Rome tourism statistics: four published series, 42.7 to 56.0 million nights, and no stated scope for the city's figure

Four counts for one city

ISTAT's figure is the narrowest and the best documented. Its March 2026 report on tourism in 2024 ranks Rome first among Italian comuni with 42,705,319 nights, 9.2% of the national total. Rome took 5.4% of all nights spent by Italian residents and 12.3% of all nights spent by non-residents, and international guests made up 73.3% of the city's own nights. The count covers registered accommodation on ISTAT's old basis. For 2024, non-business private rentals were reported separately and only for 92 of 107 provinces. ISTAT's statistical yearbook puts Rome's 2024 municipal total 14.6% above 2023 and 37.8% above 2019.

Eurostat publishes ISTAT's data at NUTS 3 level. Italy's 107 NUTS 3 regions correspond to its provinces, and the Roma region, code ITI43, covers the 121 comuni of the Città metropolitana di Roma Capitale, which replaced the province of Rome in 2015. The region recorded 41,135,744 nights in 2023, 47,220,329 in 2024 and 56,002,908 in 2025, in the database as updated on 20 October 2026. The Lazio figure from Eurostat's regional dataset was 51,753,567 nights in 2024, the same number ISTAT prints for the region.

The EBTL figure is the one most readers meet. Rome's city government announced the 2025 results on 20 January 2026 and Turismo Roma posted them on 25 January: 22.9 million arrivals, 12 million of them from abroad, and 52.92 million nights, up 3.42% and 2.87%. A year earlier the same source gave 22.2 million arrivals and 51.4 million nights for 2024. The 2025 page names the EBTL as the source. It does not say whether the count covers the comune or the metropolitan city, which types of accommodation it includes, or whether short-term rentals are in it.

Set side by side for 2024, the EBTL figure is 20.4% above ISTAT's municipal count, 8.9% above Eurostat's metropolitan count and within 0.7% of the official total for the whole Lazio region (all ours). No document found defines the EBTL series. The nearest is a Roma Capitale statistics office report covering 2014 to 2018, which gives figures for Roma Capitale across all accommodation establishments, compiled from data of the Ente Bilaterale Territoriale di Roma e Provincia. It does not say how that body relates to the EBTL, and it prints ISTAT's lower figures for the metropolitan city beside its own without reconciling them. Nothing published for 2019 or later describes the city's series.

Arrivals make the scope question sharper. Eurostat's arrivals for the whole Lazio region were 12,786,237 in 2024 and 16,750,053 in 2025. The EBTL's arrivals for Rome were 22.2 million and 22.9 million. On those figures the city's count of arrivals was 74% above the official count for the entire region in 2024 and 37% above it in 2025 (ours). Arrivals can be counted per establishment or per trip, and the two bodies may define them differently. Neither has published a reconciliation, and this article does not assume one.

Each series answers a different question. ISTAT's municipal count is the one to use for the city itself and for trends over time, because its area and method are published and it is consistent with the regional and national totals. Eurostat's NUTS 3 figure suits comparisons with other European regions, since every member state reports on the same template. The Lazio total frames Rome against its region, which includes the coast, the hill towns and the Castelli Romani. The EBTL figure is the one the city itself uses, and it is best quoted as exactly that, with its year and its source named.

The city's series: higher, slower and broken in 2019

The city's series has a history of its own. The Roma Capitale statistics office, using data from the Ente Bilaterale Territoriale di Roma e Provincia, recorded 36,641,436 nights and 15,164,649 arrivals in 2018. The next figure found, for 2019, comes from ACOS, the agency that monitors Rome's public services, which credits data from ISTAT, the Lazio region, Roma Capitale, Zètema and Federalberghi. ACOS gives 46,539,000 nights and 19,454,000 arrivals. Its 2023 figure, 49,187,000 nights, is exactly the base implied by the EBTL's 4.5% rise to 51.4 million in 2024 (ours), so the figures from 2019 onward behave as one series. That is a rise of 27.0% in nights and 28.3% in arrivals in one year (ours), from two different compilers, with no explanation in either document. The 2018 and 2019 figures should not be chained into a growth rate.

From 2019 the city's series and ISTAT's diverge in level and in pace. In 2019 the ACOS figure for Rome, 46.5 million nights, was 19% higher than Eurostat's total for the whole Lazio region, 39.0 million (ours). ISTAT's municipal count for 2019, back-calculated from the yearbook's 37.8%, was about 31.0 million (ours). Between 2019 and 2024 the city's series grew 10.4% and ISTAT's municipal count grew 37.8%. Between 2023 and 2024 the city's series grew 4.5%, while ISTAT's municipal count grew 14.6%, Eurostat's metropolitan count 14.8% and the Lazio total 13.2%. None of the publishers explains the difference.

The gap in growth matters more than the gap in level. Two series that measure different areas can both be useful. Two series that report different trends for the same years leave nobody able to say with confidence how fast tourism in Rome grew after the pandemic. ISTAT and Eurostat publish a method and an area; the EBTL figure has neither in the documents found. For trends, the official series are the ones to cite, with the city's figure quoted as the city's own.

One measure is stable within the city's series. Nights per arrival were 2.39 in 2019, 2.34 in 2023 and 2.31 in 2025 (ours, from the published totals), and the 2014–2018 figures from the other compiler sit between 2.42 and 2.45. ACOS itself prints an average stay of 3.09 days for 2019, which does not match its own totals. On the city's figures, the average visitor stays a little over two nights. The city's count also shows foreign visitors at 12 million of 22.9 million arrivals in 2025, or 52% (ours). ISTAT's 73.3% foreign share for 2024 is a share of nights, a different unit, and the two should not be set against each other.

Eurostat's figures point the same way at metropolitan level. Nights by non-residents in the Roma NUTS 3 region were 68.6% of the total in 2023, 71.7% in 2024 and 76.2% in 2025 (ours, from Eurostat's foreign and total series). The 2025 share is on the new basis, so part of the rise may come from rentals entering the count, and the series does not show how much.

2025: a new basis and a Jubilee year

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 Roma NUTS 3 region the result is a jump from 47,220,329 to 56,002,908 nights, or 18.6%, and for Lazio 18.9% in nights and 31.0% in arrivals (ours). Those changes mix new counting with any real growth, and the split is not published for Rome.

ISTAT has not published an absolute 2025 figure for the comune. Its July 2026 data story says Rome alone took 9.4% of Italy's nights in 2025, in a passage about the municipalities with the most nights. It does not say whether the 9.4% is a share of the total with rentals or without them, and the two readings would put Rome about 5 million nights apart. The figure should be quoted as a share. The 9.2% share belongs to 2024.

2025 was also the Jubilee year, which makes it a poor base for any trend. The Bank of Italy's report on the Lazio economy, published on 10 June 2026, found foreign tourists' nights in the region up 27.8% against 2.3% nationally, with more than a third of that growth attributed to travelers who came for the Jubilee. Foreign spending in Lazio rose 19.2%, and the Bank attributes almost 60% of the increase to pilgrims. In the same report, hotel nights in the metropolitan city of Rome rose only 1.9%, and the Bank suggests that many pilgrims stayed in other types of lodging. The EBTL release for 2025 does not mention the Jubilee. The Vatican's count of 33.5 million and the Bank of Italy's survey of Jubilee travelers are examined in Jubilee 2025 by the numbers.

That leaves four growth figures for 2025: 2.87% from the EBTL, 18.6% from Eurostat on the new basis, 1.9% from the Bank of Italy for hotel nights in the metropolitan city and 27.8% from the Bank's survey of foreign nights in all of Lazio. They use different units and different areas. None is a like-for-like measure of how Rome's tourism grew in 2025, and no such measure has been published.

Claims that circulate

Several Rome figures travel further than their sources support.

The largest is 105 million nights. Quotidiano Nazionale reported on 24 November 2024 that Rome would see 35 million arrivals, 105 million presenze and nearly €17 billion of spending during the Jubilee, citing the Osservatorio sull'Economia del Turismo of the Italian chambers of commerce. It was a forecast, published a month before the Jubilee opened. The measured figures for 2025 from the city's own source were 22.9 million arrivals and 52.92 million nights, about two-thirds and one-half of the forecast. The Osservatorio's method was not found.

The second concerns length of stay. A Turismo Roma promotional article of 23 October 2025 gave Rome's average stay as 4.1 nights against a national 3. Rome's tourism councillor, Alessandro Onorato, said the average stay had risen from 2.3 days to more than 4, as reported by Fanpage on 20 January 2026. Neither statement names a source. The city's own totals for 2025 give 2.31 nights per arrival (ours), which matches the starting point Onorato described.

Third, a Turismo Roma article of 17 December 2025 said Rome had 38 million tourists in July and August 2025 and 44 million visitors in 2024. The city's full-year counts from the same body are 22.9 million arrivals for 2025 and 22.2 million for 2024. No series found produces either of the larger numbers.

Fourth, the Bank of Italy's 27.8% has been reported as growth in arrivals, by Quotidiano.net on 10 June 2026 and by Il Foglio on 11 June 2026. The report says presenze, which are nights. The Bank's own comparison is with a national rise of 2.3% in foreign nights.

Pressure measures that exist

Rome publishes no crowding statistic, but several series show how much activity the city absorbs. Each counts something different, and none is a count of visitors.

Fiumicino and Ciampino handled 55,294,261 passengers in 2025 on Assaeroporti's figures as republished by Italiavola & Travel on 4 February 2026, 51,306,744 at Fiumicino and 3,987,517 at Ciampino. The Bank of Italy's Lazio report gives the same system total as 55.3 million, up 4.2%. An airport passenger is a movement: a round trip counts twice, residents of Rome flying out are included and connecting passengers count at the airport where they change. In the first nine months of 2026 the two airports handled 42,673,221 passengers, with Fiumicino up 1.1% and Ciampino down 1.0%, while Italy's airports overall grew 5.5%, as our Italy airports analysis shows.

Eurostat's figures for nights booked through Airbnb, Booking and Expedia put Rome at 18.8 million in 2025, second among EU and EFTA cities after Paris at 26.3 million and ahead of Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon. Eurostat names Rome's 19.7% rise as the strongest among the cities it highlights, but 2025 was the first year with three platforms after Tripadvisor left the scheme, so the change compares different sets. Eurostat builds its cities from local administrative units, which may not match the comune exactly. Platform nights overlap with registered accommodation and must not be added to ISTAT's totals. They show where demand for short-stay rentals concentrates. The national rules for those rentals are covered in Italy's rental rules in numbers.

ISTAT's provisional estimate for 1 January 2026 is 2,745,062 residents in the comune. On that base, ISTAT's 2024 municipal nights come to 15.6 per resident, the EBTL's 2025 nights to 19.3, platform nights to 6.8 and airport passengers to 20.1 (all ours, and all mixing years). For the metropolitan city, a secondary sum of about 4.22 million residents gives 13.3 nights per resident on Eurostat's 2025 figure. These ratios are indicators of scale. None is an official overtourism measure.

The supply side is thinly documented. ACOS counted 16,034 accommodation establishments in Rome in 2023, 1,299 hotels and 14,735 other establishments such as B&Bs, guest houses and holiday homes, up 16% on 2022. It gives no beds or rooms, and no official count of Rome's bed capacity or of registered rental units was obtained for this article. The ratio of 11 non-hotel establishments to each hotel shows how much of the city's lodging sits outside hotels, which is also where the Bank of Italy suggests many Jubilee pilgrims stayed.

Monument entries are the most visible numbers and the easiest to misread. The Ministry of Culture recorded 14,733,395 entries at the Colosseum archaeological park and 4,086,947 at the Pantheon in 2024. The Vatican Museums received 6,933,822 visitors in 2025, second in the world after the Louvre, according to The Art Newspaper's annual ranking as reported by SiViaggia; the Vatican's own release was not opened. Entries are tickets, and one visitor can buy several. The fees and caps now attached to these sites are compared in our ticketed landmarks analysis.

Tourist-tax receipts are a fourth proxy. IRPET, the Tuscan regional economics institute, gives Rome €165.0 million for 2023, on 37.3 million presences, or €4.4 per presence. A chart in the same IRPET publication shows €292.1 million for 2024 and labels it an estimate by JFC, a private consultancy; Rome's own accounts for 2024 were not found. Rates and the national rules are in our tourist tax 2026 analysis. Cruise traffic adds 3,556,559 passenger movements at Civitavecchia in 2025, but no source says how many of those passengers reach Rome.

What nobody measures

No public body publishes a measure of crowding in Rome. Roma Capitale, ISTAT and the Bank of Italy publish counts of nights, arrivals, passengers and spending. None publishes a daily count of people in the historic centre, a count of day-trippers or a carrying capacity for any site or district. The only figure found is a private index by Demoskopika, reproduced in an infographic on the Tourism Ministry's website on 23 January 2026, which ranks the province of Rome eighth among Italian provinces with high or very high overcrowding and gives 8,804.4 tourists per square kilometre. Demoskopika's method was not opened.

The gaps elsewhere are similar. The EBTL has published no method for its series. ISTAT has not released a 2025 absolute for the comune. Eurostat has not restated 2024 on the new basis. No official count of Rome's beds, rooms or registered rental units was obtained. The Trevi Fountain's official entry count stops at February 2026, when Roma Capitale reported 229,896 entries, 217,597 of them paid. No official source has published Rome's nights or arrivals for 2026; the Bank of Italy's Lazio report gives only a 2.7% rise for the first two months, without making clear whether that refers to the region or the metropolitan city.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers can read the series as a guide to scale. On every count Rome is Italy's busiest tourism city, with a little over two nights per visitor on the city's own figures and international guests making up nearly three-quarters of the nights ISTAT records. The 2025 numbers were swollen by the Jubilee, and the first official signs for 2026 show Rome's airports flat while the rest of Italy grew. Among the most visited sites are the Colosseum archaeological park, the Vatican Museums and the Pantheon, and the pressure they feel is not captured in any published count. Our Rome travel guide covers timing, tickets and where to stay.

Tourism businesses and investors should pick one series and say which. For the municipality, ISTAT's 42,705,319 nights in 2024 is the documented figure. For the metropolitan area, Eurostat's 47,220,329 in 2024 is the last old-basis figure, and 56,002,908 in 2025 includes rentals for the first time. The EBTL's 52.92 million is the number the market quotes, but its area and method are unpublished, it exceeds the official total for the whole Lazio region in some years and its growth rates disagree with ISTAT's. Anyone underwriting Rome on the city's growth rate would see a slower market than ISTAT shows for 2019 to 2024, and anyone using Eurostat's 2025 change would be reading a basis change as growth. A published EBTL method, an ISTAT 2025 municipal table or a restated Eurostat 2024 would change this assessment.

Journalists and analysts can cite: ISTAT, comune di Roma, 42,705,319 nights in 2024, 9.2% of Italy, 73.3% international; ISTAT, Rome 9.4% of Italy's nights in 2025, with no absolute published; Eurostat, Roma NUTS 3, 47,220,329 nights in 2024 and 56,002,908 in 2025 on a new basis; Lazio 51,753,567 nights in 2024; EBTL via Turismo Roma, 52.92 million nights and 22.9 million arrivals in 2025, area not stated; Bank of Italy, hotel nights in the metropolitan city up 1.9% in 2025 and foreign nights in Lazio up 27.8%; Eurostat, 18.8 million platform nights in Rome in 2025; Assaeroporti, 55,294,261 passengers at Fiumicino and Ciampino in 2025. Do not repeat 105 million nights or 35 million arrivals as results (they were a forecast), an average stay of four nights or more (the city's own figures give 2.31), 38 million summer tourists or 44 million visitors a year, or the 27.8% as arrivals. Do not compare 2025 with 2024 on Eurostat or ISTAT totals, add platform nights to accommodation nights or call airport passengers visitors. The series finding this article adds is that Rome is counted often and defined rarely. The most quoted figure is the one with no published scope.