Portugal Monthly Tourism Tracker 2026: Nights +1.5%, Revenue +5.1% and How Far INE's 30-Day Estimate Moves

What INE publishes each month, and when

INE's monthly product is titled Atividade Turística – Estatísticas Rápidas in the PDF and Estimativa Rápida in its catalogue; the press calls it the flash. Until the December 2024 reference month it was exactly that: a short release around day 30 with guests, nights and occupancy, followed about two weeks later by a full release that added revenue, RevPAR, ADR and regional detail. In the 2024 data the two agreed on total nights in every month except April, when corrected answers from some establishments moved the fall from 4.3% to 4.2%.

The January 2025 release, published on 28 February 2025, announced the change in one sentence: INE would now publish "um único destaque mensal, a 30 dias", with a quarterly release adding analysis. The same release moved regional data to the NUTS 2024 map, with nine regions and back-data to January 2024. Since then the monthly PDF carries total and room revenue, RevPAR, ADR, bed and room occupancy, average stay, the ten largest markets, regional shares, campsites and youth hostels as separate lines, and a box showing how much the previous month was revised. Quarterly releases followed on 15 May, 14 August and 17 November 2025, and on 15 May and 14 August 2026.

The monthly release lands between the 27th and the 31st of the following month, at 11:00 Lisbon time. In 2026 it came out on 27 February, 31 March, 30 April, 29 May, 30 June, 31 July, 31 August and 30 September. Indicator tables by NUTS region follow around the 15th of each month without a press release.

Every figure in the monthly headline covers three segments: hotel establishments (hotels, apartment hotels, tourist apartments and villages, pousadas and Madeira's quintas), local accommodation (alojamento local, AL) with ten or more beds, and rural and lodging tourism. The ten-bed threshold comes from EU Regulation 692/2011. Campsites, holiday camps and youth hostels are reported separately and enter only an "all types" total. AL units with fewer than ten beds, which make up most of the short-term rental stock in Lisbon, Porto and Madeira, are outside the survey.

The survey is a census of establishments, and the first estimate is built with gaps. Eurostat's metadata for Portugal puts non-response at about 15% for preliminary data, 10% for revised data and under 3% for the definitive year. Missing answers are imputed from each establishment's own history. An establishment that suspends activity without saying so is recorded as zero, which INE says happens more often in the low season. INE names the three vintages in every release: preliminary at 30 days, provisional at 60 days and definitive in July of the following year.

Nine claims tested

The change of regime explains two errors in our own brief for this article, which described a flash followed by a full monthly release and called the July annual figures preliminary. The other claims below come from 2026 headlines and statements. Most are figures that were accurate on the day they were published and were superseded later.

How far the first estimate moves

INE measures revision as the difference in percentage points between the year-on-year rate at 60 days and the rate at 30 days. Across the 20 reference months from December 2024 to July 2026, the average revision to nights was −0.10 points and the average absolute revision 0.19 points (derived from INE's published revision boxes). Revenue behaved almost identically, with an average of −0.10 points and an absolute average of 0.19. Six of the 20 months moved by 0.3 points or more on nights, and six on revenue.

In 2026 the direction has been consistent. Of the seven months already revised, six had their nights growth cut and none was raised; the cuts sum to −1.6 points. February took the largest, from +1.3% to +0.7%, after storms that INE warned had hurt response rates. The 90 municipalities INE identified as storm-hit recorded 1.8% fewer nights that month, while the rest of the country grew 1.7%. In 2025 the revisions were mixed: five months up, four down and three unchanged.

The split between residents and foreigners carries larger revisions than the total. Resident nights in April 2025 went from +13.1% to +12.2%, May 2026 from +7.6% to +6.7% and July 2026 from +5.1% to +4.1%, each about a full point, while non-resident rates rarely moved by more than half a point at the 60-day stage (derived from the rates cited in the following release). Our analysis of domestic tourism found that residents supplied 73% of 2025's growth in nights. In a single month, a headline that residents drove growth should be read with a point of error attached.

The July definitive release adds a second round. For July to December, dividing the level printed a year later by its growth rate gives the implied definitive figure for the earlier year. On that basis, summer nights were revised up: July 2024 from +2.1% to +2.8%, August 2024 from +3.8% to +4.0%, July 2025 from +3.5% to +3.8% and August 2025 from +1.1% to +1.4% (all derived). Winter resident nights went the other way, with November 2024 cut from +22.2% to +21.1% and December 2024 from +0.6% to −0.4%. The largest revenue change found was July 2025, first published at €891.1 million (+10.6%) and implied a year later at €880.6 million (+9.3%), a cut of 1.3 points.

For whole years the cycle is tight. INE's first read of 2025, published on 30 January 2026, gave 82,085.4 thousand nights (+2.2%) and total revenue of €7,154.4 million (+7.2%). The definitive figures of 9 July 2026 were 82.0 million nights (+2.1%) and €7,133.2 million (+6.9%). For 2024 the first read of 80.3 million nights (+4.0%) became 80.4 million (+4.1%). The early figures keep circulating after they are replaced: the Secretary of State for Tourism quoted 82.1 million nights in April 2026, and an IPDT barometer in March used €7.2 billion of revenue.

The practical rule follows from these numbers. A monthly growth rate within about 0.3 points of zero has no reliable sign at 30 days. A rate of 1.5% or more is very unlikely to change direction. And in 2026 the first estimate has been slightly optimistic, so a reader comparing this year's months should use INE's revised rate whenever one exists.

2026, month by month

January opened at +2.0% for nights and +5.6% for revenue, against +6.3% and +13.8% a year earlier. Norte (+8.2%) and Centro (+5.6%) grew, while the Azores (−5.8%) and the Algarve (−4.7%) fell. Only Norte and Grande Lisboa grew in non-resident nights. February added 1.3% on first estimate and 0.7% after revision, with non-resident nights revised from +0.4% to −0.2%; February 2025 had itself fallen 2.5% against a leap-year base.

Easter fell on 20 April 2025 and on 5 April 2026, so March and April have to be read together. In March 2026 non-resident nights rose 2.9% while residents fell 2.3%. In April total nights rose only 0.6% against an April 2025 that had jumped 9.2% on Easter, and INE headlined that resident nights "continued to decrease". INE said both months may have been influenced by the moving calendar without putting a number on it. Taken together, March and April 2026 nights rose 0.95%, with residents down 1.6% and non-residents up 1.9% (derived from INE's levels).

May was the strongest month of the year for nights, +2.8% at 30 days and +2.5% after revision, carried by residents (+7.6%, revised to +6.7%) and by the Alentejo (+10.0%). June brought the fall in non-resident nights that INE flagged in its headline, −0.6% (revised to −0.5%), with Germany down 4.9% and France 7.9%. Airport passengers fell 0.2% the same month; VINCI pointed to the general strike of 3 June.

July grew 2.1% on residents (+5.1%), while non-resident nights rose 0.7%. American nights fell 3.1% to 604,900, the drop that produced a week of headlines. The British market rose 3.0% and Poland 10.8%. August, the year's peak, recorded 10,886.4 thousand nights (+1.7%) and revenue of about €1,058.9 million (+4.6%). Non-resident nights rose 1.9%, their best since March, with Canada (+11.2%), Poland (+11.7%), the US (+5.8%), Spain (+5.0%) and the UK (+3.4%) up and France down 7.6%. The Azores was the only region to fall.

No month of 2026 has fallen in total nights and none has grown by 3%. On Eurostat's monthly data, which include campsites, January–August 2026 was 15.4% above the same months of 2019, but the gap narrowed through the year from about 23% in January to 7.5% in August (derived). The low and shoulder seasons have grown much faster than the peak since 2019, and in 2026 January and May again grew faster than August.

Price is doing the work

Revenue ran ahead of nights in every month of 2026, by between 2.8 and 5.2 percentage points on first estimates (derived). Average daily rate rose between 2.3% and 3.4% a month, reaching €163.2 in August. Bed occupancy fell year on year in all seven months for which INE published the change, by between 0.4 and 1.4 points, so revenue per available room, which combines price and occupancy, grew by only 0.2% to 1.9%. Supply is growing faster than demand: hotels are charging slightly more and filling slightly fewer of their beds.

Over a longer span the price effect is larger. INE's August 2019 release recorded 9.5 million nights and a RevPAR of €84.4. August 2026 had 14.6% more nights and a RevPAR of €119.1, 41.1% higher in nominal terms (derived). Our 2025 annual report found that, once deflated by Portugal's hotel and restaurant prices, receipts per foreign night were unchanged since 2019; the 2026 monthly data show the same thing continuing at a slower pace.

Lisbon is the exception. Grande Lisboa's RevPAR fell year on year in May (−6.2%), June (−2.7%), July (−7.3%) and August (−6.3%), and it was the only region whose revenue fell in July (−2.0%) and August (−1.6%). Lisbon airport grew 0.7% in January–September 2026 against 7.1% at Porto, and our Lisbon tourism statistics article documented the capacity ceiling behind that gap. The monthly release does not say why Lisbon's revenue per room is falling. ECO's September reporting quoted hoteliers blaming air capacity and fares, and placed the American and French declines mainly in the capital.

Spain is raising prices much faster. Its hotel ADR rose 7.3% in August 2026 to €166.9 (INE Spain), against Portugal's 3.0% to €163.2. The AHP hotel association's Easter survey of 328 establishments found the average room price slipping from €145 to €143 nationally and from €171 to €161 in Lisbon, and 28% of hoteliers expecting a weaker summer. Portuguese hotel prices are still rising, but at around inflation and without the occupancy to support RevPAR growth.

Markets and regions in the monthly data

The ten-market table in each release shows a year of offsetting moves. The UK, the largest market by nights, fell in four of the first five months (January −3.6%, February −4.1%, April −0.5%, May −1.1%) and then grew in June, July and August, ending the first half at −0.2%. Germany had a strong spring, +9.2% in March and +8.6% in May, then fell 4.9% in June and was flat in August (+0.3%). France fell in every month for which INE published a rate, by between 5.9% and 16.7%.

The growth came from further away and from smaller markets. Canada grew by more than 10% in January, February, April and August, and Poland by more than 10% in July and August. The United States grew 5.4% in the first half and 5.8% in August, so July's 3.1% fall is the exception in its year. July 2025 had risen 14.1%, and the US decline that month was concentrated in Grande Lisboa (−16,900 nights) and the Algarve (−6,300), while Norte gained 10,700. Our American tourists in Portugal article puts the month in the context of a fivefold rise in US nights since 2015.

Regionally, Norte and the Alentejo were the two fastest-growing regions in six of the eight months, and Norte grew every month. The Azores fell in at least five of the eight, after Ryanair's exit from the islands. Madeira dipped in nights in January, May, June and July but posted August revenue up 11.6%. The Algarve swung with Easter, from −4.7% in January to +4.7% in May and −0.4% in June. Some market values for Spain, France and Brazil in April, May and June appear only in INE's charts and could not be extracted.

Three trackers, one direction

Banco de Portugal's monthly receipts tell the same story in money. Travel credits grew 4.2% in the first half of 2026 to €12,870.5 million, then 1.4% in July (€3,654.8 million) and 1.9% in August (€4,436.2 million), for €20,961.6 million in January–August (+3.2%). Within a year, revisions are tiny, about 0.05%; a year later, August 2024 had been revised up 0.43% (derived). The bank has also published a preliminary travel indicator at 30 days since early 2025, but its values could not be extracted from BPstat. Our tourism receipts analysis covers the annual series and the balance-of-payments view.

Airports agree on direction and differ on timing. INE's monthly air-transport flash counted 51.0 million passengers in January–August (+2.4%), with June the only falling month (−0.2%). VINCI's figures for ANA's ten airports, published quarterly, show 57.3 million passengers in January–September (+2.4%), with Lisbon at −0.2% in the third quarter, Porto +7.1% and the Azores −6.4%. VINCI's +1.9% for September is the only official September figure for Portugal so far. The two airport counts differ in coverage and should not be mixed; our airports passenger traffic article reconciles them.

Eurostat publishes the same monthly survey with campsites included, and that changes the numbers. On that basis January–August 2026 nights rose 0.95%, with residents up 2.16% and non-residents up 0.35%, because campsite nights fell 4.2% (derived from tour_occ_nim). Eurostat's year-on-year rate ran 0.4 to 1.6 points below INE's headline in every month from February to August. Neither is wrong; they measure different things. For international comparisons Eurostat is the only consistent source, and on it Portugal's foreign nights grew more slowly in January–August than Spain's (+1.35%) and Greece's (+2.03%), and about as fast as Croatia's (+0.13%).

The government's targets are now out of reach on the current trend. The Secretary of State for Tourism, Pedro Machado, set +5–6% for receipts and +2–2.5% for nights in February 2026. Receipts are at +3.2% and nights at +1.5% after eight months. Reaching +5% in receipts for the year would require about +9% in September–December (derived), when no month of 2026 has exceeded +6.7%.

What the monthly data cannot show

The monthly release is detailed, but several gaps limit what it can say. AL units with fewer than ten beds are outside the survey, and campsites report no revenue, so the €5,129.0 million of revenue to August describes only part of what visitors pay for lodging. INE's levels for the same months of 2019 could only be retrieved for August, so the comparison with 2019 relies on Eurostat's series, which includes campsites.

Eurostat's annual totals sit about 0.3% below INE's all-types definitive totals for both 2024 (88.07 million against 88.35 million) and 2025 (89.43 million against 89.72 million). Campsites match, so the gap sits in hotels and other short-stay accommodation; we could not find the reason. Monthly market values that INE prints only in charts, the values of Banco de Portugal's 30-day travel indicator, and any official count of visitors rather than guests remain unavailable. INE counts guest arrivals at each establishment, so a visitor who stays in three hotels is counted three times.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

For travelers, the monthly data describe a country that is busier and slightly pricier than last year but not crowded beyond it. August 2026 had 10.9 million nights in registered accommodation against 3.7 million in January, a ratio of 2.9 to 1, and ADR ran from €89.6 in February to €163.2 in August. The shoulder months are where growth is happening, so May, June and September now feel closer to summer than they did in 2019. In Greater Lisbon, revenue per available room fell 6–7% in July and August, a sign of softer occupancy or pricing in the capital that a flexible traveller can use. Porto and the north are growing fastest. Our Portugal itinerary has routes that combine both.

For tourism businesses and investors, the binding fact is falling occupancy. Bed occupancy declined in every month INE reported in 2026 while ADR rose about 3%, and Spain's hotels raised ADR by more than twice as much. Planning on nights growth of 1–2% and price growth near inflation fits the evidence; planning on a repeat of 2023–2024 does not. Read the revised rate, not the 30-day one, and watch non-resident nights on Eurostat's series as the cleanest gauge of international demand. Two consecutive revised months of falling non-resident nights, or ADR growth below 2%, would mark a change in the cycle. Grande Lisboa's RevPAR has already fallen for four consecutive months.

For journalists and analysts, the citable figures are: 57.3 million nights in January–August 2026 (+1.5%) and €5,129.0 million of revenue (+5.1%) at INE scope; non-resident nights +0.35% on Eurostat's campsite-inclusive series; Banco de Portugal receipts €20,961.6 million (+3.2%); an average absolute revision of 0.19 points to INE's 30-day growth rates, with six of seven 2026 months cut. Do not repeat that INE publishes a flash and a full monthly release, that June was the first fall in foreign nights in eight months, that Americans are abandoning Portugal on one month's data, or 2025 totals of 82.1 million nights and €7.2 billion of revenue. The finding this tracker adds to the series is that 2026's slowdown is a foreign slowdown measured in volume, and that INE's first estimate this year has erred on the high side.