July is Switzerland's busiest month, with 12.9% of 2025's tourist nights, and November the quietest, with 4.2%. July and August together carried 25.7% of the year, making Switzerland the 29th most seasonal of 35 European countries we measured. September was quieter than June, at 9.1% against 9.5%.
Switzerland, month by month
- Two busiest months
- Other months
When is Switzerland busiest, and when is it quietest?
July was the busiest month in 2025, with 12.9% of the year's tourist nights. November was the quietest, with 4.2%. That makes July 3.1 times as busy as November.1
Seven months each carried less than an average month's share of 8.3%: January, March, April, May, October, November and December.
Who stays in Switzerland: residents or guests from abroad?
In 2025, guests living abroad spent 46.9% of Switzerland's tourist nights. Residents of Switzerland spent the rest.1
- Highest share from abroad
- Other months
The share from abroad was highest in August, at 52.9% of that month's nights, and lowest in February, at 38.2%.1
Residents spent more than half of the month's nights in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, September, October and November. Guests from abroad spent more than half in August and December.
Eurostat counts guests by the country they live in, not by nationality.2
How seasonal is Switzerland compared with the rest of Europe?
July and August together carried 25.7% of Switzerland's nights. Ranked by that share, Switzerland is the 29th most seasonal of the 35 European countries we measured, where 1 is the country most concentrated into its two busiest months.1
For comparison, the most seasonal country on this measure was Croatia at 54.5%, and the least seasonal was Malta at 21.8%. See all 35 countries ranked.
Which regions of Switzerland are least seasonal?
Across 7 regions, the share of 2025 tourist nights falling in each region's two busiest months ran from 20.3% in Nordwestschweiz to 34.9% in Ticino.3
In 2 of the 7 regions the busiest month was not July: Ostschweiz (February) and Zürich (August).3
| Region | Nights in busiest two months | Busiest | Quietest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ticino | 34.9% | July | January |
| Espace Mittelland | 28.8% | July | November |
| Zentralschweiz | 26.4% | July | November |
| Ostschweiz | 25.4% | February | November |
| Région lémanique | 24.8% | July | November |
| Zürich | 20.9% | August | February |
| Nordwestschweiz | 20.3% | July | January |
Regional figures come from Eurostat's regional dataset, last updated on 2 July 2026, and can differ slightly from the national monthly figures above, which Eurostat updated in September. For Switzerland they match those figures. See all 123 regions ranked.
How long do guests stay in Switzerland?
Guests stayed an average of 2.3 nights each time they checked in at tourist accommodation in Switzerland in 2025: 62,022,683 nights across 27,237,384 arrivals.4 Across the 33 countries on this site with complete figures, the average ran from 1.5 nights in Iceland to 4.7 in Cyprus.4
This is our division of Eurostat's two counts. Eurostat counts an arrival each time a guest checks in at a place to stay, so a traveller who moves between places is counted more than once, and a whole trip is longer than the figure suggests.2
Did accommodation in Switzerland get more expensive in 2025?
On Eurostat's harmonised index of consumer prices, prices of accommodation services in Switzerland were 1.6% higher on average in 2025 than in 2024. Across the EU the rise was 4.1%.5
This measures how prices changed, not what a stay costs, so check the current price when you book. Accommodation services cover hotels, motels and inns; holiday centres, campsites and youth hostels; and other places to stay.
June or September? May or October?
September was quieter than June, at 9.1% against 9.5%.
May and October were almost identical, at 7.3% and 7.3%.
These compare months at similar distances from the summer peak. They do not account for weather, which we have not measured.
What these figures cannot tell you
These figures are good at one thing: showing when a country's registered tourist accommodation fills up. Four things they cannot do.
They miss some small places. The counts cover hotels, holiday and short-stay accommodation and campsites, but countries may exclude establishments with fewer than ten bed places, so small guesthouses can be missing.2
Nights are not queues. A national monthly total cannot see how busy one old town, beach or museum is on a given day.
They say nothing about weather or prices. A quiet month may be quiet for reasons that matter to your trip. We have not published weather data for this country. The price section shows how accommodation prices changed, not what a stay costs.
They are one year. These are 2025 figures. Patterns shift from year to year, and Eurostat revises its data as countries update their returns.
The full year
| Month | Share of year | Nights | From abroad |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7.4% | 4,597,927 | 42.7% |
| February | 8.5% | 5,255,675 | 38.2% |
| March | 7.5% | 4,632,039 | 45.6% |
| April | 6.4% | 3,955,208 | 47.3% |
| May | 7.3% | 4,534,454 | 48.2% |
| June | 9.5% | 5,908,208 | 48.9% |
| July (one of the two busiest months) | 12.9% | 8,013,754 | 46.9% |
| August (one of the two busiest months) | 12.8% | 7,920,884 | 52.9% |
| September | 9.1% | 5,621,522 | 47.4% |
| October | 7.3% | 4,512,029 | 43.1% |
| November | 4.2% | 2,625,263 | 46.5% |
| December | 7.2% | 4,445,720 | 51.3% |
Total for 2025: 62,022,683 nights, 46.9% of them by guests living abroad. The two busiest months are marked. "From abroad" is the share of that month's nights spent by guests living outside Switzerland.
Key takeaways
- November was Switzerland's quietest month in 2025, with 4.2% of the year's tourist nights.
- July and August were the busiest, carrying 25.7% of the year between them.
- Switzerland ranks 29 of 35 European countries for seasonal concentration, where 1 is the most concentrated.
- Guests living abroad spent 46.9% of Switzerland's 2025 tourist nights; residents spent the rest.
- September was quieter than June, at 9.1% against 9.5%.
- What we would skip: assuming every shoulder month is equally quiet. In Switzerland, June carried 9.5% of the year's nights against September's 9.1%.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, which receives it from each country's national statistical authority. We downloaded the monthly counts directly and calculated the shares, rankings and comparisons ourselves. See how we research.
- Source: Eurostat, Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments – monthly data, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_NIM, accessed 25 September 2026. Dataset last updated by Eurostat on 22 September 2026. Extract: number of nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests and split by guests resident in the country and abroad, January–December 2025.
- Eurostat, Tourist accommodation reference metadata, on collection by national authorities under Regulation (EU) 692/2011, the definition of a night spent, country of residence, and the ten-bed-place threshold. Read it. Checked 17 September 2026.
- Source: Eurostat, Nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments by month and NUTS 2 region, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_NIN2M, accessed 22 September 2026. Dataset last updated by Eurostat on 2 July 2026. Extract: number of nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests, 2025, by month. Region names are Eurostat's.
- Source: Eurostat, Arrivals at tourist accommodation establishments – monthly data, doi:10.2908/TOUR_OCC_ARM, with the nights data (tour_occ_nim), accessed 25 September 2026. Extract: number of arrivals and nights, NACE codes I55.1–I55.3, all guests, January–December 2025. Average stay is our calculation: nights divided by arrivals.
- Source: Eurostat, HICP – annual data (average index and rate of change), doi:10.2908/PRC_HICP_AIND, accessed 22 September 2026. Extract: accommodation services (COICOP CP112), annual average rate of change, 2025.
Modified data. The monthly shares, residence shares, rankings and comparisons are our own calculations from Eurostat's counts. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place, so they may not add exactly. Eurostat bears no responsibility for these calculations or for how the figures are presented here.