When is Belgium quietest? Tourist nights by month

Belgium, month by month

When is Belgium busiest, and when is it quietest?

July was the busiest month in 2025, with 13.6% of the year's tourist nights. January was the quietest, with 4.4%. That makes July 3.1 times as busy as January.¹

Six months each carried less than an average month's share of 8.3%: January, February, March, September, November and December.

Who stays in Belgium: residents or guests from abroad?

In 2025, guests living abroad spent 50.6% of Belgium's tourist nights. Residents of Belgium spent the rest.¹

The share from abroad was highest in January, at 55.3% of that month's nights, and lowest in July, at 43.3%.¹

Residents spent more than half of the month's nights in March, July and August. Guests from abroad spent more than half in January, February, April, May, June, September, October and December. In November the split was even, at 50.0% each.

Eurostat counts guests by the country they live in, not by nationality.²

How seasonal is Belgium compared with the rest of Europe?

July and August together carried 26.6% of Belgium's nights. Ranked by that share, Belgium is the 24th most seasonal of the 35 European countries we measured, where 1 is the country most concentrated into its two busiest months.¹

For comparison, the most seasonal country on this measure was Croatia at 54.5%, and the least seasonal was Malta at 21.8%. See all 35 countries ranked.

How full are Belgium's hotels each month?

Hotel rooms were fullest in June, when 64.7% were in use, and emptiest in January, at 44.6%.³

This is Eurostat's net occupancy rate of bedrooms: bedrooms in use divided by bedrooms available. It covers hotels and similar places only, not campsites or holiday lets, so it can peak in a different month from the nights figures above.²

How long do guests stay in Belgium?

Guests stayed an average of 2.3 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Belgium in 2025: 46,136,112 nights across 19,637,571 arrivals.⁴ Across the 33 countries on this site with complete figures, the average ran from 1.5 nights in Iceland to 4.7 in Cyprus.⁴

This is our division of Eurostat's two counts. Eurostat counts an arrival each time a guest checks in at a place to stay, so a traveller who moves between places is counted more than once, and a whole trip is longer than the figure suggests.²

Did accommodation in Belgium get more expensive in 2025?

On Eurostat's harmonised index of consumer prices, prices of accommodation services in Belgium were 3.7% higher on average in 2025 than in 2024. Across the EU the rise was 4.1%.⁵

This measures how prices changed, not what a stay costs, so check the current price when you book. Accommodation services cover hotels, motels and inns; holiday centres, campsites and youth hostels; and other places to stay.

What are Belgium's public holidays in 2026 and 2027?

In Belgium, public holidays fall on 10 days in both 2026 and 2027.⁶ In 2026, 2 of those days are a Saturday or Sunday.⁶ When a public holiday falls on a Sunday or a usual day off, employers give a replacement day.

We took these from the law or the government's own list, not from a holiday website, and worked out the dates that move each year, such as Easter, from the rules in the law. The European Commission's list for 2026 differs: it leaves out 15 August and 1 November, which fall on a weekend in 2026, and adds a replacement day on 2 November. We follow the national source.⁷ Regional and local holidays are not included.

What is the weather like in Brussels each month?

Averaged over 1991–2020, the UCCLE weather station, which we use for Brussels, is warmest in July, with an average high of 23.2 °C, and coldest in January, with an average low of 1.4 °C. Its wettest month is December (87 mm of rain on average) and its driest April (47 mm).⁸

In January, Belgium's quietest month, the station's average high is 6.1 °C and its average low 1.4 °C, with 76 mm of rain. In July, the busiest, the average high is 23.2 °C.⁸

In January the station averages 13.1 days with at least 1 mm of rain and 59 hours of sunshine.⁸ On 15 January the sun is up for about 8 h 25 min there, against 16 h 5 min on 15 July.⁹

Thirty-year averages from one weather station, UCCLE, which we use for Brussels. They describe a typical year at that station, not a forecast, and weather varies across Belgium. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain. Daylight is not measured: it is our calculation of the time from sunrise to sunset.

June or September? May or October?

September was quieter than June, at 8.2% against 9.2%.

October was quieter than May, at 8.6% against 9.4%.

These compare months at similar distances from the summer peak. For typical weather in Brussels, see the weather section.

What these figures cannot tell you

These figures are good at one thing: showing when a country's registered tourist accommodation fills up. Four things they cannot do.

They miss some small places. The counts cover hotels, holiday and short-stay accommodation and campsites, but countries may exclude establishments with fewer than ten bed places, so small guesthouses can be missing.²

Nights are not queues. A national monthly total cannot see how busy one old town, beach or museum is on a given day.

Tourist nights say nothing about weather or prices. The weather section uses 30-year averages from one station, not a forecast. The price section shows how accommodation prices changed, not what a stay costs.

They are one year. These are 2025 figures. Patterns shift from year to year, and Eurostat revises its data as countries update their returns.

The full year

Total for 2025: 46,136,112 nights, 50.6% of them by guests living abroad. The two busiest months are marked. "From abroad" is the share of that month's nights spent by guests living outside Belgium.