on the same basis. The figure has risen fast, from €197 in 2019, a 62% increase in a period when the zloty was slightly stronger against the euro in 2025 (4.2397) than in 2019 (4.2976).
There is a second problem with the money. Poland's central bank records the other side of the same flows, and it puts Polish travel spending in Portugal at €150.2 million in 2025, against €125.2 million in 2024 and €84.0 million in 2019. Portugal's figure is 3.4 times larger. Bilateral gaps are common in travel statistics because each country estimates from different sources, but this one is wide enough that anyone quoting "what Poles spend in Portugal" should name the central bank behind the number.
Portugal is still a small part of the Polish holiday
Seen from Warsaw, Portugal remains a niche. Statistics Poland's survey, published by Eurostat, counted 240,723 trips of at least one night by Polish residents to Portugal in 2025, 1.49% of 16.1 million trips abroad. Germany received 2.59 million, Italy 1.49 million, Spain 1.24 million and Greece 1.05 million. Portugal's share has grown from 1.08% in 2019, and trips there rose 64.4% against 19.0% for all Polish trips abroad.
Package-holiday data puts Portugal even further down. The Polish Chamber of Tourism's report on summer 2024 bookings through the three largest online agents shows Türkiye at 34.3%, Greece 18.4%, Egypt 13.7%, Bulgaria 7.0% and Spain 6.4%. Portugal and Madeira are both outside the top ten. No 2025 or 2026 share for Portugal has been published.
The supply-side numbers say the same. Eurostat counts 8.8 million Polish nights in Spanish accommodation in 2025, 7.0 million in Croatia and 6.1 million in Greece. Portugal's 1.58 million is about 2.88% of Polish nights in EU countries outside Poland, up from 2.66% in 2019 (derived; Italy's figure was not retrieved and is excluded from the base). Portugal grew faster than the EU total (+61% against +49%) and roughly level with Spain (+64%). Cyprus and Malta grew three to four times over.
One comparison stands out. The Polish survey reports 1,756,786 nights spent in Portugal by Polish residents in 2025, and Portugal's accommodation statistics record 1,581,721. That implies about nine in ten Polish nights are spent in registered accommodation (derived). For France the series found about a third and for Germany just over a quarter. The survey cells are flagged as low reliability, but the gap is large enough to matter: Poles in Portugal are overwhelmingly paying guests in hotels, not family visitors or second-home owners.
The demand behind this is Polish income growth. The Polish economy grew 3.2% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025. The average gross wage rose from PLN 4,918 a month in 2019 to PLN 8,904 in 2025, roughly €1,144 to €2,100 at annual exchange rates (derived). Polish travel spending abroad rose from €8.4 billion in 2019 to €12.0 billion in 2025 on the central bank's count, and Portugal's share of it rose from 1.00% to 1.25%.
| Destination | Trips 2019 | Trips 2025 | Change | Share of Polish trips abroad 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 2,522,944 | 2,594,187 | +2.8% | 16.1% |
| Italy | 1,114,411 | 1,490,657 | +33.8% | 9.2% |
| Spain | 768,503 | 1,237,382 | +61.0% | 7.7% |
| Greece | 857,479 | 1,046,715 | +22.1% | 6.5% |
| Türkiye | 325,717 | 774,881 | +137.9% | 4.8% |
| Croatia | 737,164 | 717,285 | −2.7% | 4.4% |
| Portugal | 146,409 | 240,723 | +64.4% | 1.49% |
| All trips abroad | 13,544,558 | 16,119,190 | +19.0% | 100% |
2026: planes full, beds flat
The 2026 data so far points in two directions. Air traffic is accelerating. Eurostat counts 394,851 passengers between Portugal and Poland in January–April 2026, 33.6% more than a year earlier, and January alone was up 45.4%. OAG schedules published by TravelBI show 460,000 seats from Poland to Portugal for summer 2026, up 41.1%, the fastest growth among Poland's main European destinations apart from Türkiye.
Registered stays are not keeping up. TravelBI's first-quarter summary shows Polish guests up 4.8% and nights down 0.6% in January–March 2026, while arriving air passengers rose 31.0% and card spending 13.3%. Madeira, which holds almost half the market, recorded lower Polish nights in every release DREM published from December 2025 to July 2026: −9.3% in January, −8.0% for the first quarter, −2.5% for the second quarter and −6.7% in July. Poland slipped from fourth to fifth among Madeira's foreign markets.
The mainland picked up in summer. INE data reported by Presstur on 3 September 2026 put Polish nights in July at about 201,000, up 10.8%, the largest relative increase among the top markets, and Poland rose from eleventh to tenth place. With Madeira down 6.7% in the same month, that implies strong growth in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve, where the new LOT, Wizz Air and Ryanair routes land. No national Polish figure for January–August 2026 has been published.
We cannot fully explain why passengers are growing so much faster than registered nights. Plausible reasons are Polish residents of Portugal and Portuguese residents of Poland flying more, more stays in local accommodation under ten beds that INE does not count, and the Madeira decline offsetting mainland growth. None of these is measured.
Polish residents are not a large part of the answer. AIMA counted 5,679 Polish residence-permit holders in Portugal in 2024, up from 4,326 in 2022 according to SEF, about 0.37% of 1.54 million foreign residents. Turismo de Portugal runs a tourism team in Warsaw and backs trade workshops in Poznań and Warsaw, but government statements on priority markets in 2026 named Mexico, Argentina, Australia, South Korea, the United States, Brazil and Canada. Poland was not on the list.
Ten claims tested
The corrections below cover the growth claim in our own plan, figures repeated in Polish and Portuguese coverage in 2025 and 2026, and the inconsistencies on Turismo de Portugal's own market page.
The pattern matches the series' earlier source-market articles. A growth rate travels without its base and its period. "Brazil is the fastest-growing market" was true for 2026 receipts only. "Poland is the fastest-growing European market" is true for July 2025, July 2026 and the large markets, and false as a general statement.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. Poland now has nonstop flights to Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Funchal from Warsaw, Modlin, Kraków, Katowice, Gdańsk, Wrocław and Poznań, and winter is no longer the quiet season on these routes. Madeira's flights from Warsaw and Katowice carried more passengers in 2024 than Warsaw–Lisbon, and Polish tour operators' Madeira charters run from late November to late March, so book winter packages and the 30-minute trail slots early, as our Madeira trail carrying capacity article explains. Lisbon and Porto take Polish visitors on short breaks, and the new LOT Porto route has made a two-centre trip easier. For planning on the island itself, start with our Madeira travel guide.
Tourism businesses and investors. Poland is a volume market with low yield. It brings €506 million a year, less than half of Ireland's €1,226 million, and €320 per registered night, the lowest of any large European market. Its concentration is the main risk: almost half its nights sit in one region, and that region's Polish nights were down in every DREM release from December 2025 to July 2026. Mainland hotels in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve are where the 2026 growth is landing, carried by scheduled low-cost and LOT capacity. A Madeira hotelier underwriting further Polish growth should watch the winter 2026–27 charter programmes. A mainland operator should watch whether the 41% summer seat increase fills. Two thresholds would change the assessment: Polish receipts per night passing €400, which would put Poland level with the UK, and Madeira's Polish nights returning to growth.
Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: 1,581,721 Polish nights in 2025 (Eurostat, incl. campsites, +11.3%; INE headline +11.4%); +61.3% since 2019; 431,243 arrivals; 997,582 air passengers (+80.5% since 2019); €506 million in travel receipts (Banco de Portugal, provisional, +20.5%); 43.6% of nights in Madeira (TravelBI). Do not repeat "Portugal's fastest-growing European market" without a qualifier, "over 500,000 Polish tourists", the €506 million as an INE figure, the "+31%" as tourist growth, or "89,300 Poles in Madeira according to ANA". Poland adds one finding to the series: unlike France and Germany, almost all Polish nights in Portugal are captured by the accommodation statistics, so for Poland the registered count and the real market are close to the same thing.
Data & sources
Period covered: 2005–2025, with 2026 to July
- Eurostat tour_occ_ninraw / tour_occ_arnraw · Nights and arrivals of Polish residents and all European origins in Portuguese tourist accommodation, 2005–2025, by accommodation type Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat tour_occ_ninat / tour_occ_arnat · All-foreign totals used for Poland's share and the market comparison Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat avia_paocc and avia_par_pl / avia_par_pt · Air passengers between Portugal and Poland, annual and monthly to April 2026; airport-pair data to 2024 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat bop_its6_det (Banco de Portugal and Narodowy Bank Polski) · Travel credits from Poland and other partners, and Polish travel debits to Portugal, 2015–2025 (2025 provisional) Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat tour_dem_ttw / tour_dem_tnw (Statistics Poland) · Trips and nights of Polish residents abroad by destination, 2014–2025 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Turismo de Portugal, TravelBI – Polónia · 2025 guests, nights, receipts, regional split, card spending and accommodation mix; Q1 2026 market summary Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- ECO – INE Estatísticas do Turismo 2025 · INE's 2025 Polish nights growth (+11.4%) and 2025 totals, 9 July 2026 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – Polónia subiu ao top 10 · INE July 2026 Polish nights (about 201,000, +10.8%, 10th), 3 September 2026 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- DREM – Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira · 2025 final results (9 July 2026) and monthly and quarterly releases December 2025–July 2026 with Poland's rank, share and change Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- SREA – Publicação Turismo 2025 · Polish nights in all Azores accommodation, 2024–2025 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- ULC – Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego · Scheduled passengers between Polish airports and Portugal by country, Q4 2025 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- LOT Polish Airlines press office · Warsaw–Porto launch on 25 May 2026 and Lisbon load-factor claim Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Pasażer.com · Wizz Air and Ryanair Poland–Portugal route launches and Itaka's Porto Santo charter, 2024–2026 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- Polska Izba Turystyki – Zagraniczne wakacje Polaków 2024 · Package-holiday destination shares, summer 2024 Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
- AIMA – Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2024 · Polish residence-permit holders in Portugal, 2024 (SEF RIFA 2022 for 2022) Accessed 21 Oct 2026.
Methodology
This article draws on Eurostat's tourism accommodation tables (tour_occ_ninraw, tour_occ_arnraw, tour_occ_ninat, tour_occ_arnat), air transport tables (avia_paocc, avia_par_pl, avia_par_pt), balance-of-payments travel tables (bop_its6_det, which carry Banco de Portugal and Narodowy Bank Polski data) and the Polish residents' travel survey (tour_dem_ttw, tour_dem_tnw), all read through Eurostat's API on 21 October 2026. National and regional figures come from Turismo de Portugal's TravelBI Polónia page and Q1 2026 summary, INE releases as reproduced by ECO and Presstur, DREM (Madeira), SREA (Azores), ULC (Poland's civil aviation authority), AIMA and SEF, the Polish Chamber of Tourism, LOT's press office and Polish aviation press. INE's website was not reachable directly, so INE figures are cited from press reproductions, which are named.
Limitations: (1) Eurostat's accommodation counts include campsites and INE's headline series does not, so Polish nights are 1,581,721 on one basis and 1,562.0k on the other; we use Eurostat for comparisons and name the basis everywhere. (2) Air passenger counts cover all nationalities and include residents and transfers. (3) Airport-pair data ends in 2024 and covers about 69% of the country total. (4) Receipts by country are published through Eurostat with an April 2026 vintage; 2025 is provisional, and Banco de Portugal's own BPstat vintage differs for some countries. (5) Regional splits for Poland exist only as TravelBI shares; absolute regional nights are derived. (6) No national Polish monthly figures for 2026 were found except July.
Growth rates, ranks, shares, nights per arrival, receipts per night, implied regional nights and the capture ratio of registered to reported nights are our calculations and are marked as derived. Where two official sources disagree, as with Banco de Portugal's and Narodowy Bank Polski's figures for the same travel flows, both are published. Claims that failed verification are listed in the corrections panel with the source that repeated them.
Notes on the data
Gaps: there is no national count of Polish visitors (INE and Eurostat count guests and nights in registered accommodation only); no national Polish figures for January–June or August 2026; no absolute DREM count of Polish nights in Madeira (DREM publishes rank and change only, so the 681,000 figure is derived from TravelBI's 43.6% share); no Polish-specific data for the Algarve, Lisbon or Norte beyond TravelBI shares; no 2025 airport-pair data; no Portugal share of Polish package-holiday sales after summer 2024; no Banco de Portugal monthly receipts from Poland.
Contested figures: Polish nights 2025 are 1,581,721 (Eurostat, incl. campsites, +11.3%) or 1,562.0k (TravelBI, +12.0% in its text and +11.9% in its table; INE via ECO +11.4%). Guests are 456.8k (TravelBI) or 431,243 arrivals (Eurostat). Receipts are €506M (Banco de Portugal via Eurostat), €506.2M or €504.4M (both on TravelBI), against €150.2M of travel debits recorded by Poland's central bank. Spain's 2025 receipts are €2,940M in the Eurostat vintage used in our comparison table and €2,836M in BPstat's October 2026 vintage.
Claims that failed: 'Poland is Portugal's fastest-growing European market' (our own plan; true only among markets above one million nights); 'over 500,000 Polish tourists' (money.pl, innpoland); '€506M according to INE' (wrong attribution); '+31% Polish tourists' (Q1 2026 air passengers); '89,300 Poles in Madeira according to ANA' (unsourced); 'Poland is Madeira's third market' (EU-only ranking); Turismo de Portugal's '123,927 to 335,588 guests' (unsourced, differs from Eurostat). LOT's 'over 86%' Lisbon load factor is the airline's own claim.
Derived figures: all growth rates, ranks, shares, nights per arrival, receipts per night, implied regional nights, the euro value of Polish wages and the ratio of registered to survey-reported nights. Survey-based trip and night figures for Polish residents carry low-reliability flags for some Portugal cells.
Frequently asked questions
How many Polish tourists visit Portugal?
About 431,000 to 457,000 a year. Eurostat counts 431,243 Polish arrivals in registered accommodation in 2025, including campsites, and TravelBI shows 456.8k guests on INE's basis. The 'over 500,000' figure in Polish press coverage is not supported by any official series.
Is Poland Portugal's fastest-growing tourism market?
Only among the large markets. Polish nights grew 61.3% from 2019 to 2025, faster than any other European market above one million nights. Seven smaller European markets, led by Ukraine, Türkiye and Czechia, grew faster, and so did the United States and Canada.
How many nights do Polish tourists spend in Portugal?
1,581,721 nights in 2025 on Eurostat's count including campsites, or 1,562.0k on INE's headline basis. Poles stay an average of 3.67 nights per arrival, shorter than British, Dutch or German visitors and longer than French, American or Spanish ones.
Where do Polish tourists go in Portugal?
Mostly Madeira. TravelBI puts 43.6% of Polish nights in 2025 in Madeira, 16.3% in Grande Lisboa, 14.5% in the Algarve and 10.5% in Norte. Lisbon takes a larger share of Polish card spending (33.9%) than of nights.
How much do Polish tourists spend in Portugal?
Banco de Portugal recorded €506 million of travel receipts from Poland in 2025, a provisional figure, up 20.5% on 2024. That is about €320 per registered night, the lowest of Portugal's large European markets. Poland's own central bank records €150.2 million, so the source matters.
Which airlines fly from Poland to Portugal?
LOT flies Warsaw–Lisbon and, since May 2026, Warsaw–Porto. Ryanair and Wizz Air fly from Warsaw, Modlin, Kraków, Katowice, Gdańsk, Wrocław and Poznań to Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Funchal, and tour operators such as Itaka and Rainbow run Madeira and Porto Santo charters. There is no scheduled route to the Azores.
How many people fly between Poland and Portugal?
997,582 passengers in 2025, according to Eurostat, up 80.5% on 2019 and 28.2% on 2024. The count covers all nationalities. January–April 2026 was 33.6% higher again.
Why is Madeira so popular with Poles?
The data shows the pattern rather than the reason: year-round flights from Warsaw and Katowice, winter charters from four Polish airports, and a hotel-based package market. Warsaw–Funchal and Katowice–Funchal together carried 210,046 passengers in 2024, more than Warsaw–Lisbon.
Is the Polish market still growing in 2026?
Air traffic is, by 33.6% in January–April. Registered Polish nights fell 0.6% in the first quarter and Madeira's Polish nights have fallen in every release since December 2025, but national Polish nights rose 10.8% in July 2026. No January–August national total has been published.