According to the data – still provisional – from the National Statistics Institute (INE), last year saw an increase in trips by residents both within Portugal (+14%, to 22.192 million, representing 85.2% of the total) and abroad (+12.5%, to 3.858 million), with both figures reaching record highs.

Reasons for travel

“Leisure, recreation or holidays” was the main reason for travel, both within Portugal and abroad, accounting for 50.2%, corresponding to 13.1 million trips (+12.3% compared to 2024).

This was followed by “visiting family or friends”, accounting for 37.5% of trips (9.8 million trips, +13.1% compared to 2024), whilst trips for “professional or business” reasons accounted for 7.0% of the total (1.8 million trips) and recorded the largest increase compared to 2024, at 23.9%.

Trips abroad

Since 2016, residents’ trips abroad have recorded an average annual growth of 7.9%, whilst domestic travel has grown by an average of 2.2% per year.

Choice of accommodation

According to INE, “free private accommodation” remained the main form of accommodation last year, albeit with a lower share (58.4%, down 1.0 percentage points compared to 2024).

“Hotels and similar establishments” accounted for 25.3% of total overnight stays (+0.7 percentage points compared to 2024) and “paid private accommodation” for 12.2% of the total.

Duration of trips

The average trip duration was 3.90 nights (4.07 nights in 2024), the lowest since 2016.

Spain (38.8%; -1.8 percentage points), France (9.7%; +0.2 percentage points) and Italy (6.3%; +0.1 percentage points) remained, in 2025, the main destinations for residents’ trips abroad.

Trips to European Union countries increased by 9.7%, accounting for 69.7% of the total (-1.8 percentage points).

Main destinations

Last year, the North region remained the main destination for domestic travel, accounting for 23.8% of total travel, a 1.2 percentage-point decline from 2024. This was followed by the Central region (22.1%; +0.1 percentage points).

Meanwhile, the West and Tagus Valley stood out for the largest increase in share, up 1.9 percentage points to 12.8% of the total, the same as the Algarve.

Resident population

Last year, half of the resident population (50.3%) made at least one tourist trip, an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to 2024 (an additional 240,500 tourists).

Looking solely at the fourth quarter of 2025, the number of trips by residents rose by 13.2% (+8.0% in the third quarter) and exceeded 6.0 million for the first time in the final quarter of the year.

According to INE, this growth resulted from both an increase in domestic travel (+12.8%; +9.1% in the previous quarter) and trips abroad (+15.7%; +2.1% in the third quarter).

‘Visiting family or friends’ remained the main reason for travel in the fourth quarter of 2025, accounting for 2.9 million trips (+15.3%) and 48.0% of the total (+0.9 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024).

Trips for “leisure, recreation or holidays” also increased, by 14.6%, to 2.3 million trips (38.1% of the total, +0.5 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024).

Meanwhile, trips for “professional or business” reasons rose by 6.4%, totalling 438,500 (7.3% of the total, down 0.5 percentage points on the same period the previous year).

In the fourth quarter of 2025, “free private accommodation” was used for 70.0% of overnight stays (13.5 million), with each trip lasting an average of 3.22 nights (3.19 in the same quarter of the previous year).

During the period, 23.4% of residents made at least one tourist trip, an increase of 3.3 percentage points year-on-year.