Naples tourism statistics: three numbers that don't agree, from 3.9 million to over 20 million nights

Three counts and three areas

ISTAT's figure is the narrowest and the best documented. Its March 2026 report on tourism in 2024 ranks Naples 12th among Italian comuni, with 3,862,329 nights, or 0.8% of the national total. The count covers hotels and other registered accommodation on ISTAT's old basis. Non-business private rentals were reported separately for 2024 and only for 92 of 107 provinces. The report gives no arrivals for individual comuni.

Eurostat publishes ISTAT's data at NUTS 3 level. In Italy the NUTS 3 regions are the provinces, and the Napoli region, code ITF33, covers the Città metropolitana di Napoli. That includes the coast from Pozzuoli to Sorrento, the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida, and the towns around Vesuvius and Pompeii. The region recorded 13,948,949 nights in 2023, 14,387,862 in 2024 and 15,749,028 in 2025, in the database as updated on 20 October 2026. The comune held 26.8% of the metropolitan area's nights in 2024 (ours). The whole Campania region recorded 21,369,462 nights in 2024, the same total ISTAT prints, and 24,038,339 in 2025.

SRM presented its study, Napoli città turistica nella governance regionale e nel sistema Paese, at the Hospitality Sud event in Naples on 19 February 2026. Il Sole 24 Ore reported it the same day: about 15 million presences in 2025, up 4% and at 106.1% of the 2019 level, with 62% of presences from abroad against a national average of 56%. SRM's product page says that "the city alone" accounts for 68% of Campania's presences, and Il Sole uses the same words, but neither defines a boundary and the page names no statistical source. The full report requires registration and was not obtained for this article.

The city's own figure comes from the Osservatorio Turistico Urbano (OTU), run by the comune's tourism department and coordinated by Professor Valentina Della Corte. The comune's page of 12 March 2026, presenting the OTU's second report at the BMT travel fair, gives about 10.7 million presences for 2022, 12.6 million for 2023, 13.9 million for 2024 and more than 20 million for 2025. The page describes the area only as Naples. It links no report and states no method or source.

The table shows why the numbers cannot be lined up as one trend. ISTAT's figure is for a single comune. Eurostat's covers 92 comuni, Naples among them. SRM's area is unstated. The OTU's area is unstated too, and its 2025 total is larger than the official count for the entire metropolitan area.

The city's 20 million: from forecast to result

The 20 million figure has a history. On 4 September 2025 Nano TV reported that Naples was expected to record 20 million tourist presences by the end of the year. In the remarks it quoted, Teresa Armato, the city's tourism councilor, said she believed Naples would pass "the wall of 20 million" by year end, without attaching a unit. In the same remarks she said the city had already recorded 10 million visitors by May, then 1.8 million in July and 1.5 million in August. A press kit from the city's destination management office, hosted on the ENIT website in a folder dated October 2025, spoke of more than 20 million visitors in 2025.

On 18 December 2025 the comune's own news page said the city was well beyond the 20 million tourists it had been expected to reach by the end of 2025. That page is the only one found that describes how the OTU works. It calls the figures arrival forecasts estimated by the observatory, built by crossing data from hotels, non-hotel accommodation and cruise passengers. It was published 13 days before the year ended, so it could not have been a closed count.

On 12 March 2026 the same figure appeared as more than 20 million presences, with growth of 45% on 2024. The number stayed the same across six months while the unit varied between sources: presences in the September report, visitors in the press kit, tourists in December and presences again in March. The status changed from a forecast to a result, and no document found explains that change.

The base year moved too. In March 2025 the city presented its 2025 plans at the same fair, and Qualitytravel reported that the city aimed to exceed the 14.5 million presences it had recorded in 2024. A year later the OTU gave 13.9 million for 2024. On 13.9 million, 45% growth gives about 20.16 million, which matches the headline. On 14.5 million, 20 million would be a rise of 37.9% (both ours). No revision note was found.

The OTU's earlier years sit close to the official metropolitan count. Its 2022 figure was 92.8% of Eurostat's for the Napoli NUTS 3 region, its 2023 figure 90.3% and its 2024 figure 96.6% (all ours). In 2025 the relation breaks. The OTU's 20 million is 27% above Eurostat's 15,749,028 for the whole metropolitan area, and equal to 83% of all nights in Campania (ours). According to ISTAT, the 2025 official figures include non-business private rentals for the first time, so the gap is unlikely to be explained by rentals missing from the official count.

The OTU's own 2026 figures show the same mix of units. The 12 March page reports 1,750,000 tourists in January and 1,700,000 in February. A few paragraphs later it says presences in the two months totaled almost 1.8 million arrivals, and that monthly values were above 1.6 to 1.7 million presences. If the January figure were arrivals, it would equal 26.8% of all arrivals Eurostat recorded in Campania for the whole of 2025 (ours). The page does not say which reading is correct.

SRM's own page adds a further complication. Its abstract describes Naples as having more than 15 million presences and more than 20 million total visitors. So 20 million appears in both bodies' material, once as presences and once as visitors, and neither defines it. The 18 December page's mention of cruise passengers suggests that the OTU's model counts people who do not stay overnight. It does not say how many.

SRM's 15 million and the metropolitan area

SRM's figure can be tested against the official series because SRM publishes three ratios beside it. It says Naples accounts for 68% of presences in Campania, 75% of the region's foreign presences, and that 62% of Naples presences are foreign.

Each ratio matches the Napoli NUTS 3 region. In Eurostat's figures the metropolitan area held 67.3% of Campania's nights in 2024 and 65.5% in 2025. It held 75.0% of Campania's non-resident nights in 2024 and 74.7% in 2025. Visitors resident abroad accounted for 60.7% of the metropolitan area's nights in 2024 and 61.6% in 2025 (all ours). SRM's growth rate points the same way. A 4% rise to 15 million implies a 2024 base of about 14.4 million, and Eurostat's 2024 figure for the metropolitan area is 14,387,862 (ours).

The comune does not fit those ratios. ISTAT's comune count for 2024 is 18.1% of Campania's nights, far from 68% (ours). That cuts against SRM's own wording. "The city alone" points to the comune, while SRM's numbers point to the metropolitan area, and neither SRM nor Il Sole defines the boundary. Our reading follows the numbers: SRM's Naples is very likely the metropolitan area. This is our inference, and SRM's full report, which might settle it, was not obtained.

SRM's growth rate does not match Eurostat's for 2025. Eurostat shows the metropolitan area up 9.46% in 2025, on a basis that adds non-business private rentals. SRM's 4% is closer to the national rise in nights without those rentals, which ISTAT puts at 481 million for 2025 against 466.2 million for 2024. SRM may have used provisional data on the old basis. Its report was not opened, so its source and vintage remain unknown.

SRM adds one figure that no official source publishes for Naples: €167 of added value per presence, against €131.7 for the Mezzogiorno and €144.1 for Italy. It gives no total spending, value added or employment figure in the material read.

The official series and the 2025 break

The Eurostat series shows the pandemic and the recovery clearly. Nights in the Napoli NUTS 3 region fell to 4,058,349 in 2020, rose to 11,529,992 in 2022 and passed 14 million in 2024. The region's figures for 2019 are not in the dataset. Campania's 2019 total, 22,013,245 nights, was passed only in 2025, on the new basis.

For 2025, ISTAT added non-business private rentals to Italy's tourism count for the first time. Nationally that took 2025 to more than 535 million nights against 481 million without them, as set out in our 2026 record watch. Eurostat's database carries the new basis for 2025 next to the old basis for 2024, with no break flag. For the Napoli NUTS 3 region the result is a rise of 9.46% in nights, and for Campania 12.49% in nights and 6.23% in arrivals (all ours). Those changes mix new counting with any real growth, and the split is not published for Naples or Campania.

The comparison with Spain and the rest of the EU depends on the same break, as our analysis of whether Italy is now Europe's most visited country shows. For Naples the practical point is simpler. No official source has published a like-for-like growth rate for 2025 at any level from the comune to the region.

ISTAT has not published a 2025 figure for the comune. Its 2024 report gives no arrivals by comune, and the municipal arrivals table in ISTAT's online database was not reached for this article. Eurostat's arrivals series for the NUTS 3 region could not be retrieved. Campania's arrivals were 6,149,632 in 2024 and 6,532,512 in 2025, which gives an average of 3.47 nights per arrival in 2024 (ours).

A cross-check from the tourist tax

Tourist-tax receipts offer an independent test, because the tax is paid per person per night in accommodation inside the comune. IRPET, the Tuscan regional economics institute, compiled receipts for the eight Italian cities with the largest takings, using BDAP public-accounts data and ISTAT counts. For Naples in 2023 it gives €18.2 million of tax on 3.6 million presences, or €5.0 per presence, with an average stay of 2.8 nights.

The receipts fit ISTAT's scale for the comune. If the OTU's 12.6 million presences for 2023 had all been taxable nights in the comune, the same receipts would come to €1.44 per presence (ours), well below the rates in force. IRPET's text gives Naples's rate as €5. Exemptions, unpaid tax and the timing of payments all affect receipts, so the test is indicative. It points to ISTAT's order of magnitude for overnight stays in the comune and suggests that a count several times larger includes people or places the tax does not reach. Because it uses 2023 receipts, it says nothing about growth since then.

Receipts for 2024 and 2025 were not found. Fanpage reported on 12 March 2026, citing a municipal resolution, that the tax rises in 2026 to €6 a night in four- and five-star hotels and short-term rentals and €5.50 in three-star hotels. The start date of the new rates is not established.

Claims that circulate

Several Naples figures travel further than their sources support.

The largest is the 20 million itself. It was reported as a year-end expectation in September 2025, given as a forecast in December 2025 and presented as a result in March 2026, with no method published at any stage. It exceeds the official count for the whole metropolitan area by 4.25 million nights (ours). It should be quoted as the city observatory's estimate, with the year and the word the city used, and never as an official statistic.

Second, the 10 million visitors by May 2025. Armato gave the figure on 4 September 2025 without a source. Eurostat counted 6,149,632 arrivals in all registered accommodation in Campania in the whole of 2024. If the 10 million were arrivals, Naples would have received 1.6 times the region's annual total in five months (ours). It is more likely a count of nights or of something else, and the city has not said which.

Third, the 2024 base. The figure of 14.5 million presences reported in March 2025 was replaced by 13.9 million in March 2026 with no explanation. A tour operator's blog, Napoli Sotterranea, wrote on 8 May 2025 that Naples had over 14 million presences in 2024, without naming a source. ISTAT's count for the comune that year was 3,862,329, and Eurostat's for the metropolitan area 14,387,862.

Fourth, the foreign share. The OTU's page of 12 March 2026 says foreigners made up more than 40% of flows in some months. SRM gives 62% for the year, and Eurostat's non-resident share for the metropolitan area is 61.6% for 2025. The OTU's wording describes particular months and cannot be compared with an annual share.

Fifth, the claim that Naples is Italy's third most visited city, repeated by Napoli Sotterranea and in Qualitytravel's March 2025 coverage without a source. On ISTAT's 2024 ranking of comuni by nights, Naples is 12th.

One more set of figures needs care rather than correction. The OTU's 12 March page lists the United Kingdom at 12.1%, Spain 11.6%, France 10.7%, Germany 9.3% and the United States 5.5%, for February 2025 to February 2026. It also lists Italian regions, with Campania at 20.3% and Lazio at 16.6%. The page does not say what the percentages are shares of. The foreign list sums to 49.2% and the domestic list to 62.1%, so the two cannot share one base (ours). They are safest quoted as rankings, with a note that the base is not stated.

Access figures count movements

Two large Naples numbers are often read as visitor counts. Neither is one.

Naples Capodichino handled 13,271,522 passengers in 2025, up 4.91%, on Assaeroporti's figures as republished by Italiavola & Travel, or 13.2 million on ENAC's basis, which excludes direct transit. An airport passenger is a movement. A round trip counts twice, residents of Naples flying out are included, and visitors who land in Naples and go straight to the Amalfi Coast or Capri are counted the same as those who stay in the city. The comune's March 2026 page gives the airport's growth since 2021 without naming its source.

The port of Naples handled about 1,846,000 cruise passenger movements in 2025 on the count of the Cemar agency network, second in Italy after Civitavecchia. SRM gives almost 1.5 million cruise passengers for the same year, a difference of about 350,000 that neither source explains. Cruise movements add embarkations, disembarkations and transits, so one passenger who starts a cruise in Naples counts twice and one who calls for a day counts once. No source says how many cruise passengers go ashore in the city.

Ticketed sites around Naples are counted, but their visitors are not assigned to a base. The Ministry of Culture recorded 4,267,233 entries at Pompeii in 2024. No source says how many of those visitors slept in Naples, in Sorrento or on the coast, or came for the day. Capri has no official visitor count at all. For planning a day on the island, see our Capri travel guide and our list of things to do in Capri.

What nobody measures

No public body publishes a count of day visitors to Naples, a daily count of people in the historic center or a carrying capacity for any district. The OTU's 18 December page says its model draws on cruise-passenger data, which suggests that some of its total does not stay overnight. It gives no breakdown.

The gaps in the official series are narrower but real. ISTAT has published no 2025 figure for the comune and no arrivals for it in the 2024 report. Eurostat has not restated 2024 on the new basis and holds no 2019 figure for the NUTS 3 region, so SRM's claim of 106.1% of the 2019 level cannot be tested. The split of the 2025 rise between new rentals and real growth is not published below the national level. Tourist-tax receipts after 2023 were not found.

The private figures are less documented still. The OTU publishes no report, method, source or boundary. SRM publishes ratios and calls its Naples the city, but defines no boundary and names no source. The DMO's press kit uses visitors without definition. That leaves the city's most quoted number as the one least open to checking.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers can read the official series as a guide to scale. On ISTAT's count, the comune received 3,862,329 nights in 2024, about 4.25 nights for every resident (ours). The metropolitan area, which includes the coast and the islands, received nearly four times as many. Visitors resident abroad accounted for about three in five of those nights, and the official average stay in Campania is about three and a half nights. Cruise days and the busiest weeks around Pompeii and the ferry piers are not captured in any published count. Our Naples travel guide covers when to come and where to stay, and our things to do in Naples list covers what to book ahead.

Tourism businesses and investors should pick one series and name it. For the comune, ISTAT's 3,862,329 nights in 2024 is the documented figure. For the metropolitan area, Eurostat's 14,387,862 nights in 2024 is the last old-basis figure, and 15,749,028 in 2025 includes non-business rentals for the first time. SRM's 15 million behaves like the metropolitan figure in its ratios, although SRM describes it as the city's (the match is our inference). The OTU's 20 million should not be used to size demand in the comune, because it is larger than the official count for the entire metropolitan area and has no published method. Anyone underwriting Naples on the city's 45% growth would be relying on an estimate that no published official series supports. A published OTU method, an ISTAT 2025 table for the comune or SRM's area definition would change this assessment.

Journalists and analysts can cite the figures in the box above, each with its series, area and year, together with Campania's 21,369,462 nights in 2024, IRPET's €18.2 million of tourist tax for 2023 and Assaeroporti's 13,271,522 passengers at Capodichino in 2025, read as movements. Do not repeat 20 million as an official count or as a number of people, 45% as measured growth, 10 million visitors by May, or 14 million or 14.5 million presences in 2024 without naming the source. Do not present the nationality percentages as shares of foreign visitors or call Naples Italy's third most visited city. Do not compare 2025 with 2024 on Eurostat totals, and do not treat airport or cruise movements as visitors. The city's own figure is the one most often quoted. It is also the least defined.