Portugal Airports Passenger Traffic 2025: 73.75M, 23% Above 2019 and a Slower 2026

Three counts of the same passengers

Portugal publishes airport traffic on three bases, and they rarely appear side by side.

INE counts passengers embarked, disembarked and in direct transit at every national airport. Its flash release of 12 February 2026 gave 73.75 million for 2025, up 4.7%, with Lisbon at 49.0%, Porto at 23.0% and Faro at 14.1%. Every month of 2025 except February set a monthly record. Commercial landings rose 4.0% to 255,704, while cargo and mail fell 0.5% to 253,611 tonnes.

ANA, the VINCI Airports concessionaire, reports its own network. Its 2025 total was 72,474,000, also up 4.7%: Lisbon 36,126,000, Porto 16,939,000, Faro 10,395,000, Madeira and Porto Santo 5,653,000, and Ponta Delgada, Horta, Santa Maria and Flores 3,357,000. ANA does not manage Lajes, a military base whose civil terminal belongs to the Azores government, or the four small SATA-run airfields on Pico, São Jorge, Graciosa and Corvo.

Eurostat publishes passengers carried at each reporting airport. Its fifteen Portuguese airports sum to 73,743,677 for 2025, within 7,000 of INE's rounded headline (derived). The gap between INE and ANA is therefore not a methodological mystery. It is five airports.

Two smaller wrinkles remain. ANA's counts at its own airports run slightly above Eurostat's: 36,126,000 against 36,083,879 at Lisbon, 3,357,000 against 3,308,549 for ANA's four Azores airports. Neither source states its counting rule. And all three national totals count a domestic passenger twice, once at each end, so a Lisbon–Funchal return is four passenger movements.

The landings data add one more check. INE counted 255,704 commercial landings in 2025, which works out at about 288 passengers per landing on the national count (derived). Because a landing's passengers are counted once arriving and again when the aircraft departs, the ratio overstates the load of a single flight, but its trend is useful. At Lisbon, Eurostat's passengers per commercial flight rose from 144 in 2019 to 161 in 2025, and at Porto from 141 in 2015 to 159 (derived). Portuguese traffic has grown more through fuller and larger aircraft than through more flights.

The mixed-basis error is easy to make, because ANA publishes in January and INE in February. Anyone who quotes ANA's 72.5 million against INE's 60.1 million for 2019 understates growth by two points.

Sixteen years of traffic

INE's national series, as compiled by Pordata, shows how far the 2025 record sits from the pre-pandemic trend. Traffic grew from 28.8 million in 2010 to 60.1 million in 2019, more than doubling in nine years, with the fastest growth between 2014 and 2017 as low-cost carriers expanded.

The pandemic removed 69% of traffic in 2020. Recovery was quick: 2022 reached 56.8 million, and 2023's 67.5 million passed 2019 by 12.3%. Since then the system has been adding about 3 million passengers a year, 4.3% in 2024 and 4.7% in 2025.

Portugal now handles 6.9 passengers per resident a year (73.75 million ÷ 10,749,635, derived). That is above Spain's 6.6 on Aena's count and below Greece's 8.0 and Ireland's 8.0. Like the totals, these ratios count domestic passengers at both ends, which flatters island countries.

Where the growth landed

Eurostat's airport data allow a full ranking. Between 2019 and 2025 the fifteen airports added 13,435,209 passengers (derived). Lisbon added 4,893,754, or 36.4% of the increase. Porto added 3,730,462 (27.8%). The Madeira airports added 2,251,677 (16.8%), the nine Azores airports 1,262,598 (9.4%) and Faro 1,296,243 (9.6%).

The ranking by growth rate is the reverse of the ranking by size. Madeira airport rose 67.8%, Pico 66.0%, Flores 54.0% and Lajes 47.4%. Porto rose 28.3%. Lisbon (+15.7%), Faro (+14.3%) and Horta (+9.0%) grew least among the larger airports. Lisbon's share of national traffic fell from 51.7% in 2019 to 48.9% in 2025, and Porto's rose from 21.9% to 23.0%.

Three forces explain the pattern. Lisbon is out of room. Its declared capacity is 38 movements an hour, and for summer 2026 airlines requested 164,000 slots and received 147,000, according to NAV figures reported by RTP. Lisbon's passengers per flight rose from 144 in 2019 to 161 in 2025 (Eurostat, derived), so most of its growth came from bigger and fuller aircraft rather than more flights. Our new Lisbon airport tracker covers the plan to raise the hourly limit to 40 from 2027 and the Luís de Camões airport that ANA schedules for mid-2037.

Porto has room and is using it. ANA announced 21 new routes for summer 2026, six of them intercontinental, including Delta from New York JFK. A runway renovation worth more than €50 million raises Porto's hourly capacity from 24 to 26 movements at the end of 2026, and the government has asked for a masterplan for 30 million passengers.

The islands changed their air market. easyJet says it is the largest carrier at Madeira, and the island's tourism nights rose 7.9% in 2025 on the regional statistics office's count. The Azores grew strongly after the 2015 liberalisation, then lost Ryanair at the end of March 2026. Our Madeira and Azores articles cover both stories in detail.

Gateway by gateway

Lisbon carried 36.1 million passengers in 2025, 15.7% more than in 2019, and remains the only Portuguese airport with a long-haul hub. TAP held 46% of its seats in 2024, according to the privatisation documents, and VINCI credits 2025 growth to long-haul flights to Asia and Latin America. Its problem is capacity, not demand: commercial movements rose only 0.8% in 2025, and its second quarter of 2026 was 0.2% below 2025.

Porto carried 16,923,253 passengers, a record and 28.3% above 2019. It grew faster than Lisbon in 2025 and again in 2026, with Ryanair, Transavia and TAP named by VINCI as its 2026 growth drivers. Its catchment reaches into Galicia, whose three airports together carried about 5.5 million passengers in 2025, roughly a third of Porto's total (Aena, derived).

Faro passed ten million for the first time with 10,349,949 passengers, but is only 14.3% above 2019, the slowest of the large airports. It is the most seasonal: in 2025 its July traffic was 4.37 times its January traffic on Eurostat's monthly data. British passengers were 46% of its 2025 traffic, according to ANA, down from about 54% in 2015 on Eurostat route data (derived).

Madeira carried 5,390,975 passengers at Funchal and 243,856 at Porto Santo on Eurostat's count. Its peak month is only 1.65 times its quietest, against 1.86 at Porto and 4.37 at Faro. Its constraint is wind: storms cancelled 185 flights over two days in December 2025 and 176 on 2–3 March 2026, according to DN Madeira, and no official annual cancellation series exists.

The Azores have nine airports. Ponta Delgada carried 2,767,090 passengers in 2025 (+2.2%) and Lajes 1,003,800. The other seven, from Horta (301,160) to Corvo (11,692), mostly serve inter-island and mainland traffic, which is why island passengers per resident look so high: an inter-island trip is counted at both airports. After strong growth since the 2015 liberalisation, the Azores were the only region to shrink in 2026.

Beja is the outlier: a 3,450-metre runway and 3,120 passengers in 2025, with no regular scheduled traffic for most of the past decade. Bragança, Vila Real and Portimão, served by a public-service route, do not report to Eurostat, and their passenger numbers are unpublished.

Measured per resident of the region each airport serves, the islands and the Algarve are in a different league from the mainland cities. Faro handles 21.0 passengers per Algarve resident and the Madeira airports 21.7 per Madeiran (derived). Lisbon handles 12.0 per resident of the Lisbon metropolitan area and Porto 4.6 per resident of the Norte region. Those ratios describe dependence: in the Algarve and Madeira, almost every incoming tourist arrives by air through a single airport.

2026: growth halves, Lisbon stalls

2026 started at roughly the 2025 pace and slowed through the spring. INE's monthly flash releases show national growth of 4.0% in January, 3.3% in February and 3.9% for the first quarter. April rose 2.1% and May 2.9%. June fell 0.2% to 7.1 million passengers. July recovered by 2.0% to 7.7 million. January to July totalled 43.07 million, up 2.4%.

The airport split explains the slowdown. Over January to July, Lisbon handled 20.8 million passengers, up 1.0%. Porto handled 10.3 million, up 7.1%, and Faro 6.2 million, up 3.8% (INE). VINCI's half-year release gives the same picture on ANA's basis: a network total of 34,818,000 (+2.6%), with Lisbon down 0.2% in the second quarter, Porto up 7.0% in the half year and the Azores down 9.3%.

Madeira continued to grow, but at a quarter of its 2025 rate. The regional statistics office counted 606,200 passengers in August, a monthly record (+3.7%), and 3.942 million for January to August (+3.1%). The Azores went the other way. ANA's four Azores airports fell 11% in the second quarter, the first full quarter without Ryanair, and SREA counted falls of 12.3% in April and 12.7% in May in disembarked passengers.

Three external pressures arrived in the same year. The war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026 doubled jet fuel prices; TAP's fuel bill rose 18.7% in the first half and its net loss reached €99.2 million (see our TAP privatisation article). The EU Entry/Exit System became fully operational on 10 April 2026, and PSP suspended biometric capture on departures at Lisbon, Porto and Faro on 11 and 12 April after queues of several hours. And a general strike on 3 June hit the month that later showed the year's only fall.

The border system deserves its own note, because it affects travellers more than any traffic statistic. Portugal began registering non-EU passengers in the EES on 12 October 2025 and suspended it at Lisbon for three months from 30 December 2025, citing arrival queues. After full operation in April 2026 the government said in May that no further suspension was planned, but that biometric capture would be paused at peaks; waits of more than two hours were reported at Porto and about 90 minutes at Lisbon and Faro (ECO, 18 May 2026). More than 300 extra PSP officers were promised from July. No official queue-time statistics are published. The EU's ETIAS travel authorisation is officially scheduled for the last quarter of 2026, though trade press reports a delay to 2027.

Forecasts are scarce. VINCI gave no traffic guidance for Portugal in its half-year release. ANA's own charge filing for 2026 assumed 35.7 million passengers at Lisbon, 16.6 million at Porto and 10.2 million at Faro, figures the airports had already exceeded in 2025. Ryanair cut its group target for the year to March 2027 from 216 million to 214 million passengers because of unhedged fuel, without saying where the cuts fall. A full-year national total between 75 and 76 million, roughly 2–3% growth, is consistent with the January–July trend (derived), but August and September will decide it.

Airlines, charges and the €2 tax

No public source gives airline market shares at Portuguese airports for 2025. ANAC's quarterly bulletins stop being available online after 2022, and OAG and Cirium data are commercial. What exists is self-reported.

Ryanair forecast 14 million Portugal passengers for 2025 and, in a release of 28 January 2026, "14+ million" for 2026, up 4%, on 160 routes. It said it would not grow at Lisbon because of ANA's charges and added a twelfth aircraft at Faro. easyJet reported more than 10.5 million Portugal passengers in its year to September 2025, on 11.4 million seats and a 92% load factor, and says it is first at Madeira and second at Lisbon, Porto and Faro. TAP carried 16.7 million passengers in 2025 across its whole network, which is not the same as its traffic at Portuguese airports.

Ryanair's complaints centre on charges. ANA set Lisbon's regulated charges for 2026 at −4.88% after a revenue adjustment, but ANAC, the regulator, approved +0.65% for Lisbon and +2.40% for Porto and Faro (ECO, 19 December 2025). For 2027 ANA has proposed a Lisbon maximum of €14.80 per passenger, up €0.10, and increases of 3.77% at Porto and 3.79% at Faro, with Madeira, the Azores and Beja unchanged.

Ryanair also cited a "new €2 travel tax" when it announced its Azores exit. Portugal's €2 carbon tax per air passenger has been charged since 1 July 2021, and the law exempts flights to and from Madeira and the Azores, according to ECO's 2021 description of the scheme. We found no new aviation tax for 2026.

Above the airports, NAV Portugal handled a record 963,000 flights in 2025, up 5%, according to Lusa. Punctuality is weakest where capacity is tightest: in July 2025 only 37.4% of Lisbon departures left on time, the lowest share among major European airports in the Eurocontrol and ACI Europe report, against 56.1% at Porto and 67.0% at Faro.

How Portugal compares

Portugal's 4.7% growth in 2025 was only slightly above the European average of 4.4% (ACI Europe). Slovakia, Poland and Hungary grew fastest. Measured against 2019, Portugal does better.

Greece, the closest structural comparator, grew faster than Portugal over the period and now handles more passengers per resident. Spain, much larger and more mature, grew more slowly. Portugal's position sits between the two, which matches what our US vs Spain analysis found in the hotel data: American demand has grown faster than Spanish demand since 2019.

The 2025 market ranking from INE puts the United Kingdom first by passengers, followed by France, Spain, Germany and Italy. INE did not publish absolute values by country in its 2025 flash, and Eurostat's route data could not be read for this article. The latest absolute figures are for 2023: about 4.7 million passengers each way on UK routes, 4.4 million on French and 3.5 million on Spanish.

What the airport data cannot tell you

Airport totals measure seats used, not visitors. A visitor who flies Lisbon–Funchal and back during a mainland trip adds four movements to the total. No source separates residents from visitors at airport level, and INE's tourist count is a separate survey.

The difference is large. INE estimated 29.9 million non-resident tourist arrivals in Portugal in 2025, by all modes of transport, against 73.75 million airport passenger movements. Dividing one by the other says nothing reliable about how many visitors flew, because residents travel, domestic trips are counted twice and many Spanish visitors drive. Airport data are the best timely indicator of demand, and a poor census of visitors.

Several gaps limit the analysis. There is no 2025 split of domestic and international passengers or of EU and non-EU routes yet; INE's annual transport statistics for 2025 are not published. Airline shares by airport, seat capacity for summer 2026 and winter 2026/27, and ANA's movement count are unavailable. The Lajes series jumped 37% in 2024 on Eurostat while island-level statistics rose far less, so its growth since 2019 should be read with care.

The environmental side is thinly documented. Lisbon's night-flight limit of 91 movements a week between midnight and 6am is often breached, and ANAC fines for night-flight breaches reached almost €6 million nationally in the first half of 2024 (DN). No recent official figure gives aviation's share of Portugal's emissions.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers. Lisbon is the gateway with the least slack: almost half of all traffic, the tightest slots and the worst punctuality of Portugal's large airports. Allow extra time for passport control under the EES on arrival from outside Schengen, and consider Porto or Faro as an entry point; both have grown faster and ran more punctually in 2025. Madeira's 2026 traffic is at record levels in summer, while the Azores have fewer low-cost seats since Ryanair left, so book inter-island and mainland connections early. Our Lisbon travel guide covers getting into the city from the airport.

Tourism businesses and investors. National air capacity is no longer the constraint; Lisbon is. Since 2019, 64% of new passengers arrived somewhere other than Lisbon (derived). Operators who depend on Lisbon arrivals face a market growing about 1% a year until the 40-movement limit arrives from 2027, while Porto is growing about 7% and has a runway upgrade in hand. Watch three thresholds: national growth falling below 2% for a full quarter, Porto's hourly limit reaching 26 movements, and any Ryanair or easyJet winter cuts at Faro, where November to March carries about a fifth of the year's traffic.

Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: 73.75 million passengers at Portuguese airports in 2025 (INE, +4.7%); 72,474,000 on ANA's ten airports; +22.7% against 2019 (INE basis, derived); Lisbon 48.9% of passengers (Eurostat), down from 51.7%; Madeira airport +67.8% since 2019; January–July 2026 +2.4% with June −0.2%. Do not repeat: 72.5 million as a national total; any growth rate that divides ANA's 2025 figure by INE's 2019 figure; "Europe's fastest-growing" for 2025; Ryanair's "22% capacity cut" or "new €2 tax". The series finding this article adds: Porto and the islands supplied 54% of Portugal's air growth between 2019 and 2025 from 33% of its 2019 traffic (derived).