Rural accommodation, tourist apartments and tourist hostels in the Basque Country: visitors, overnight stays and occupancy rates. December 2025

Highlights

2025

Visitors: rural accommodation registered an increase of 6.7% compared to 2024, tourist apartments(1) saw a rise of 29.1%, and tourist hostels recorded year-on-year growth of 4.9%.

Overnight stays: compared to 2024, overnight stays increased by 6.0% in rural accommodation, 15.8% in tourist apartments, and 4.6% in hostels.

Average length of stay(2): 2.57 days in 2025, 3.01 days in tourist apartments, and 1.80 days in tourist hostels. In 2024, the average length of stay was 2.58, 3.36 and 1.81 days, respectively.

Occupancy rate: in rural accommodation, the room occupancy rate was 2.4 percentage points higher than in 2024, reaching 36.3%. In tourist apartments, the apartment occupancy rate stood at 71.1%, 5.2 points higher than in 2024, and in tourist hostels, the bed occupancy rate reached 38.9%, up 0.6 points on 2024.

December 2025

Visitors: compared to December 2024, visitor numbers were up 36.2% in rural accommodation, 8.6% in tourist apartments, and 12.5% in tourist hostels.

Overnight stays: in rural accommodation, the number of overnight stays rose by 23.8% compared to the same month of 2024, in tourist apartments it increased by 9.2%, and in tourist hostels it was up 16.2%.

Average length of stay: 2.14 days in rural accommodation, 3.70 days in tourist apartments, and 1.96 days in tourist hostels.

Occupancy rate: the room occupancy rate was 24.7% in rural accommodation; the apartment occupancy rate stood at 62.9%; in tourist hostels, the bed occupancy rate reached 19.3%.

Statistical analysis

2025

In 2025 as a whole, occupancy variables in rural accommodation in the Basque Country recorded higher figures than in 2024, with an increase of 6.7% in the case of visitor numbers and 6.0% in that of overnight stays. Thus, the number of visitors in rural accommodation in 2025 rose to 183,900 and there were 472,371 overnight stays, according to Eustat data.

In 2025, visitor numbers increased by 10.5% in Álava, 6.8% in Bizkaia and 5.2% in Gipuzkoa. Overnight stays in Álava and Gipuzkoa were up 14.1% and 6.9%, respectively, while in Bizkaia they were down 0.2%.

Foreign visitors accounted for 27.3% of total visitor numbers in this type of establishment in the Basque Country in 2025, following an increase of 12.9% in respect of 2024.

The average length of stay in rural accommodation in the Basque Country was 2.57 days, similar to the 2.58 days recorded in 2024. Meanwhile, the occupancy rate stood at 31.4% in the case of beds and 36.3% in that of rooms, following increases of 2.2 and 2.4 percentage points, respectively, compared to the previous year.

The 2025 annual balance for tourist apartments in the Basque Country saw an improvement with regard to 2024, both in terms of the number of visitors and the number of overnight stays. With a total of 276,504 visitors and 833,527 overnight stays for the year as a whole, the year-on-year increases in relation to 2024 stood at 29.1% and 15.8%, respectively.

The number of overnight stays recorded in 2025 as a whole increased compared to 2024 in all three provinces, albeit to varying degrees: they were up 27.5% in Bizkaia, 6.1% in Gipuzkoa and 6.0% in Álava. As for visitor numbers, they fell by 14.6% in Álava, while in Bizkaia they rose by 35.7%, and in Gipuzkoa they were up 21.4%.

Following a rise of 37.1% over the course of the year, visitors from abroad accounted for 41.3% of the total number of visitors in this type of establishment in the Basque Country in 2025, above the 38.9% they represented in 2024.

In 2025, the bed occupancy rate surpassed that obtained in 2024 by 0.2 percentage points, while the apartment occupancy rate rose by 5.2 points, standing at 39.6% and 71.1%, respectively.

With regard to tourist hostels in the Basque Country, the 2025 annual balance showed year-on-year growth of 4.9% in the number of visitors and 4.6% in the number of overnight stays, with 262,558 visitors and 473,449 overnight stays in the year as a whole. The year-on-year increase in visitor numbers stood at 86.2% in Álava, 6.3% in Gipuzkoa and 0.8% in Bizkaia.

Meanwhile, overnight stays in the year as a whole rose by 63.3% in Álava, 6.5% in Gipuzkoa and 1.3% in Bizkaia.

December 2025

In the last month of the year, December 2025, visitor numbers and overnight stays in rural accommodation in the Basque Country were up 36.2% and 23.8% compared to December of the previous year, standing at 12,362 and 26,509, respectively.

In December 2025, domestic visitors accounted for 91.2% of visitors and 90.8% of overnight stays.

In Álava, there were 3,267 visitors, 37.0% more than in December of the previous year; in Bizkaia, there were 3,281 visitors, a rise of 33.2%; and in Gipuzkoa, the number of visitors in December stood at 5,814, up 37.4% on December 2024.

As regards the number of overnight stays, Álava saw a year-on-year increase of 2.3%, with the total reaching 6,060, while in Bizkaia the total stood at 6,510, up 4.5% on December 2024, and in Gipuzkoa there were 13,939, 50.6% more than in the same month of the previous year.

The average length of stay in this type of establishment in the Basque Country was 2.14 days in December, below the 2.36 days observed in the same month of 2024.

Bed and room occupancy rates experienced a year-on-year increase of 4.4 and 4.0 percentage points, respectively, the bed occupancy rate standing at 21.8% and that of rooms at 24.7%.

As for tourist apartments, in December 2025 visitor numbers and overnight stays totalled 16,071 and 59,448, respectively. Compared to December of the previous year, the number of visitors rose by 8.6% and overnight stays were up 9.2%.

Visitors from abroad accounted for 27.9% of the total number of visitors and 30.9% of the total number of overnight stays in tourist apartments in the Basque Country, following year-on-year increases of 19.6% and 16.3%, respectively.

The average length of stay in December 2025 was 3.70 days, slightly above the 3.68 days observed in 2024. At provincial level, the average length of stay stood at 2.54 days in Bizkaia, 5.31 days in Gipuzkoa and 12.52 days in Álava.

The bed occupancy rate at the Basque Country level was 33.0% and the apartment occupancy rate reached 62.9%. This represented year-on-year increases of 0.7 and 3.2 percentage points, respectively.

With regard to tourist hostels, in December 2025 visitor numbers and overnight stays totalled 9,269 and 18,193, respectively. In relation to December of the previous year, these figures represented an increase of 12.5% in the case of visitor numbers and 16.2% in that of overnight stays.

The bed occupancy rate stood at 19.3% and the average length of stay was 1.96 days.

Note:

The response rate of the Survey on Tourist Establishments in December 2025 was 63.7% for Rural Accommodation, 83.1% for Tourist Apartments and 77.4% in the case of Hostels.

Eustat would like to thank all establishments that participated in this survey for their effort.

(1) Private dwellings offered, marketed or temporarily relinquished for reasons of tourism are not included under the heading of dwellings for tourism use.

(2) Number of days, on average, that customers remain in each of the establishments where they stay overnight. This does not refer to the total length of their stay in the Basque Country.