When is Germany quietest? Tourist nights by month

Germany, month by month

When is Germany busiest, and when is it quietest?

August was the busiest month in 2025, with 12.4% of the year's tourist nights. January was the quietest, with 4.8%. That makes August 2.6 times as busy as January.¹

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

Who stays in Germany: residents or guests from abroad?

In 2025, guests living abroad spent 18.9% of Germany's tourist nights. Residents of Germany spent the rest.¹

The share from abroad was highest in December, at 23.6% of that month's nights, and lowest in June, at 16.5%.¹

Residents of Germany 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 Germany compared with the rest of Europe?

July and August together carried 24.1% of Germany's nights. Ranked by that share, Germany is the 32nd 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 Germany's hotels each month?

Hotel rooms were fullest in September, when 70.1% were in use, and emptiest in January, at 44.9%.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 Germany?

Guests stayed an average of 2.4 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Germany in 2025: 440,187,561 nights across 186,794,500 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 Germany get more expensive in 2025?

On Eurostat's harmonised index of consumer prices, prices of accommodation services in Germany were 3.0% 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 Germany's public holidays in 2026 and 2027?

In Germany, public holidays that apply in every state fall on 9 days in both 2026 and 2027.⁶ In 2026, 2 of those days are a Saturday or Sunday.⁶ These nine are holidays in every German state. Each of the 16 states sets further holidays in its own law; they are listed below.

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 dates match the European Commission's list of public holidays for 2026.⁷ Holidays that apply in only part of a state are marked in the state table below; other local holidays are not included.

Extra holidays in each German state

Each state adds its own holidays to the nine above. Counting only days that apply across a whole state, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein have 10 public holidays a year, and Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg and Saarland have 12.⁸ Brandenburg's total includes Easter Sunday and Whit Sunday, which are always Sundays.⁸

We read each state's holiday law or its interior ministry's list; all 16 are named in the sources. Where a holiday applies only in part of a state, the state decides which places, and we do not list them.

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

Each German state sets its own school holidays, so the dates depend on where you are. The table shows the first and last day off in 14 states, from autumn 2026 to summer 2027, taken from each state's own holiday order or education ministry.⁹

Baden-Württemberg: Schools also set four movable days. Brandenburg: The variable day off on 7 May applies unless the school decides otherwise. Hesse: Schools also set four movable days. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Vocational schools have different dates. North Rhine-Westphalia: Schools also set three movable days. Saxony: Each school also sets one movable day. Saxony-Anhalt: Schools also set two movable days. Schleswig-Holstein: On Sylt, Föhr, Amrum, Helgoland and the Halligen, summer holidays end a week earlier and autumn holidays start a week earlier. Days that schools choose themselves (“movable days”) are not in the table. We could not include Thuringia (the education ministry page shows a CAPTCHA) or Saarland (the ministry page and its gazette copy are behind a bot check); we do not get around security checks.

What is the weather like in Berlin each month?

Averaged over 1991–2020, the Berlin-Dahlem-FU weather station, which we use for Berlin, is warmest in July, with an average high of 24.8 °C, and coldest in January, with an average low of −1.6 °C. Its wettest month is July (77 mm of rain on average) and its driest April (29 mm).¹⁰

In January, Germany's quietest month, the station's average high is 3.4 °C and its average low −1.6 °C, with 47 mm of rain. In August, the busiest, the average high is 24.6 °C.¹⁰

In January the station averages 16.3 days with at least 1 mm of rain and 56 hours of sunshine.¹⁰ On 15 January the sun is up for about 8 h 15 min there, against 14 h 45 min on 15 August.¹¹

Thirty-year averages from one weather station, Berlin-Dahlem-FU, which we use for Berlin. They describe a typical year at that station, not a forecast, and weather varies across Germany. 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 9.9% against 10.3%.

October was quieter than May, at 9.2% against 9.6%.

These compare months at similar distances from the summer peak. For typical weather in Berlin, 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: 440,187,561 nights, 18.9% 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 Germany.