When is Spain quietest? Tourist nights by month

Spain, month by month

When is Spain busiest, and when is it quietest?

August was the busiest month in 2025, with 14.6% of the year's tourist nights. January was the quietest, with 4.5%. That makes August 3.2 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 Spain: residents or guests from abroad?

In 2025, guests living abroad spent 64.1% of Spain's tourist nights. Residents of Spain spent the rest.¹

The share from abroad was highest in October, at 71.1% of that month's nights, and lowest in August, at 57.2%.¹

Guests from abroad 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 Spain compared with the rest of Europe?

July and August together carried 27.6% of Spain's nights. Ranked by that share, Spain is the 20th 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 Spain's hotels each month?

Hotel rooms were fullest in August, when 79.4% were in use, and emptiest in January, at 56.8%.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 Spain?

Guests stayed an average of 3.4 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Spain in 2025: 512,892,982 nights across 152,938,437 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 Spain get more expensive in 2025?

On Eurostat's harmonised index of consumer prices, prices of accommodation services in Spain were 6.4% 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 Spain's public holidays in 2026?

8 days were holidays in every region of Spain in 2026: Thu 1 January, Tue 6 January, Fri 3 April, Fri 1 May, Sat 15 August, Mon 12 October, Tue 8 December, Fri 25 December. Each region adds its own, so every region has 12 days on the national list, except the Canary Islands, which have 11 plus one day for each island.⁶ Each municipality can also set up to two local holidays, which are not on this list.⁶

Island days in the Canary Islands: El Hierro 24 September, Fuerteventura 18 September, Gran Canaria 8 September, La Gomera 5 October, La Palma 5 August, Lanzarote and La Graciosa 15 September, Tenerife 2 February. In Catalonia's Val d'Aran, 26 December is replaced by 17 June. The 8 days common to every region match the European Commission's list for 2026.⁷ We will add 2027 when the Boletín Oficial del Estado publishes it.

What is the weather like in Madrid each month?

Averaged over 1991–2020, the MADRIDRETIRO weather station, which we use for Madrid, is warmest in July, with an average high of 33.3 °C, and coldest in January, with an average low of 3.0 °C. Its wettest month is October (64 mm of rain on average) and its driest July (9 mm).⁸

In January, Spain's quietest month, the station's average high is 10.2 °C and its average low 3.0 °C, with 32 mm of rain. In August, the busiest, the average high is 32.6 °C.⁸

In January the station averages 5.5 days with at least 1 mm of rain.⁸ On 15 January the sun is up for about 9 h 35 min there, against 13 h 45 min on 15 August.⁹

Thirty-year averages from one weather station, MADRIDRETIRO, which we use for Madrid. They describe a typical year at that station, not a forecast, and weather varies across Spain. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain. The source has no complete sunshine figures for this station, so we show none. Daylight is not measured: it is our calculation of the time from sunrise to sunset.

June or September? May or October?

June and September were almost identical, at 10.6% and 10.5%.

October was quieter than May, at 8.7% against 9.2%.

These compare months at similar distances from the summer peak. For typical weather in Madrid, 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: 512,892,982 nights, 64.1% 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 Spain.