When is France quietest? Tourist nights by month

France, month by month

When is France busiest, and when is it quietest?

August was the busiest month in 2025, with 19.3% of the year's tourist nights. November was the quietest, with 3.9%. That makes August 4.9 times as busy as November.¹

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

Who stays in France: residents or guests from abroad?

In 2025, guests living abroad spent 32.0% of France's tourist nights. Residents of France spent the rest.¹

The share from abroad was highest in September, at 36.3% of that month's nights, and lowest in February, at 26.9%.¹

Residents of France spent more than half of the nights in every month of the year.

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

How seasonal is France compared with the rest of Europe?

July and August together carried 36.0% of France's nights. Ranked by that share, France is the sixth 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.

Which regions of France are least seasonal?

Across 27 regions, the share of 2025 tourist nights falling in each region's two busiest months ran from 18.8% in Ile de France to 51.7% in Languedoc-Roussillon.³

In 6 of the 27 regions the busiest month was not August: Guadeloupe (January), Martinique (January), La Réunion (October), Guyane (October), Mayotte (February) and Ile de France (July).³

Regional figures come from Eurostat's regional dataset, last updated on 2 July 2026, and can differ slightly from the national monthly figures above, which Eurostat updated in September. For France the largest monthly difference is less than 0.1%. See all 123 regions ranked.

How full are France's hotels each month?

Hotel rooms were fullest in June, when 72.3% were in use, and emptiest in January, at 51.1%.⁴

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

Where do France's visitors from abroad come from?

Among guests living abroad, the largest group came from Germany, with 15.4% of their 2025 nights, followed by the Netherlands (13.2%) and the United Kingdom (12.1%).⁵

Guests are counted by the country they live in. Eurostat publishes only some countries separately and groups the rest into regions, so smaller countries cannot appear in this list. Switzerland and Liechtenstein are published as one.

How long do guests stay in France?

Guests stayed an average of 2.5 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in France in 2025: 471,645,071 nights across 189,323,103 arrivals.⁶ Across the 33 countries on this site with complete figures, the average ran from 1.5 nights in Iceland to 4.7 in Cyprus.⁶

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 France get more expensive in 2025?

On Eurostat's harmonised index of consumer prices, prices of accommodation services in France were 3.7% higher on average in 2025 than in 2024. Across the EU the rise was 4.1%.⁷

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 France's public holidays in 2026 and 2027?

In France, public holidays fall on 11 days in both 2026 and 2027.⁸ In 2026, 2 of those days are a Saturday or Sunday.⁸ Dates are for metropolitan France.

We took these dates from the official list named in the sources, not from a holiday website. The dates match the European Commission's list of public holidays for 2026.⁹ Regional and local holidays are not included.

When are France's school holidays in 2026–27?

France staggers its winter and spring school holidays across three zones, so the dates depend on where you are. Autumn, Christmas and summer holidays are the same in every mainland zone.¹⁰

Dates are the first and last day off for pupils; classes resume the next morning. Zone A: Besançon, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges, Lyon and Poitiers. Zone B: Aix-Marseille, Amiens, Lille, Nancy-Metz, Nantes, Nice, Normandy, Orléans-Tours, Reims, Rennes and Strasbourg. Zone C: Créteil, Montpellier, Paris, Toulouse and Versailles. These are education authorities (académies), not just cities. The dataset has no pupils' summer date for Corsica yet.¹⁰

What is the weather like in Paris each month?

Averaged over 1991–2020, the PARIS MONTSOURIS weather station, which we use for Paris, is warmest in July, with an average high of 25.7 °C, and coldest in January, with an average low of 3.2 °C. Its wettest month is May (69 mm of rain on average) and its driest February (42 mm).¹¹

In November, France's quietest month, the station's average high is 11.1 °C and its average low 6.2 °C, with 54 mm of rain. In August, the busiest, the average high is 25.6 °C.¹¹

In November the station averages 10.4 days with at least 1 mm of rain and 69 hours of sunshine.¹¹ On 15 November the sun is up for about 9 h 10 min there, against 14 h 25 min on 15 August.¹²

Thirty-year averages from one weather station, PARIS MONTSOURIS, which we use for Paris. They describe a typical year at that station, not a forecast, and weather varies across France. 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 8.7% against 10.1%.

October was quieter than May, at 6.2% against 8.6%.

These compare months at similar distances from the summer peak. For typical weather in Paris, 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: 471,645,071 nights, 32.0% 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 France.