Tourists spent a total of 3.08 billion nights in hotels, hostels, and rented apartments in the European Union in 2025, according to preliminary data from the EU statistical office.
This is 2% (61.5 million) higher than in 2024 and is a record. Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, the growth was 7.2%.
At the same time, the number of overnight stays by foreign guests increased by 46.1 million last year, while for EU residents this figure rose by 15.4 million. The former account for 48.6% of the total, while the latter account for 51.4%.
An increase in tourist activity was observed in all EU countries except two. The most significant growth in tourist numbers was recorded in Malta (+9.9%) and Poland (+7%), while the number of overnight stays in Romania fell by 1.4% and in Ireland by 1.8%.
The most popular tourist destinations for foreigners were Spain (330 million overnight stays), Italy (264 million), France (150 million), and Greece (131 million).
UN Tourism (United Nations World Tourism Organization) has published a list of the 20 destinations with the fastest recovery in inbound tourist traffic based on the results for January-September 2025 (change compared to 2019), according to data from the World Tourism Barometer.
The top 20 also includes: Bhutan (+203%), Qatar (+138%), El Salvador (+88%), Albania (+83%), Bahrain (+76%), Uzbekistan (+73%), Bahrain (+76%), Curaçao (+68%), Moldova (+63%), Ethiopia (+58%), Tanzania (+57%), Saudi Arabia (+56%), Colombia (+56%), Brazil (+47%), Morocco (+47%), Egypt (+45%), Malta (+44%), Mongolia (+44%), Andorra (+43%), US Virgin Islands (+42%) and Guatemala (+40%).
Overall, international tourist arrivals worldwide in January-September 2025 increased by 5% compared to the same period in 2024 and were 3% higher than in pre-pandemic 2019, according to the World Tourism Barometer.
Travelers paid 338.4 million hryvnia in tourist tax for January-November 2025, which is 35.4%, or 88.4 million hryvnia, more than in the same period of 2024, according to the State Tax Service of Ukraine (STS).
According to data published on the agency’s website, Kyiv and Lviv region remain the most visited tourist destinations among the regions, together receiving almost 40% of the total amount of tax: Kyiv provided 68.8 million hryvnia in revenue, and Lviv region provided 61.6 million hryvnia.
A significant portion of the tax also came from the Ivano-Frankivsk region (UAH 45.6 million) and the Zakarpattia region (UAH 30.4 million).
“The holiday season is the peak load on the infrastructure of cities and communities. The tourist tax is an important source of revenue for local budgets, with funds directed towards the development of tourist infrastructure, improvement of territories, support for cultural and festive events, and improvement of services for visitors to the regions,” the State Tax Service noted.
The State Tax Service reminded that the tourist tax is paid by Ukrainian citizens, foreigners, and stateless persons as an advance payment before temporary accommodation in places of residence.
Tax agents are business entities that provide temporary accommodation services (hotels, hostels, holiday homes, etc.), and they transfer the collected funds to the local budget. The list of such agents is published on the websites of local councils.
The rates of the tax are set by local councils for each day of stay at up to 0.5% of the minimum wage for Ukrainian citizens and up to 5% for foreigners.
Persons/children with disabilities, persons/children accompanying persons with disabilities of group I, and war veterans are exempt from paying the tourist tax.
Paris topped Euromonitor International’s ranking of the most attractive cities for tourism and has held the top spot for the fifth consecutive year, the company said in a press release following the publication of the Top 100 City Destinations Index 2025.
According to Euromonitor’s estimates, Paris welcomed more than 18 million international visitors in 2025, partly due to the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral. Madrid, Tokyo, Rome, and Milan also made it into the top five, with the top five remaining unchanged for the second year in a row.
Euromonitor notes that international arrivals in the top 100 cities in 2025 increased by 8% to 702 million, with the largest increase in the Asia-Pacific region (+10%). Bangkok became the leader in terms of international visitors (30.3 million), followed by Hong Kong, London, and Macau.
Which regions became tourist centers?
According to the State Tax Service, UAH 91.7 million in tourist tax was paid to local budgets from July to September 2025.
In total, businesses paid UAH 234.4 million in tourist tax over the first nine months of 2025. This is 1.5 times more than during the same period before the start of the full-scale war. Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions remain the largest contributors to local budgets.
Local budgets received UAH 234.4 million in tourist tax for the first nine months of 2025. This is 36% more than in the same period last year and 1.5 times more than before the start of the full-scale war.
The summer season is traditionally the “golden time” for the tourism industry. Businesses paid 91.7 million hryvnia in tourist tax from July to September 2025. This is 20% more than in the second quarter of this year — 76.2 million hryvnia.
More than half of the tourist tax — 53% or UAH 125.2 million — was paid by large businesses: hotels, sanatoriums, and recreation centers. The remaining 47% or UAH 109.2 million was paid by small businesses, i.e., owners of apartments, estates, and small tourist facilities. It is worth noting that revenues from small businesses increased by 39%, while those from large businesses increased by only 6.5% during this period.
The capital remains the undisputed leader of Ukrainian tourism. A fifth, or UAH 51 million, of the tourist tax was paid in Kyiv. 81% of this amount came from large businesses.
Lviv region is in second place with UAH 42.5 million — here the share of large businesses is smaller, 56%. Ivano-Frankivsk region closes the top three — UAH 32.5 million, while 55% of the tourist tax in the region was paid by small businesses.
The amount of tourist tax collected in the Odesa region increased the most during the holiday season. Despite this, the region’s figures for the first nine months are still 17% lower than for the same period in 2021.
Compared to the pre-war period, the amount of tourist tax collected in Bukovina increased fivefold. At the same time, 90% of the amount was provided by owners of apartments, estates, and small tourist facilities. Ivano-Frankivsk region is also among the leaders: the amount of tourist tax for this period increased 4.5 times.
Since April this year, Uzbekistan has been welcoming over 1 million foreign tourists every month. These figures are unprecedented in the country’s history, according to the press service of the Tourism Committee under the Ministry of Ecology, Environment and Climate Change.
In the first nine months of the year, Uzbekistan was visited by 8.6 million foreign tourists, which is 12.5% more than in the same period last year. In 2024, the country was visited by 10.06 million tourists, in 2023 — 6.62 million, and in 2022 — 5.23 million.
The growth in tourist traffic compared to 2022, when the world began to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, was as follows:
Exports of tourism services also reached a record level this year, exceeding $3.6 billion (compared to $3.4 billion for the whole of 2024).
The Tourism Committee noted that the development of the industry was facilitated by reforms in recent years, in particular the simplification of the visa regime, incentives for entrepreneurs, and the active promotion of Uzbekistan abroad.
