RevPAR and ADR in Portugal: Price Built 87% of the Gain Since 2019, and Lisbon Has Hit a Plateau

What RevPAR and ADR measure, and what INE counts

The two measures are linked by one identity. ADR is room revenue divided by rooms sold. RevPAR is room revenue divided by rooms available, including empty ones. RevPAR therefore equals ADR multiplied by room occupancy. A hotel can raise RevPAR by charging more, by filling more rooms, or both, and the decomposition tells you which.

INE publishes both measures for "estabelecimentos de alojamento turístico": hotels and other hotelaria, alojamento local (AL) with ten or more beds, and rural and manor-house tourism (TER/TH). Campsites, holiday camps, youth hostels and AL units under ten beds are outside the price and revenue statistics. Most Airbnb-style apartments are therefore not in INE's ADR, while larger AL buildings are.

The series has one break that matters. Until the 2017 data year INE's headline RevPAR covered hotelaria only. From 2018 it covers all tourist accommodation, which pulls the average down because AL and rural units earn less per room. Spliced together, the two series show RevPAR falling from €51.7 in 2017 to €48.5 in 2018. That fall is a change of scope, not of market. Room occupancy, the third leg of the identity, has only been published since the 2023 edition, back-filled for 2019 and 2022.

INE also corrected itself once. Its 2022 yearbook printed national RevPAR of €74.0, "+49.8% compared with 2019". That figure cannot coexist with the same table's ADR of €103.6 and room occupancy of 54.2%, which multiply to €56.2. The 2023 edition prints €56.2 for 2022 without comment. Anyone citing a near-50% recovery by 2022 is quoting the uncorrected number.

Price did 87% of the work

Taking logarithms splits RevPAR growth cleanly into a rate part and an occupancy part. Between 2019 and 2025 RevPAR rose 46.6%, ADR 39.6% and room occupancy from 55.3% to 58.2%. About 87% of the RevPAR gain came from the rate and 13% from occupancy (derived).

The pattern holds year by year after the pandemic. In the recovery year 2022 RevPAR was 13.8% above 2019 while occupancy was still 1.1 points lower, so the rate did more than all of the work. In 2023 occupancy contributed its largest share, about 39%, as demand outran supply for one season. In 2024 and 2025 the rate supplied 88% and 84% of the gain. Each year the rooms got slightly fuller and much more expensive.

The segments moved together. Hotelaria RevPAR rose from about €55.4 in 2019 to €81.4 in 2025 (+47%) and its ADR from about €92.3 to €128.9 (+40%); the 2019 levels are derived from INE's 2020 yearbook, which gives only the 2020 levels and their year-on-year falls. AL with ten or more beds went from €30.0 to €43.8 RevPAR, rural tourism from €25.8 to €44.8. Rural tourism has the highest ADR of the three (€132.9) and the lowest occupancy, the profile of a small, expensive, seasonal product.

Occupancy did reach a high in 2025. The 58.2% room rate is the highest in INE's short room-occupancy series (2019 and 2022–2025). It is only 2.9 points above 2019, while bed capacity in tourist accommodation grew from about 492,300 beds in 2024 to 502,700 in 2025. Supply has grown about as fast as demand, which leaves price as the only lever with much travel left in it.

Real terms: the deflator decides the verdict

A 39.6% higher room rate is pricing power only if the hotel's costs and the guests' alternatives rose by less. Three Eurostat price indices give three answers.

Against the all-items consumer price index, which rose 20.4% in Portugal between 2019 and 2025, real ADR is up 15.9% and real RevPAR 21.7% (derived). Against CP11, restaurants and accommodation together (+37.3%), ADR is up 1.6% in real terms. Against CP112, accommodation services alone (+44.1%), ADR is down 3.1% and RevPAR up 1.7%. Our 2025 annual report used the CP112 deflator and reached the same −3.1% and +1.7%; re-running it with Eurostat's September 2026 vintage reproduces both.

CP112 measures the price change of a constant basket of accommodation, including campsites and small rentals. INE's ADR is a unit value: if more guests stay in five-star hotels or in Madeira, the average rises even when no hotel changes its tariff. The two measures parted sharply in 2025. ADR rose 3.7% while CP112 fell 0.2%, against a 4.1% rise across the EU. The gap is consistent with a mix shift toward dearer rooms and dearer regions, which the regional data below support, though INE does not publish a mix-adjusted ADR to prove it.

Over the longer run Portugal's accommodation prices have risen faster than almost anyone's. From 2019 to 2025 CP112 rose 44.1% in Portugal, against 39.8% in Spain, 36.6% in Italy, 35.3% across the EU and 27.9% in Greece. Only Croatia (+73.6%) rose faster. Most of Portugal's increase came in two years: +30.5% in 2022 and +16.9% in 2023. Since then the index has gone sideways, with monthly year-on-year rates between −3.4% and +1.1% from January to August 2026 before a +2.8% reading in September.

2026: rates up, rooms emptier

Every INE monthly release of 2026 has shown the same shape. ADR rose between 2.3% and 3.4% year on year, RevPAR rose between 0.2% and 1.9%, and occupancy fell. INE published room occupancy for May (64.1%), June (64.3%) and July (67.3%), each about a point below 2025; the other months, derived from RevPAR and ADR, show falls of 0.5 to 1.1 points. In 2026 occupancy has subtracted from RevPAR in every month, and the rate has had to carry all of the growth and then some.

Our monthly tourism tracker shows the volume side of the same months: nights up 1.5% in January–August and accommodation revenue up 5.1%. The revenue growth is almost entirely price. August 2026 set the highest national ADR in INE's recent releases at €163.2 and RevPAR of €119.1, which is 41.1% above August 2019's €84.4 in nominal terms (derived).

The first quarter shows where the rate growth is concentrated. Five-star hotels raised ADR 6.6% and still grew RevPAR 3.3%. Four-star ADR rose 1.2%. Below that, RevPAR fell: three-star −1.0%, two- and one-star −3.0%, AL −3.5%. The top of the market can still push price; the bottom is losing occupancy and cannot. The same split appeared in Q4 2025, when two- and one-star RevPAR fell 6.8%.

The hotel association's member survey points the same way for the summer. AHP's poll of 403 establishments for June–September 2026, published on 19 October, found average rates up 3% to €171, occupancy down a point to 80% and RevPAR up 1% to €137. Cristina Siza Vieira, AHP's executive vice-president, called a 3% rate rise "pouco" once inflation is counted and said that "as coisas não estão brilhantes". These are member-reported figures for the peak months and are not comparable in level with INE's, but the direction matches.

The map of price

INE's definitive 2025 data give three regions a RevPAR above the national €72.4: Grande Lisboa (€106.0), Madeira (€97.0) and the Algarve (€78.4). Only Grande Lisboa (€148.8) and the Algarve (€133.8) have an ADR above the national €124.5. Provisional TravelBI figures put the other six regions between €35 and €66: the Azores €65.9, Norte €58.2, the Setúbal peninsula €56.1, the Alentejo €52.2, Oeste e Vale do Tejo €35.8 and Centro €35.3.

Growth runs in the opposite order. In 2025 RevPAR rose in every region except Grande Lisboa (−0.5%), and ADR in every region except Grande Lisboa (−0.8%). Madeira led on both, with RevPAR +16.2% and ADR +13.3%; the Alentejo (+7.4%) and Centro (+7.3%) followed on RevPAR, the Azores (+7.0%) on ADR. Madeira's figures are the strongest repricing in the country: DREM put 2019 RevPAR at €44.29 and ADR at about €68.8, so RevPAR has risen 119% and ADR about 80% in six years, with room occupancy up from roughly 64% to 78.3% (derived). Our Madeira tourism statistics cover the volume side of that story.

In summer the ranking flips toward the resort regions. In July 2026 the Algarve led on both measures (RevPAR €151.4, ADR €203.2) and the Alentejo grew fastest (RevPAR +14.6%, ADR +12.5% to €168.8). Grande Lisboa's July ADR of €154.6 was below the national €154.9. In August the Algarve reached an ADR of €225.2 and RevPAR of €180.0, both the highest in Portugal, ahead of the Alentejo (ADR €183.2) and the Azores (€168.4). Madeira recorded the largest August rises, RevPAR +6.8% to €138.1.

Norte is the counter-example. It supplied about a third of Portugal's growth in nights between 2019 and 2025, yet its RevPAR rose from €42.9 in 2019 (INE, via Turismo de Portugal) to a provisional €58.2 in 2025, about 36% (derived), ten points less than the national rise. Norte's NUTS II boundary did not change in 2024, so the comparison holds. Porto and the north grew by filling rooms at moderate prices; Madeira and the Algarve grew by charging more for rooms that were already filling.

The Azores show how much scope changes the number. SREA, the regional statistics office, counts hotelaria only and put August 2026 ADR at €183.35 and RevPAR at €157.99. INE's all-accommodation figures for the same month are €168.4 and €132.6. The €15 gap is the effect of including AL and rural units, and the two series should never be ranked against each other. On SREA's basis August ADR rose 2.8% in 2026 despite Ryanair's exit and eleven months of falling nights.

The Alentejo's numbers deserve a caveat. Its July room occupancy was 54.8%, so a region selling half its rooms at €168.8 is a small, high-end market of rural estates and resort hotels around Comporta and Évora. Our Alentejo tourism statistics show residents of Portugal taking about two in three of its nights.

Lisbon's plateau

The Lisbon numbers are no longer rising. Grande Lisboa's annual ADR went from €149.9 in 2024 to €148.8 in 2025 and RevPAR from €106.6 to €106.0, with derived room occupancy flat at about 71%. In August 2025 INE already reported the largest RevPAR fall of any region in Grande Lisboa (−1.3%). The 2026 releases continue the slide: January–April RevPAR −2.5% with ADR still +1.7%, June RevPAR −2.7% to €128.4 with ADR −0.9%, July RevPAR −7.3% with ADR −2.0% and occupancy −4.3 points. January–July RevPAR was €98.8, down 3.7%. In August Lisbon was the only region where total revenue (−1.6%) and room revenue (−1.9%) fell.

The sequence matters. Until July the decline came from occupancy, while ADR held or rose. In July the rate also gave way. That is the order you would expect when a market runs out of guests before it runs out of rooms.

AHP's explanation is supply against a fixed gateway. "Tínhamos atingido um planalto e já não teríamos muito mais por onde subir," Siza Vieira said on 19 October; new rooms keep arriving in Lisbon while the airport is "estrangulado", and EES border queues hurt visitors from outside Schengen. A year earlier she had said that Lisbon was entering a plateau with no rise in either occupancy or price. The airport side is documented in our Lisbon airport capacity analysis: Humberto Delgado is capped at 38 movements an hour and its commercial flights barely grew in 2025. AHP's summer survey had Lisbon as the only region down on all three indicators, with RevPAR −4% and 57% of Lisbon respondents reporting worse revenue.

Short-term rentals show the same plateau. AirDNA, which scrapes Airbnb and Vrbo listings, reports Lisbon's ADR down 3.1% to US$143 and RevPAR down 0.7% in the year to September 2026, on 15,385 active listings. Our Lisbon tourism statistics track the cancellation of 6,765 AL licences that shrank that supply. The commercial figures are a sample, but nothing in them contradicts INE.

Lisbon remains Portugal's most expensive region over a year. The plateau describes a ceiling on further growth, at a level well above the rest of the country.

How seasonal is the price?

Seasonality in Portugal is usually measured in nights. Measured in price it is just as uneven. Nationally, August 2026's ADR of €163.2 was 1.77 times January's €92.1 (derived). The Azores' hotels charged €178.30 in August 2025 and €66.46 in January 2025, a ratio of 2.68 (SREA, hotelaria only). The Algarve's August 2026 ADR of €225.2 was about 2.6 times its January–April average of €86.2, and the true August-to-January ratio is higher still.

Lisbon and Madeira are flatter. Grande Lisboa's ADR peaked at €174.8 in May 2025 against €111.4 in January, a ratio of 1.57, and its summer is not its dearest season. Madeira's August ADR was about 1.4 times its first-quarter €114.1. For a traveller this is the most practical finding in the data: in the Algarve the same room costs more than twice as much in August as in the shoulder months, while in Lisbon the spring and autumn conference season costs as much as summer.

Whose ADR? INE, the surveys and Spain

Portugal's hotel prices are quoted from at least five sources, and they disagree by large margins because they count different rooms. INE covers the whole registered stock above ten beds. AHP surveys its members, mostly larger urban and resort hotels, and publishes no methodology. JLL, CoStar and Savills use commercial samples or repackage INE data. For 2024 AHP's national ADR was €146 against INE's €120.1, 22% higher, and its RevPAR €95 against €69.4, 37% higher. For 2025 JLL's €166 ADR and €112 RevPAR are 33% and 55% above INE.

Spain's INE publishes the closest official comparison, the Coyuntura Turística Hotelera, which covers hotels and hostales but not tourist apartments or rural lodging. On that basis Spain's ADR was €91.0 in 2019 and €127.7 in 2025, against Portugal's €89.2 and €124.5. The 2019–2025 growth is almost identical: ADR +40.3% in Spain and +39.6% in Portugal, RevPAR +46.6% in both (derived). In August 2026, though, Spain's ADR rose 7.3% to €166.9 while Portugal's rose 3.0%. Spain's hotels are still raising prices at more than twice Portugal's pace.

No official ADR exists for Greece, Italy or Croatia that we could find; their statistics offices publish nights and capacity. The only official cross-country price measure is the HICP, which tracks changes, and Eurostat's price level indices, which cover restaurants and hotels together. CoStar's 2024 ranking of Portugal as the EU's eighth most expensive country for hotels (€160.46, just above Spain's €158.06) was reported as "based on Eurostat". Eurostat has no such figure.

Ten claims tested

The panel below checks ten figures and statements that circulate about Portuguese hotel prices. Two concern numbers from our own series files: preliminary Algarve and Madeira values that INE's final data replaced, and two monthly Lisbon RevPAR falls we could not trace to a primary source. We have corrected both.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers pay more than in 2019 almost everywhere, but less extra than the headlines suggest once general inflation is taken out, and the cheapest lever is the calendar. In the Algarve the average room costs about two and a half times as much in August as in early spring; in the Azores the summer premium is similar. Lisbon is the dearest region over a year but has stopped rising, and its rates in July 2026 were below the national average, so summer is a reasonable time for a city break while May and the autumn conference months are not cheaper. Madeira has repriced faster than anywhere and now runs at almost 80% occupancy, so book early. If you are choosing a base in the capital, our guide to where to stay in Lisbon sets out the neighbourhoods.

Tourism businesses and investors should read the 2026 data as a market where price still works at the top and has stopped working at the bottom. Five-star ADR rose 6.6% in the first quarter with RevPAR still up; two- and one-star hotels and AL with ten or more beds lost RevPAR. Capacity and demand are growing at the same pace: tourist-accommodation beds grew about 2% in 2025, as did nights, so there is little occupancy headroom to sell. In Lisbon the binding constraint is the airport, and new openings there are dividing a fixed number of arriving seats. An underwriting case that assumes Lisbon ADR growth in line with 2019–2024 is assuming the reverse of what INE has published since mid-2025. The thresholds to watch are national room occupancy holding above 58%, Grande Lisboa RevPAR turning positive year on year, and HICP CP112 rising faster than ADR, which would mean the mix shift has run out.

Journalists and analysts can cite: national ADR €124.5, RevPAR €72.4 and room occupancy 58.2% in 2025 (INE, definitive); ADR +39.6% and RevPAR +46.6% since 2019, with about 87% of the RevPAR gain from rate (derived); real ADR −3.1% on HICP CP112 and +15.9% on all-items HICP (derived); Grande Lisboa ADR €148.8, −0.8% in 2025, the only falling region; Madeira RevPAR +16.2% in 2025 and about +119% since 2019; August 2026 national ADR €163.2 (+3.0%) against Spain's €166.9 (+7.3%). Do not repeat INE's uncorrected €74.0 RevPAR for 2022, CoStar's "8th most expensive in the EU" as a Eurostat figure, JLL's €166 or AHP's €146 as national averages, or the Algarve's monthly ADR as a national one. The series finding this article adds is that every region repriced faster than it refilled, and that Lisbon reached its ceiling first, a plateau its hoteliers attribute to the airport and new supply.