Key takeaways
- Germany is Portugal's #2 market by overnight stays in every INE and Eurostat series (6,438,119 nights in 2025 on INE's headline series); the US and Spain compete for third place on nights.
- On INE's headline accommodation series, which excludes campsites, the US passed Spain in 2025: 5,459,505 nights (#3, +4.9%) against 5,173,383 (#4, −5.2%), preliminary data via Presstur and Lusa.
- On Eurostat's campsite-inclusive series Spain stayed ahead in 2025 with 5,653,900 nights (9.4%) against the US's 5,479,362 (9.1%); campsites add about 480,000 Spanish nights and almost no American ones (derived).
- By guests the US is already Portugal's #2 market on INE's headline series, with 2,368,300 in 2025 against Spain's 2,305,500 (TravelBI, revised).
- The US overtook Spain on travel receipts in 2024 and widened the gap in 2025 (€3,137.0M vs €2,939.6M, Banco de Portugal); in H1 2026 the US ranked #3 with €1,523.0M, ahead of Spain and France.
- INE counts about 7.1 million Spanish tourists in 2025 (23.8% of 29.9 million, derived), roughly 3.7 for every American; hotel statistics undercount Spain because many Spaniards camp, stay privately or drive in.
- In 2026 the race is seasonal: the US led in June (653,200 nights, #2 that month) and the first half, Spain led July and August, and Spain was about 60,000 nights ahead over January–August (derived).
- US nights fell 3.1% in July 2026 after rising 14.1% a year earlier, amid higher long-haul fares after the late-February conflict involving Iran; August recovered 5.8%, and INE puts January–July growth at 3.4%.
In 2025 American travellers spent €3.14 billion in Portugal, about €200 million more than Spaniards. They also checked into more hotel rooms. Yet INE’s count of foreign tourists still shows roughly 3.7 Spaniards for every American.
Both statements are true because Portugal measures its visitors in at least four ways: guests and overnight stays in tourist accommodation, a wider count of tourists that includes private stays, and Banco de Portugal’s travel receipts. INE also runs two accommodation series that differ by one category, campsites. On the headline series the US passed Spain in overnight stays in 2025. On the series that Eurostat publishes, which adds campsites, Spain stayed ahead by 175,000 nights.
The question this article set out to answer was whether the US will overtake Spain as Portugal’s number two market. That question turned out to be wrong in an instructive way. Germany is number two on overnight stays in every series. The US already holds second place on hotel guests and has led Spain on receipts since 2024. The real contest is narrower and more seasonal than the headline suggests, and the numbers in circulation mix series freely.
Which race? Germany holds second place on nights
INE’s preliminary 2025 accommodation figures, published in February 2026 and reproduced by Presstur and Lusa, put the UK first with 10,063,985 non-resident nights (17.7%) and Germany second with 6,438,119 (11.3%). The US came third with 5,459,505 nights (9.6%, +4.9%) and Spain fourth with 5,173,383 (9.1%, −5.2%). France followed with 4,223,310, down 7.0%.
The US gained 257,300 nights in a year in which total non-resident nights rose only 0.8%, to 56,958,740. Presstur calculated that American visitors accounted for almost 60% of the increase in foreign overnight stays. Spain lost 286,600 nights, the largest fall of any major market. The gap between them went from Spain ahead by about 272,000 nights in 2024 to the US ahead by 286,000 in 2025 (derived).
By guests the picture changes again. Turismo de Portugal’s TravelBI, using revised INE data, counts 2,368,300 American guests in 2025 (+3.3%) against 2,305,500 Spanish guests (−3.5%). That makes the US the second-largest market by arrivals at hotels and similar establishments, behind the UK. So a “#2 market” headline holds on one measure, and on that measure the US got there in 2025.
Our own content plan framed this topic as “the race for Portugal’s #2 market” and quoted a 9.1% versus 9.4% share split. Both were taken from a July 2026 report in The Portugal News. The share figures are real, but they come from a different INE series than the 5.5 million nights quoted alongside them. The corrections panel below sets out how each claim holds up.
Two INE series, two answers: the campsite effect
INE publishes monthly accommodation statistics for hotels, local accommodation (alojamento local) with ten or more beds, rural tourism and turismo de habitação. Those monthly figures are what Portuguese media report each month, and they total 82.1 million nights for 2025. INE’s annual Estatísticas do Turismo and the Eurostat tables built from them add campsites and youth hostels, which lifts the 2025 total to about 89.4 million.
For most markets the difference is small. For Spain it is decisive. Eurostat records 5,653,900 Spanish nights in 2025, about 480,000 more than INE’s headline series (derived). American nights barely move: 5,479,362 on Eurostat against 5,459,505 on the headline series. Spanish families drive to Portuguese campsites in August; Americans almost never camp in Portugal. Add the campsites and Spain moves back to third on nights with 9.4% against the US’s 9.1%.
Guests behave the same way. On Eurostat’s campsite-inclusive count Spain had 2,391,000 guests in 2025 and was the largest market of all, ahead of the UK (2,301,000) and the US (2,292,000). On the headline series the US is ahead of Spain. The choice of series decides the winner on both nights and guests.
Neither series is wrong. The headline series is the one INE releases monthly and the one hoteliers benchmark against. The campsite-inclusive series is the more complete count of commercial accommodation. An honest sentence names the series: the US passed Spain in hotels and similar establishments in 2025, while Spain remained ahead once campsites are included.
Ten years of convergence
The long series explains why the question is being asked at all. Eurostat’s data for Portugal, which runs back to 1990, show American nights at 1.07 million in 2015, a quarter of Spain’s 4.24 million. By 2019 the US had reached 2.72 million, 48% of Spain’s total. After the pandemic it accelerated: 3.47 million in 2022, 4.64 million in 2023, 5.21 million in 2024 and 5.48 million in 2025.
Spain followed a flatter path. Spanish nights reached 5.70 million in 2019, peaked at 6.01 million in 2023 and fell to 5.65 million in 2025, 0.8% below the 2019 level. American nights in 2025 were 101.6% above 2019 (derived). In 2021, when long-haul travel had not recovered, Spain briefly passed Germany, a reminder of how much the ranking depends on who can travel.
The convergence is also visible in air traffic. Eurostat counts 2,617,303 passengers between Portugal and the US in 2025, against 1,592,639 in 2019, an increase of 64.3% (derived). Passengers between Portugal and Spain rose 29.1% over the same period to 7,369,207. That Spanish figure includes connections through Madrid and Barcelona, and the American one includes Portuguese residents and the diaspora, so neither is a count of tourists. The direction is still clear.
The money: the US passed Spain in 2024
On spending the overtaking has already happened. Banco de Portugal’s travel export figures, as reproduced by Presstur and TravelBI, show Spain ahead in 2023 with €2,773.9 million against €2,469.1 million from the US. In 2024 American receipts rose 13.9% to about €2.87 billion and Spain’s rose 8.6% to about €2.83 billion. The US moved from fifth to fourth.
In 2025 the gap widened. American receipts reached €3,137.0 million (+8.0%), while Spain’s rose 3.6% to €2,939.6 million. The US contributed 16.7% of the year’s €1.39 billion increase in receipts, the largest share of any market. In the first half of 2026 the US climbed to third with €1,523.0 million, ahead of both Spain (€1,130.1 million) and France (€1,123.3 million). France was the only large market whose receipts fell, by 5.7%.
On receipts, then, the US is chasing France and Germany, not Spain. It passed France in the first half of 2024 and again in the first half of 2026. It has not yet passed France or Germany over a full year.
| Market | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | H1 2026 | 2025 rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 3,835.0 | 4,120 | 4,276.1 | 1,948.5 | 1 |
| Germany | 2,827.2 | 3,120 | 3,361.5 | 1,542.1 | 2 |
| France | 3,114.1 | 3,220 | 3,196.3 | 1,123.3 | 3 |
| United States | 2,469.1 | 2,870 | 3,137.0 | 1,523.0 | 4 |
| Spain | 2,773.9 | 2,830 | 2,939.6 | 1,130.1 | 5 |
| Brazil | 1,053.8 | 1,140 | 1,199.5 | 657.1 | 6 |
| All markets | 25,421 | 27,651.5 | 29,131 | n/a |
Arrivals: why Spain still dominates the headcount
INE’s Estatísticas do Turismo also estimate the number of non-resident tourists, defined as visitors who stay at least one night in any kind of accommodation, including private homes. Same-day visitors are excluded. On this measure Portugal received 29.9 million foreign tourists in 2025 (+3.3%), and Spain supplied 23.8% of them, about 7.1 million (derived). The UK was second with 11.9% and France third with 10.9%.
The American count is harder to pin down. A figure of 1,903,700 (+6.9%) circulates, attributed to INE, but the only source we found labels it “North American”, which would include Canada. INE’s 2023 publication gives 1,523,700 tourists from the United States, against 6,693,100 from Spain. Either way Spain sends between 3.7 and 4.4 Spaniards for every American tourist.
The gap between tourists and guests is the clearest evidence that hotel statistics undercount Spain. About 7.1 million Spanish tourists generated only 2.3 million guest registrations in commercial accommodation, a ratio of roughly three to one (derived). Americans appear to produce more guest registrations than trips, because a typical American itinerary combines Lisbon, Porto and the Douro and checks in two or three times. Spaniards stay with friends, own second homes near the border, camp, or drive in for a long weekend.
Spanish statistics show what cross-border tourism on the peninsula looks like. Turespaña counted 3.37 million Portuguese tourists in Spain in 2025, 77.4% of them travelling by road: short distances, cars and repeat visits. The Spanish statistics office’s experimental card-spending series put Spanish residents’ tourist spending in Portugal at €1,608 million in 2022, well below Banco de Portugal’s receipts from Spain, which shows how far the methods diverge. No official count of Spanish same-day visitors to Portugal was found, although Banco de Portugal’s receipts include their spending.
Dividing receipts by volumes shows what each visitor is worth, with the caveat that Banco de Portugal’s receipts include same-day visitors and private stays. Per tourist, an American spent about €1,648 in 2025 and a Spaniard about €413 (derived). Per commercial night the two markets are almost identical at about €570. The difference lies in how much of each trip touches the commercial accommodation system, not in what a hotel night is worth.
2026 month by month: June to the US, August to Spain
The 2026 monthly data show the contest as a seasonal swap. American nights rose 5.4% in the first half to 2,595,000, a 10.0% share and third place. Spain grew 0.9% with a 7.8% share. In June the US was Portugal’s second-largest market of the month with 653,200 nights, ahead of Germany (618,500) and Spain (443,000).
The 2025 monthly releases show the same rhythm a year earlier. The first quarter was level, with 726,700 American nights against 728,800 Spanish ones; Easter fell in April in 2025, which depressed Spain’s March. In May 2025 the US recorded 624,300 nights against Spain’s 381,000. The American calendar is flat from April to October, with its strongest months in May, June, September and October. The Spanish calendar has two spikes, Easter and August, and August alone outweighs any American month by more than 400,000 nights.
July reversed the order. American nights fell 3.1% to 604,900, only the second year-on-year decline in the US market since the pandemic, and Spain rose 1.6% to 707,500. The fall was concentrated in Grande Lisboa (−6.0%) and the Algarve (−6.7%), while the Norte grew 9.3%. INE reported that US nights were still up 3.4% for January to July. That figure does not reconcile with the first-half growth plus July, which implies about 4.2%, because earlier months were revised.
August is Spain’s month. Spanish nights rose 5.0% to 1,096,000, 15.6% of all non-resident nights, while the US recovered 5.8% to 568,900 and ranked fifth. Over January to August, TravelBI puts Spain’s share at 9.7% and third place. Summing the monthly releases gives about 3.83 million Spanish nights against about 3.77 million American ones (derived from mixed vintages).
| Period | US nights | US change | Spain nights | Spain change | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | 377,000 | +5.4% | 422,500 | −1.5% | Spain |
| H1 (Jan–Jun) | 2,595,000 | +5.4% | ≈2,010,000* | +0.9% | US |
| June | 653,200 | +3.4% | 443,000 | +1.9% | US |
| July | 604,900 | −3.1% | 707,500 | +1.6% | Spain |
| August | 568,900 | +5.8% | 1,096,000 | +5.0% | Spain |
| Jan–Aug (derived) | ≈3,770,000 | n/a | ≈3,830,000 | n/a | Spain |
What drives the American curve: seats, the dollar and the war
Air capacity is the variable the industry names first. United, the largest US carrier in Portugal, says it runs up to six daily Portugal–US flights in summer 2026, about 10% more capacity than in 2025, with Newark services to Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Funchal and Ponta Delgada and a Terceira route announced for 2027. Delta opened New York JFK to Porto on 21 May 2026, its first Porto route. American Airlines flies Philadelphia–Lisbon daily and plans Philadelphia–Porto from 2027. TAP added Los Angeles, Boston–Porto and San Francisco–Terceira in 2025 and opens Orlando–Lisbon on 29 October 2026.
Most of the new capacity lands outside Lisbon, which is constrained by slots at Humberto Delgado. Our Lisbon tourism statistics analysis shows the capital’s airport grew 2.9% in 2025 while Porto grew 6.3%. That helps explain the regional split in July 2026: American nights fell in Lisbon and rose in the Norte, and Jornal Económico reported that Americans became the leading foreign market in the Douro Valley. The outcome of the TAP privatisation will shape the airline’s North American network, which carried 1.59 million passengers in 2024 by TAP’s own count.
Prices moved against the US market in 2026. ECO reported in March that jet fuel had risen 76% since the conflict involving Iran began in late February, with long-haul fares up 10% to 20%. TAP’s fuel costs rose 52.3% in the second quarter. In March the hotel association AHP described “a clear slowdown in the American market, at Easter and for summer”, and 24% of hotels in its survey reported slowdowns or cancellations. Sector representatives quoted by ECO in September named lower capacity and higher fares as the cause of the July dip, while the CTP called it premature to speak of a change in trend.
The exchange rate has been less decisive than often assumed. The dollar averaged 1.082 per euro in 2024 and 1.131 in 2025 (Federal Reserve H.10 data), and weakened to 1.18 by February 2026. American receipts still grew 8.0% in 2025 and 8.0% in the first half of 2026. July’s base effect mattered more: American nights had risen 14.1% in July 2025. US outbound travel softened too, with the US National Travel and Tourism Office recording a 2.2% fall in departures by US citizens in July 2026 and a 2.6% fall in US–Europe air passengers.
Spain’s access is stable rather than growing. There has been no direct Lisbon–Madrid train since the Lusitânia night service stopped in March 2020. The Évora–Elvas line was physically complete in January 2026 but had no opening date at the end of June, and the 2025 bilateral agreement targets a direct link of about five hours by 2030. Porto–Vigo trains are replaced by buses between Vigo and Valença until April 2027. ECO reported Spain–Portugal air capacity up 2.8% for summer 2026. Most Spanish visitors arrive by road, but no border-crossing count is published.
Where they go: two different maps
The two markets barely overlap geographically. TravelBI data for 2025 put 48.9% of American nights in Grande Lisboa, 21.0% in the Norte and 11.3% in the Algarve. Spanish nights were spread differently: 29.9% in the Norte, 23.3% in Grande Lisboa and 15.9% in the Algarve. Spanish card spending follows the same pattern, with 35.7% in the Norte.
Seen from each region, Spain is the leading foreign market in Centro (24.6% of non-resident nights), Oeste e Vale do Tejo (22.5%), Alentejo (18.2%) and Norte (16.7%), according to INE’s 2025 preliminary data reproduced by Lusa. The US leads in the Azores (17.0%) and in Grande Lisboa (16.8%). Germany leads in Madeira and the UK in the Algarve with 35.9%. Spain is Portugal’s border-region market; the US is a Lisbon and Porto city-break and touring market that increasingly reaches the islands.
Average stays are short and similar for both: about 2.3 nights per guest registration in 2025 on INE’s headline series (derived), against about 4.5 for British guests on Eurostat’s series. TravelBI quotes an average Spanish stay of 5.1 nights, which appears to describe all Spanish outbound travel rather than trips to Portugal, and we have not used it. Both markets rely mainly on hotels: 70.8% of American nights and 65.1% of Spanish nights.
What would decide the race
No official body has forecast that the US will overtake Spain or become Portugal’s second market. We found no such statement from Turismo de Portugal, AHP or TAP. BPI Research projected in March 2026 that American growth would slow to about 2% in 2026, partly because of the football World Cup in the US, and assumed Spanish guests would stabilise after their 2025 fall. Amadeus booking data cited on TravelBI’s US page point to 14% more American air passengers for August 2026 to July 2027.
On the headline accommodation series the deciding months are September to December. In 2025 the US recorded about 1.84 million nights in those four months against Spain’s 1.43 million (derived). If that pattern holds, the US will end 2026 ahead on the headline series for the second year running, even after losing July and August. On the campsite-inclusive series Spain’s lead of 175,000 nights in 2025 would close if American nights grew about 3 percentage points faster than Spanish ones (derived). On receipts the US needs no help; its next target is France.
Three thresholds would change this assessment: a second consecutive monthly fall in American nights in the autumn data; Spanish nights growing faster than 5% outside August; or a reduction in transatlantic seats for winter 2026–27. None was visible at the start of October 2026. TAP’s Orlando launch and United’s earlier Madeira season point the other way.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. The two markets crowd different places at different times. Spanish visitors fill the Norte, Centro and the Alentejo coast in August and at Easter, and drive in for long weekends. American demand is flatter and peaks in May, June, September and October in Lisbon, Porto and the Douro, so those months are busy in the cities. If you want Lisbon with fewer long-haul tour groups, January to March is the gap; if you want the Alentejo coast without Spanish holiday crowds, avoid August. Our Lisbon travel guide covers when and where to stay.
Tourism businesses and investors. Treat the markets as different products. American guests are hotel-based, long-haul and seat-constrained: their volume follows transatlantic capacity, fares and Lisbon’s slot ceiling, and they spend about €1,648 per trip. Spanish visitors are road-based, seasonal and resilient, and much of their spending happens outside commercial accommodation. A Lisbon hotel underwriting continued US growth should stress-test it against fuel-driven fare increases and the capital’s capacity limits, set out in our new Lisbon airport tracker. Porto, the Douro and the Azores are where new US seats have gone. A Norte or Alentejo operator that counts only hotel nights will underestimate its Spanish market.
Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: US nights 5,459,505 and Spain 5,173,383 in 2025 on INE’s headline series (US #3, Spain #4); US 5,479,362 and Spain 5,653,900 on Eurostat’s campsite-inclusive series (Spain #3, US #4); US guests 2,368,300 (#2) and Spain 2,305,500 (#3); receipts US €3,137.0 million (#4) and Spain €2,939.6 million (#5) in 2025, and €1,523.0 million against €1,130.1 million in H1 2026. Do not repeat: “the race for #2” on nights (Germany is #2); “US visitors +6.9%” as a guest or US-only figure; Forbes Portugal’s third place for the US in 2024 receipts; or the “€1.1 billion in Q1 2026” figure. The series finding this article adds is methodological: Portugal’s source-market rankings depend on the series, and press figures routinely mix INE’s headline and campsite-inclusive data within one sentence.
Data & sources
Period covered: 2015–August 2026
- Eurostat – tour_occ_ninraw · Nights by country of residence in Portuguese tourist accommodation incl. campsites, 1990–2025 (updated 22 Sep 2026). Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat – tour_occ_arnraw · Guests (arrivals) by country of residence, Portugal, incl. campsites. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat – avia_paexcc / avia_paocc · Air passengers Portugal–US and Portugal–Spain, 2018–2025 and Jan–Feb 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Turismo de Portugal – TravelBI, United States market · Revised 2025 US guests, nights, receipts, regional and lodging split. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Turismo de Portugal – TravelBI, Spain market · Revised 2025 Spanish guests, nights, receipts and regional split. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Turismo de Portugal – TravelBI, Turismo em Números (Aug 2026) · Jan–Aug 2026 market shares and receipts total. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – INE preliminary 2025 accommodation · 2025 nights by market (US 5,459,505; Spain 5,173,383). Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Lusa via RTP – INE 2025 accommodation · Market shares and regional leading markets, 13 Feb 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – Banco de Portugal receipts 2025 · Travel receipts by market, 19 Feb 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – Banco de Portugal receipts H1 2026 · Receipts by market, first half 2026, 20 Aug 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – INE June 2026 · US becomes #2 market of the month, 4 Aug 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – INE July 2026 · US nights −3.1%, Spain +1.6%, 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Presstur – INE August 2026 · Spain +5.0%, US +5.8%, 30 Sep 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- ECO – INE Estatísticas do Turismo 2025 · 29.9M non-resident tourists; Spain 23.8%, 9 Jul 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- ECO – US slowdown and air capacity · July 2026 dip, capacity and fare commentary, 2 Sep 2026. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
- Federal Reserve H.10 via FRED – AEXUSEU · USD per EUR annual and monthly averages. Accessed 4 Oct 2026.
Methodology
This article compares the United States and Spain as source markets for Portugal on nine measures. Sources: Eurostat datasets tour_occ_ninraw and tour_occ_arnraw (nights and guests by country of residence, including campsites) and avia_paexcc/avia_paocc (air passengers), queried through the Eurostat API; INE monthly accommodation statistics and the annual Estatísticas do Turismo, read through press reproductions in Presstur, Lusa (RTP, Notícias ao Minuto), ECO, Observador and Jornal Económico because ine.pt was not reachable; Turismo de Portugal's TravelBI market pages and Turismo em Números bulletins; Banco de Portugal travel receipts as reproduced by Presstur, ECO and TravelBI; Federal Reserve H.10 exchange rates via FRED; NTTO data via trade press; airline announcements via AeroRoutes, Aviation Week, Lusa and regional press.
Limitations: (1) INE publishes two accommodation series, one excluding and one including campsites, and they rank the US and Spain differently; every figure in this article names its series. (2) 2025 INE values exist in preliminary (February 2026) and revised (TravelBI, August–September 2026) vintages that differ by up to 0.4 percentage points of growth. (3) No INE table was read first-hand. (4) The US non-resident tourist count for 2025 is available only from a secondary source with an uncertain label. (5) Banco de Portugal receipts were not read in BPstat; 2019 and 2022 values by country are missing or contested. (6) Monthly 2026 figures for March–May and cumulative January–August volumes are derived. (7) Air passenger figures include residents, diaspora and connecting traffic.
Where two sources disagree, both values are reported and the vintage stated. Derived figures, calculated by the author from published numbers, are marked as derived. Claims that could not be traced to a primary or official source are flagged in the corrections panel and the disclaimer rather than repeated, including four that originated in this publication's own content plan.
Notes on the data
Gaps: INE's website could not be accessed, so all INE figures come from Eurostat or press reproductions of INE releases. No INE monthly volumes for the US and Spain were found for March, April and May 2026, no 2026 guest figures by market, and no full regional split for Centro, Alentejo, Madeira and the Azores by market. Banco de Portugal country receipts for 2019, for the US in 2022, and for any month after June 2026 were not available. No Portugal-specific transport-mode split or road border count exists for Spanish visitors, no OAG/Cirium US–Portugal seat series was found, and Eurostat monthly air data stop at February 2026.
Contested figures: US 2025 nights are 5,459,505 (+4.9%, INE preliminary) or 5,476,100 (+5.3%, TravelBI revised); US 2025 receipts €3,137.0M (Presstur, Feb 2026) or €3,142.9M (TravelBI). Spain's August 2025 base is about 1,025,000 or 1,044,000 nights depending on vintage. INE's January–July 2026 US growth of 3.4% does not reconcile with H1 (+5.4%) plus July (−3.1%). 2022 receipts for France and Spain differ between AHRESP and The Portugal News.
Failed or flagged claims: 'the race for Portugal's #2 market' (our own plan; Germany is #2 on nights); 'US 9.1% vs Spain 9.4%' (correct only for the campsite-inclusive series); 'US almost 5.5M nights, third-largest' (true only for the headline series); 'US visitors +6.9%' (tourists, possibly North American, not guests); Forbes Portugal's 'US third in 2024 receipts at €2.86bn' (it was fourth); 'US receipts over €1.1bn in Q1 2026' (inconsistent with H1 €1,523M); Turismo de Portugal/TravelMole 'US 3.1M overnight stays, Spain 2.9M' (these are receipts in €bn). The original title of this article was changed because its premise did not hold.
Derived figures: Spain's tourist count (23.8% × 29.9M), US-to-Spain ratios, gaps between markets, 2019–2025 changes, receipts per tourist and per night, Spain's H1 2026 nights, January–August 2026 totals, September–December 2025 volumes and the camping difference are the author's calculations.
Self-reported figures: United's capacity growth, TAP's North American passengers (1.59M in 2024), Amadeus booking data on TravelBI and Sojern search shares are company figures, not official statistics.
Frequently asked questions
Has the US overtaken Spain as a source market for Portugal?
On some measures, yes. In 2025 the US led Spain on travel receipts (€3,137M vs €2,940M), on hotel guests (2,368,300 vs 2,305,500) and on overnight stays in INE's headline series (5,459,505 vs 5,173,383). Spain stays ahead on nights once campsites are included and leads by far on the number of tourists.
What is Portugal's biggest tourism source market?
The UK, by overnight stays (10.06 million in 2025, 17.7% of non-resident nights) and by receipts (€4.28 billion). Spain is the largest by number of tourists, with about 23.8% of the 29.9 million non-resident tourists INE counted in 2025.
Which country is Portugal's second-largest market?
Germany by overnight stays, in every INE and Eurostat series (6.44 million nights in 2025 on INE's headline series), and by receipts in 2025 (€3.36 billion). The US is second by hotel guests on INE's headline series, and the UK is second by number of tourists.
How many American tourists visit Portugal?
INE counted 2,368,300 American guests in tourist accommodation in 2025 (+3.3%), staying 5.5 million nights. A wider tourist count of about 1.9 million (+6.9%) circulates, but the only source found labels it North American, which may include Canada.
How many Spanish tourists visit Portugal?
About 7.1 million Spanish tourists in 2025 on INE's wider count (23.8% of 29.9 million, derived), but only 2.3 million Spanish guests in commercial accommodation. Many Spaniards camp, stay with friends or in second homes, or arrive by road for short trips.
How much do American tourists spend in Portugal?
€3,137 million in 2025 according to Banco de Portugal (+8.0%), or about €1,648 per tourist (derived). Per commercial night, Americans and Spaniards are worth about the same, roughly €570 (derived).
Why did US tourism to Portugal fall in July 2026?
American nights fell 3.1% to 604,900 in July 2026, after a 14.1% rise in July 2025. Industry bodies quoted by ECO blamed lower air capacity and higher fares after jet fuel rose sharply following the late-February conflict involving Iran. August recovered 5.8%.
Where in Portugal do American and Spanish tourists go?
In 2025, 48.9% of American nights were in Grande Lisboa and 21.0% in the Norte. Spanish nights were led by the Norte (29.9%), then Grande Lisboa (23.3%) and the Algarve (15.9%). Spain is the top foreign market in Centro, Alentejo and Norte; the US leads in the Azores and Grande Lisboa.
Why do different sources rank the US and Spain differently?
INE's monthly accommodation figures exclude campsites, while its annual Estatísticas do Turismo and Eurostat include them. Spain gains about 480,000 nights from campsites and the US almost none, which flips the order. Receipts and tourist counts measure different things again.