Key takeaways
- ISTAT counted 26,360 authorised agritourism farms in Italy in 2024, up 0.9% on 2023, in its annual census released on 9 March 2026.
- Agritourists numbered over 4.7 million (+4.3%) and spent over 17.1 million nights (+3.2%), an average stay of 3.6 days.
- Foreign guests were 54.8% of agritourists in 2024, up from 51% in 2023; ISTAT's own shares imply Italian agritourists fell by about 3.8%, while ISMEA's figures imply a flat count.
- The EUR 1,934 million figure is ISTAT's estimate of agritourism production value, not turnover or visitor spending.
- Tuscany holds 22.2% of farms and the province of Bolzano 13%; 382 municipalities host 42% of all agritourists.
- Growth was fastest in the South and Islands (Mezzogiorno +2.5%, Islands +6.1%, Sicily +8.9%), against 0.5% in the North and Centre.
- No national occupancy, price or bed-count series for agriturismi is published; Tuscany's IRPET gives the only official occupancy rate, 15.8% in 2025.
- Trade-fair figures (about 25,900 farms and 1.16 billion for 2023) are a different series from ISTAT's and should not be compared with it.
In 2024 Italy had 26,360 farms authorised to host agritourism, 0.9% more than in 2023. They received over 4.7 million agritourists, who spent over 17.1 million nights. A clear majority came from abroad: 54.8% of agritourists were foreign, up from 51% a year earlier.
The farms are where the land is. Tuscany alone holds 22.2% of them and the autonomous province of Bolzano 13%, so two territories account for more than a third of the national total. Under the 2006 framework law, an agriturismo is hospitality run by a farmer on a working farm, with farming kept as the main activity. That legal definition is why ISTAT can count the sector precisely: every farm needs a regional authorisation, and the regions report those registers to ISTAT once a year.
What the census does not measure is the side a visitor sees. No national source publishes the price of a farm-stay night, the share of beds filled, or how many beds the farms have. The EUR 1,934 million figure quoted as the sector's size is ISTAT's estimate of production value, and the only official occupancy rate found covers Tuscany. This article sets out what each series counts, where the published claims go wrong, and which figures are safe to cite. It builds on our Tuscany tourism statistics and the regional pieces linked below.
What ISTAT counts: farms, agritourists and nights
The spine of this article is ISTAT's release "Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia", data year 2024, published on 9 March 2026. ISTAT describes it as an annual administrative census. The regions and the two autonomous provinces compile it from their own registers of authorised farms, so it covers every farm with a permit, whether or not it is listed on a booking site.
The unit is the authorised agritourism business. ISTAT counted 26,360 in 2024. One caveat comes from Atout France, the French tourism agency, in its May 2026 note on Italian agritourism: a farm authorised to run two or more agritourism businesses is counted twice, or more. The 26,360 is therefore a count of authorisations, and the number of distinct farm holdings may be somewhat lower. No source we found quantifies the overlap.
The demand side uses two measures. ISTAT's glossary defines agrituristi as clients who use one or more of the agritourism services offered by authorised farms, and presenze as the nights those clients spend at the farms. In 2024 there were over 4.7 million agritourists, up 4.3%, and over 17.1 million nights, up 3.2%. The average stay was 3.6 days: 3.0 for Italians and 4.2 for foreign guests. Dividing nights by agritourists gives the same 3.6, which confirms that the two figures come from one consistent base.
ISTAT also publishes a capacity index of 220 agritourists per farm with accommodation, rising to 272 in the North-east. ISTAT describes the index as arrivals per farm with lodging, and the arithmetic matches 4.7 million agritourists divided by the 21,449 farms that offer rooms, so in practice the agritourist count works as an arrivals count. ISMEA, the agri-food services agency, reproduces the same 4.7 million in its Rapporto 2026 and calls it arrivals. Both labels describe one number. The word guests, used loosely in press coverage, blurs the fact that one person who visits twice is two agritourists.
The money figure is the one most often misread. ISTAT puts the economic value of agritourism at just over EUR 1,934 million at current prices in 2024, up 3.3%, or just over EUR 73,300 per farm against EUR 71,600 in 2023. ISTAT defines it as the monetary value of agritourism production and says it is estimated, using the flow data and checked against sector organisations and the VAT returns of the farm sector. It is a national-accounts style estimate of output. It is not a sum of booking receipts, and it should not be called turnover or visitor spending.
| Measure | Unit | 2024 | Change vs 2023 (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authorised agritourism farms | farms | 26360 | 0.9 |
| Farms with accommodation | farms | 21449 | 1.4 |
| Farms serving meals | farms | 13092 | 0.5 |
| Farms authorised for tastings | farms | 6750 | 3.4 |
| Educational farms | farms | 2340 | 12.2 |
| Agritourists | million clients | 4.7 | 4.3 |
| Nights | million | 17.1 | 3.2 |
| Average stay | days | 3.6 | |
| Foreign share of agritourists | % | 54.8 | |
| Economic value (production, current prices) | EUR million | 1934 | 3.3 |
| Economic value per farm | EUR | 73300 | 2.4 |
Foreign guests are the majority, and Italian demand stalled
The headline growth in 2024 came entirely from abroad. ISTAT reports foreign agritourists up 12.1%, and the Italian share down to 45.2% from 49% in 2023. Those two numbers imply that the count of Italian agritourists fell by roughly 3.8%, from about 2.21 million to about 2.12 million. ISTAT does not state that fall in words; it follows from its own shares and totals, and we label it as our derivation.
Foreign guests also stay longer. At 4.2 days against 3.0 for Italians, foreigners account for a larger share of nights than of guests. Our arithmetic from ISTAT's figures puts foreign nights at about 10.8 million of 17.1 million, roughly 63%. ISMEA's report gives foreign nights as over 10.5 million and says foreign demand exceeds 60% of nights. The two are consistent. The 54.8% figure is a share of agritourists and should not be quoted as a share of nights.
ISMEA and ISTAT diverge on how fast foreign demand grew. ISMEA gives foreign arrivals of about 2.5 million in 2024, up 8.6% on 2023 and 39.5% on 2019, and foreign nights up 5.8%. ISTAT's foreign agritourists rose 12.1%. Applying ISMEA's rounded figures implies Italian arrivals roughly flat, while ISTAT's shares imply a fall of almost 4%. ISMEA's tourism section does not name the dataset behind its split, so the two cannot be reconciled from the published texts. Both agree that foreigners are now the larger group.
The source markets differ by publisher too. ISMEA lists Germany, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland as the main foreign markets. Atout France lists Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland with Liechtenstein, and says nearly a third of international agritourists choose Tuscany and 19% South Tyrol. ISTAT's release text gives no country breakdown. Germany leads on every list, which fits what our analysis of German tourists in Italy found across all accommodation types.
ISMEA adds two longer comparisons. Agritourism arrivals in 2024 were 25.6% above 2019 and nights 22.3% above. On ISMEA's figures, agritourism made up 10.9% of arrivals and 9.4% of nights in Italy's non-hotel accommodation sector. Against ISMEA's figure of 466 million nights for all Italian accommodation, the 17.2 million agritourism nights it reports are about 3.7% of the national total, by our calculation.
Where the farms are: Tuscany and South Tyrol hold more than a third
ISTAT gives regional shares of farms but no absolute regional counts in the release text. Tuscany leads with 22.2%, followed by the province of Bolzano with 13%, Lombardy 6.5%, Veneto 6.4%, Piedmont 5.6%, Umbria 5.1% and Lazio 5.0%. Every other region is below 5%. Applied to the national total, Tuscany's share works out at about 5,850 farms and Bolzano's at about 3,430; these are our approximations from rounded shares, and ISTAT's statistical annex is the place to find exact counts.
By macro-area, the North has 11,504 farms (43.5%), of which just over 7,540 are in the North-east. The Centre has 9,626 (36.5%). The Mezzogiorno, ISTAT's term for the South and the Islands together, has just over 5,230 (19.8%): 3,340 in the southern regions and 1,890 on the Islands. The three areas add up exactly to 26,360, and the 5,230 is the sum of the southern regions and the Islands.
Growth was fastest where the base is smallest. The Mezzogiorno added 2.5% and the Islands 6.1%, against 0.5% in the North and the Centre. Sicily led all regions at +8.9%, followed by Basilicata (+3.3%), Sardinia (+2.6%), Campania (+2.2%) and Piedmont (+2%). Valle d'Aosta fell 8.9%, Calabria 2.1%, Lazio 1.8% and Lombardy 1.1%. ISTAT headlined the release on the South leading the growth. Our Sicily tourism statistics and Sardinia tourism statistics show the same islands growing across all accommodation.
Demand is more concentrated than supply. The 5,030 municipalities with at least one agriturismo are 63.7% of Italy's municipalities, yet 382 of them, 7.6% of the agritourism municipalities, host 42% of all agritourists. The Centre and the North-east together take 72% of agritourists. Ten municipalities have 100 or more agritourism farms each, together 1,418 farms or 5.4% of the national total.
Regional demand figures come from ISMEA, since ISTAT's release text gives none. ISMEA reports Sardinia's agritourism arrivals up 18.7% in 2024, and Lazio's guests up 22.5% with nights up 31.4%, which it attributes to the Jubilee. ISMEA also says Tuscany, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna together take over 60% of arrivals.
| Area | Share of farms (%) | Farms | Change vs 2023 (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuscany | 22.2 | 1.1 | |
| Province of Bolzano | 13.0 | ||
| Lombardy | 6.5 | -1.1 | |
| Veneto | 6.4 | 1.6 | |
| Piedmont | 5.6 | 2.0 | |
| Umbria | 5.1 | 1.1 | |
| Lazio | 5.0 | -1.8 | |
| North | 43.5 | 11504 | 0.5 |
| Centre | 36.5 | 9626 | 0.5 |
| South | 12.7 | 3340 | |
| Islands | 7.2 | 1890 | 6.1 |
| Italy | 100.0 | 26360 | 0.9 |
EUR 1,934 million: an estimate of production value
ISTAT's value series is the only national money figure for agritourism, and it measures output. The EUR 1,934 million for 2024 rose 3.3% on 2023. ISTAT says the value has grown at an average of 5.3% a year over the past ten years. ISMEA, using ISTAT's national accounts in the July 2025 edition, reports the same EUR 1.934 billion as the production value of agritourism within the farm sector's secondary activities, more than 140% above 2020, and 37.7% of all such secondary activities.
That framing matters because press headlines have turned the value into turnover. An October 2024 article in the English edition of Il Sole 24 Ore, reporting figures from the AgrieTour trade fair in Arezzo, was headlined as turnover exceeding one billion, while its body called the figure value of production. Those trade-fair figures belong to a different series. They gave about 25,900 farms in 2023, value of production of 1.16 billion, over 4 million arrivals and 15.5 million nights. ISTAT's own figures for 2023, derived from its 2024 release, are about 26,130 farms, roughly EUR 1.87 billion of value, about 4.5 million agritourists and 16.6 million nights. The two series cannot be combined or compared year on year.
Per farm, the EUR 73,300 average hides a wide spread that ISTAT does not publish. A farm with a restaurant, rooms and a farm school and a farm with two rooms and a tasting counter are each one unit in the count. No national source publishes revenue by farm size, by service or by region, and none publishes the average price of a night.
What a farm stay offers: rooms, meals, tastings and farm schools
Most agritourism farms take overnight guests. ISTAT counts just over 21,440 farms with accommodation in its text, and 21,449 in its table, 81.4% of the total and 1.4% more than in 2023. Tuscany has 24.6% of them, Bolzano 13.7%, Umbria 6% and Veneto 5.3%. About half of all farms, just over 13,000, serve meals; 6,750 are authorised for tastings. Just over 9,600 farms offer both rooms and meals, 36.4% of the total. ISTAT also reports 5,473 farms that pair rooms with tastings and 4,683 that combine tastings with meals, while only 153 offer tastings alone. Tasting authorisations rose 3.4% in 2024, faster than the 0.9% growth in farms overall. The combinations matter when booking. Since only about a third of farms offer both rooms and meals, a visitor who wants dinner on site has to check each listing, and a farm with tastings may have no kitchen open to guests at all. ISTAT does not publish these combinations by region, so the national shares are the only guide.
The release text gives no number of beds. Coldiretti, the farmers' association, cites 310,660 beds and 540,760 restaurant covers as its own elaboration of ISTAT data in an August 2026 statement. We could not match the bed figure to the ISTAT release text, so it is attributed to Coldiretti here and should be cited that way.
Activities beyond rooms and meals are spreading. Just over half of farms, 13,265 or 50.3%, offer at least one complementary service such as riding, trekking, courses or nature observation. Farm education is the fastest riser: 2,340 farms are authorised as educational farms, 8.9% of the total, up 12.2% on 2023 and 220% on 2010. Women run 8,870 farms, 33.6% of the total.
The service mix matters for visitors because the word agriturismo covers all of these. A farm with a restaurant and no rooms is an agriturismo, and so is a South Tyrolean dairy farm with three apartments. Regional rules set what each must offer.
Occupancy and prices: one regional rate and no national series
No national occupancy rate for agriturismi was found in any ISTAT, ISMEA, Bank of Italy or ministry source. The only official rate comes from IRPET, the Tuscan regional economic research institute. Its report on tourism in Tuscany for 2025 and early 2026, published in June 2026, gives agriturismo occupancy of 15.8% in 2025, down 0.4 points from 16.2% in 2024 and up 0.6 points on 15.2% in 2019. The series troughed at 8.7% in 2020. It then climbed to 12.6% in 2021 and 16.1% in 2022, held at 16.2% in both 2023 and 2024, and eased in 2025. Tuscan agriturismi passed their 2019 rate by 2022. Since then nights have grown roughly in line with beds, so the rate has stopped rising, and the 2025 dip is the first fall since the pandemic year.
IRPET's report does not define the rate or say whether it is gross or net, and its capacity figures are annual averages of monthly data. The same tables show agriturismo nights in Tuscany up 0.7% in 2025 and 20.3% on 2019, while beds rose 3.0% and 15.7%. Capacity grew faster than demand in 2025, which is why the rate slipped. Many farms close for part of the year, which lowers any whole-year rate, so the figure should not be compared with hotel occupancy measured another way.
South Tyrol publishes nights for its farm-holiday category. ASTAT, the provincial statistics institute, gives 3,572,569 farm-holiday nights in 2023, up 8.0% on 2022, of which 2,642,572 were foreign (up 10.2%) and 929,997 domestic (up 2.3%). By our arithmetic foreign guests took 74.0% of farm-holiday nights, well above the national 54.8% share of agritourists. ASTAT's capacity table, however, merges private rooms with farm holidays, and that combined category jumped from 54,801 beds in 2022 to 76,063 in 2023 with no explanatory note. Growth in farm-stay capacity should not be computed from it. Our Dolomites tourism statistics cover the province's wider accommodation data.
ISTAT's 2025 agritourism data exist only in part. A Veneto regional statistics release based on ISTAT data, reported by the newspaper L'Adige on 25 September 2026, gave 2025 agritourism figures for that region and placed Trentino-Alto Adige second nationally for nights behind Tuscany. No national 2025 agritourism total had been published by early November 2026.
Prices are the largest gap. No official or association source publishes an average nightly rate, a price index or revenue per available room for agriturismi. The Bank of Italy's survey of foreign travelers groups B&Bs and agriturismi in one accommodation category, so it cannot isolate what foreign visitors spend on farm stays. Eurostat has no farm-stay category, and no European comparison of agritourism volumes was found. Any price for an Italian farm stay in circulation comes from booking platforms or individual listings.
| Series and publisher | Scope and year | Headline figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISTAT agritourism census | Italy, 2024 | 26,360 farms; 4.7M agritourists; 17.1M nights | Authorised farms and their clients, from regional registers |
| ISTAT value estimate | Italy, 2024 | EUR 1,934M | Production value at current prices, estimated |
| ISMEA-Rete PAC Rapporto 2026 | Italy, 2024 | Foreign arrivals c. 2.5M; foreign nights over 10.5M | Reproduces ISTAT totals; foreign split dataset not named |
| IRPET, tourism in Tuscany | Tuscany, 2025 | Occupancy 15.8% | Agriturismo occupancy, rate not defined in the report |
| ASTAT statistical yearbook | South Tyrol, 2023 | 3,572,569 farm-holiday nights | Nights in the farm-holiday category; capacity merged with private rooms |
| AgrieTour trade fair (via Il Sole 24 Ore) | Italy, 2023 | c. 25,900 farms; 1.16bn | Trade-fair data; method not published; not comparable with ISTAT |
The rules: a 2006 framework law, regional criteria and the CIN
The national framework is Law no. 96 of 20 February 2006, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 16 March 2006. Article 2 defines agritourism as hospitality offered by farmers, through their own farm, in connection with cultivation, forestry or livestock. Article 4 leaves the detailed criteria to the regions and requires them to define how the connection is assessed, so that farming remains the prevailing activity, with particular reference to working time.
Several provisions that are still sometimes summarised as current law no longer apply. The Constitutional Court, in judgment 339 of 2007 (decided 8 October, filed 12 October), struck down Article 4, paragraph 3, under which farming was presumed to prevail when hospitality served no more than ten guests. It also struck down parts of Article 4, paragraph 4, Article 5, paragraphs 4 and 5 (the ten-meal and ten-bed simplifications), Article 6, paragraphs 2 and 3, and all of Article 8. Those matters fall to regional law, which is why rules on rooms, meals and own produce differ from Tuscany to Sicily.
Agritourism farms that offer accommodation also fall under the national identification code for tourist lodgings, the CIN. Regione Veneto's agriculture department states that the code is compulsory for every agritourism structure that offers hospitality, obtained after the regional code through the national BDSR database. ISMEA's report adds that the CIN must now be stated in the tax return of agritourism farms with accommodation. The original deadline of 2 November 2024 was extended by the Ministry of Tourism to 1 January 2025 for existing structures. Our analysis of Italy's CIN rules covers the code, the fines and the registry counts. This section is a summary of published rules and is not legal advice.
A Senate bill, S.1373, presented on 5 February 2025, would amend the 2006 law on agritourism restaurants, including the sourcing of ingredients from nearby farms. According to the Senate's file dated 1 March 2026, committee examination had not begun. Its later progress is not covered here.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers choosing an agriturismo are choosing from about 21,450 farms with rooms, a quarter of them in Tuscany, and the label covers everything from a working dairy with apartments to a hillside estate with a restaurant. The data say foreign guests now outnumber Italians and stay longer, 4.2 days on average, and that 42% of all agritourists go to just 382 municipalities, so demand is heavily concentrated in a small number of places. IRPET's occupancy rate for Tuscan agriturismi was 15.8% in 2025, a whole-year figure that includes the quiet months. No official source publishes prices, so compare listings directly and check what the farm actually offers, since meals, activities and minimum stays vary by farm and by region. Our Tuscany travel guide covers the region with the most agriturismi.
Tourism businesses and investors should read the 26,360 as authorisations and the EUR 1,934 million as an estimate of production value; neither is a measure of bookings. Supply grew 0.9% and the number of farms with rooms 1.4% in 2024, while agritourists rose 4.3%, so demand outpaced supply nationally. In Tuscany the reverse happened in 2025, with beds up 3.0% and nights up 0.7%. The binding unknowns for anyone underwriting a farm stay are price, occupancy outside Tuscany and the Italian market, which fell about 3.8% on ISTAT's shares and held flat on ISMEA's figures while foreign demand grew. A national 2025 total showing foreign growth slowing, or Tuscan occupancy falling further, would change that reading.
Journalists and analysts can cite ISTAT's 2024 figures with confidence: 26,360 authorised farms, over 4.7 million agritourists, over 17.1 million nights, a 3.6-day average stay, a 54.8% foreign share of agritourists and EUR 1,934 million of production value, all published on 9 March 2026. Name the unit each time. The 54.8% is a share of agritourists and the over-60% nights share is ISMEA's. Do not call the value turnover, do not mix the AgrieTour trade-fair series with ISTAT's, and do not describe 2024 as a record year on these figures, since ISTAT makes no such claim. The series finding this article adds is a familiar one: Italy counts farms, guests and nights at farm level, yet no public source measures what a farm stay costs or how full it is outside Tuscany.
Data & sources
Period covered: ISTAT agritourism census, data year 2024 (released 9 March 2026), with 2019–2025 comparisons from ISMEA-Rete PAC, IRPET and ASTAT
- ISTAT, Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia, anno 2024 (press release) · Release page, 9 March 2026: farm counts, regional shares, macro-areas, agritourists and foreign share for 2024. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- ISTAT, Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia, anno 2024 (full text and methodology) · Full text with glossary and methodology: nights, average stay, capacity index, economic value and its estimation method. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- ISMEA-Rete PAC, Agriturismo e multifunzionalità: scenario e prospettive, Rapporto 2026 · Eighth edition, May 2026, under the national CAP network programme: arrivals and nights vs 2019, foreign split, production value, CIN in tax returns. Copy hosted on a third-party site. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- IRPET, Rapporto sul turismo in Toscana: la congiuntura 2025 e il primo trimestre 2026 · Tuscan regional institute, June 2026: agriturismo occupancy 2019–2025 (Table 4) and changes in nights and beds (Table 5). Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- ASTAT, Statistisches Jahrbuch für Südtirol 2024, chapter 17 (tourism) · South Tyrol farm-holiday nights 2023 by origin (Table 17.6) and the combined private-room and farm-holiday capacity (Table 17.1). Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- Law no. 96 of 20 February 2006, Disciplina dell'agriturismo (Regione Emilia-Romagna copy) · National framework law (GU no. 63, 16 March 2006), annotated with the provisions struck down in 2007; articles 2 and 4. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- Corte costituzionale, judgment no. 339/2007 · Decided 8 October 2007, filed 12 October 2007: struck down parts of articles 4, 5, 6, 13 and 14 and all of article 8 of Law 96/2006. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
- Regione Veneto, Richiesta del CIN e del CIR per gli agriturismi con ospitalità · Regional agriculture department page (updated 3 February 2026): CIN compulsory for agritourism structures offering hospitality; procedure via the national database. Accessed 5 Nov 2026.
Methodology
This article is built on ISTAT's annual census "Le aziende agrituristiche in Italia", data year 2024, released on 9 March 2026, read in both the release page and the full text with its glossary and methodology. It is set against ISMEA-Rete PAC's "Agriturismo e multifunzionalità: scenario e prospettive, Rapporto 2026" (May 2026), IRPET's "Rapporto sul turismo in Toscana: la congiuntura 2025 e il primo trimestre 2026" (June 2026), ASTAT's Statistisches Jahrbuch für Südtirol 2024 (chapter 17), and Atout France's note on Italian agritourism (4 May 2026). The legal section uses Law 96 of 20 February 2006 in a regional public copy, the Constitutional Court's judgment 339 of 2007 and Regione Veneto's CIN page. Press items (Il Sole 24 Ore English edition, Vinetur, Teleborsa) were read only to test the claims they carry.
Limitations: (1) ISTAT counts authorisations, and one holding can hold several; (2) agritourists are clients, so repeat visits count again; (3) ISTAT's value is an estimate of production at current prices, not booking revenue; (4) the release text gives no regional counts, no bed numbers and no country of origin, and ISTAT's statistical annex was not read; (5) no national occupancy or price series exists, and IRPET does not define its Tuscan rate; (6) ASTAT's capacity table merges private rooms with farm holidays and shows an unexplained jump in 2023; (7) ISMEA reproduces ISTAT's totals but does not name the dataset behind its foreign split; (8) no national 2025 agritourism total was published at the time of writing, and no Eurostat category for farm stays exists.
Where two sources disagree we report both and say which the evidence favours, using ISTAT as the primary source for national figures. Figures from trade fairs and associations are attributed to their publisher and never combined with ISTAT's series. Claims that fail verification are named with their outlet and date in the corrections panel. Figures we calculated ourselves are identified as derived wherever they appear, and every derived figure was recomputed from the published levels and changes.
Notes on the data
(1) No national source publishes prices, occupancy or bed counts for agriturismi; the only official occupancy rate is IRPET's for Tuscany (15.8% in 2025, rate not defined in the report), South Tyrol's farm-holiday nights come from ASTAT for 2023, and no national 2025 agritourism total had been published by early November 2026. ISTAT's release gives regional shares, not regional counts. (2) Contested: foreign demand growth in 2024 is +12.1% in ISTAT (agritourists) and +8.6% in ISMEA (arrivals, dataset not named), which implies either a fall of about 3.8% or a flat count for Italian guests; we report ISTAT's figure as the primary source. Nights are over 17.1 million in ISTAT and 17.2 million in ISMEA (rounding). ISTAT's farms with accommodation and with meals appear as just over 21,440 and 13,000 in its text and 21,449 and 13,092 in its table. (3) Failed or unsupported: the Il Sole 24 Ore English edition headline of 23 October 2024 calling 1.16 billion turnover (its body says value of production, from AgrieTour trade-fair data, a separate series from ISTAT); Vinetur's 11 March 2026 article, whose URL reads "reach record 26,360" (the word does not appear in its text; ISTAT makes no record claim); the Coldiretti and Campagna Amica estimate of almost 700,000 Ferragosto agritourists (Teleborsa, 14 August 2026; no method). Commonly repeated provisions of Law 96/2006 on a ten-guest presumption and ten-bed and ten-meal simplifications were struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2007. (4) Derived by us: ISTAT 2023 levels (about 26,130 farms, 4.5 million agritourists, 16.6 million nights, EUR 1.87 billion, 51% foreign share), the 3.8% fall in Italian agritourists, foreign nights of about 10.8 million (about 63%), regional farm counts from rounded shares, South and Islands shares, the 3.7% share of national nights, the 74.0% foreign share of South Tyrol farm-holiday nights and the 2.4% rise in value per farm. (5) Self-reported or association figures: Coldiretti's 310,660 beds and 540,760 covers (its elaboration of ISTAT data, not found in the ISTAT release text) and all AgrieTour trade-fair figures.
Frequently asked questions
How many agriturismi are there in Italy?
ISTAT counted 26,360 authorised agritourism farms in 2024, 0.9% more than in 2023. The figure counts authorisations, and a farm licensed for more than one agritourism business can appear more than once. Just over 21,440 of them offer accommodation.
How many people stay at agriturismi in Italy each year?
ISTAT recorded over 4.7 million agritourists in 2024, up 4.3%, who spent over 17.1 million nights. Agritourists are clients, so a person who visits twice counts twice. ISMEA reports the same total as arrivals.
What does agriturismo mean?
Agriturismo is the Italian legal term for hospitality offered by a farmer on a working farm. Law 96 of 2006 defines it as reception and hospitality run through the farmer's own holding in connection with cultivation, forestry or livestock, with farming remaining the main activity.
What share of agritourists in Italy are foreign?
54.8% in 2024, according to ISTAT, up from 51% in 2023. That is a share of agritourists. ISMEA reports that foreign guests account for over 60% of nights, because they stay longer, 4.2 days against 3.0 for Italians.
Which region has the most agriturismi?
Tuscany, with 22.2% of Italy's agritourism farms in 2024, followed by the autonomous province of Bolzano with 13%. Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Umbria and Lazio each have between 5% and 6.5%.
How big is the agritourism sector in money terms?
ISTAT estimates the value of agritourism production at just over EUR 1,934 million in 2024, up 3.3%, or about EUR 73,300 per farm. It is a production estimate, not a sum of booking revenue, and no official source publishes visitor spending at agriturismi.
How much does an agriturismo cost per night in Italy?
No official or association source publishes an average nightly rate for agriturismi. Prices in circulation come from booking platforms and individual listings, and they vary with the region, the season and the services included.
How full are agriturismi?
No national occupancy rate is published. In Tuscany, the regional institute IRPET reports agriturismo occupancy of 15.8% in 2025, down from 16.2% in 2024 and above the 15.2% of 2019. IRPET does not define the rate in its report, and seasonal closures lower whole-year rates.
Do agriturismi need a CIN code?
Agritourism farms that offer accommodation must hold the national identification code for tourist lodgings, according to Regione Veneto, and ISMEA notes it must also appear in their tax returns. The deadline for existing structures, first set for 2 November 2024, was extended to 1 January 2025. This is not legal advice.