Foreign tourists in Romania in 2026: which source markets are growing and how hosts can win them

For Romanian tourism, 2026 has been a difficult year. In the first seven months, accommodation establishments received 1.6% fewer tourists than in the same period last year, and the number of nights fell by 3.1%, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The decline comes mainly from Romanian travellers, hit by cuts to holiday vouchers and increasingly cautious spending. Foreign tourists were the segment that held up: in January–May their arrivals rose by 2.8%, and in 2025 they spent more than €5 billion in Romania, after a decade with the fastest growth in the European Union. Below you will find where they come from, what they look for, how they book and what short-term rental (regim hotelier) hosts can change in their listing, pricing and services to attract them.

Domestic tourism is falling, international tourism is holding up

INS monthly data have shown two opposite trends since the start of the year. In the first quarter, nights spent by Romanian tourists fell by 12.2% in January, 4.9% in February and 10.9% in March. In the same months, nights spent by foreign tourists rose by 7.9% in January and 5% in February, with a slight dip of 1.1% in March (Forbes Romania, based on INS data). According to the Romanian Hotel Industry Federation (FIHR), foreign arrivals rose by 2.8% in January–May, and their share of total nights reached 23.8%.

Summer changes the balance. In July, total arrivals rose by 6.2%, but the foreign share fell to 16.3% of arrivals and 13.5% of nights, because Romanians' seaside and mountain holidays weigh most in the summer months. Cumulatively, accommodation establishments recorded 7.487 million arrivals (−1.6%) and 15.543 million nights (−3.1%) in January–July 2026, and net occupancy was 26%, 2.3 percentage points below 2025. The month-by-month trend, including the Black Sea season, is analysed in our summer 2026 review.

The trend did not start in 2026. According to Eurostat, 2025 was another record year for European tourism, with almost 3.1 billion nights (+2.2%) and international guest nights up 3.4%. Romania, however, was one of only three EU countries where nights fell (−1.7%). Over the longer term, international tourism has recovered, but not fully: in 2024 Romania received 2.4 million international visitors in accommodation establishments, 13.8% more than in 2023 but still below pre-pandemic levels, according to the OECD. Domestic tourism remains roughly five times larger, with 12.2 million Romanian tourists in the same year.

An important detail for hosts: the INS sample is built from the list of authorised or classified establishments with more than 10 bed places. The list used for July 2026 included 16,347 establishments, of which 6,824 were apartments and rooms for rent. A typical apartment with two to four bed places is not part of this sample. Eurostat's platform data capture your segment better: in 2025, of the 10.37 million nights booked in Romania via Airbnb, Booking and Expedia, 5.25 million were spent by foreign tourists, or 51%, compared with an EU average of 62%. The two series measure different things and cannot be compared directly, but the conclusion for a host who sells through platforms is clear: foreign guests matter far more than the INS national average suggests.

Where foreign tourists come from

INS publishes cumulative year-to-date data, so the ranking of source markets shifts from month to month. Put together, it looks like this:

The table shows three things that matter for a host:

• Germany and Italy are the core markets. They hold the top two places in every period from 2024 to 2026. If you host foreign guests, a large share of them very likely come from these two countries.
• Each market has its own calendar. In the first months of the year, Italy leads and the United Kingdom is third. From June, Germany moves into first place and the US climbs to third. A pricing calendar built only around Romanian holidays misses these windows.
• Markets can change quickly. Israel, the third-largest market in 2024 and 2025, no longer appears in the top three in the data published for 2026. If you relied on guests from a single country, it is worth diversifying.

Spending matters too. According to Colliers, which analysed Eurostat data, foreign tourists spent more than €5 billion in Romania in 2025, almost 2.8 times as much as in 2016. That is average annual growth of about 12% over the past decade, the fastest pace among EU member states. Americans, Germans, Britons and Italians together spent almost €2 billion, around 40% of the total.

What each market is looking for

FIHR divides the destinations foreigners favour into three poles, each with a different audience. The last column contains our recommendations for hosts, not statistics.

The same FIHR report says tourists from the US and the United Kingdom are growing in number, stay longer, spend more and look for authentic experiences, especially in Transylvania and Maramureș. The visitor profile is changing too: fewer organised groups, more business travellers and more young people drawn by festivals and events. Oradea has strengthened its role as the country's "western gateway" since Romania joined Schengen for land borders as well.

Crosspoint Research data on the 2025 short-term rental market confirm the picture. Bucharest received 1.1 million foreign tourists (+8%), with September as the peak month, while in Cluj-Napoca the Untold and Electric Castle festivals drew around 800,000 attendees combined, with average revenue of about €1,000 per property per month in July and August.

Who stays in apartments: the profile of foreign guests in private accommodation

The most detailed picture comes from the INS quarterly survey of non-resident tourist demand. For the first quarter of 2026, INS looked separately at foreigners staying in collective establishments, such as hotels and guesthouses, and at those who stayed in apartments and rooms for rent, which is exactly the segment where short-term rental hosts operate.

The spending breakdown is the most useful part for a host: 28.8% went on accommodation, 27.2% on bars and restaurants and 14% on personal products. By comparison, among foreigners travelling for personal reasons and staying in hotels and guesthouses, accommodation accounted for 41.1% of spending and restaurants and bars for only 14.2%. In other words, your foreign guest spends almost as much on food and drink as on accommodation. The tips you give, from the corner café to the restaurant serving local cuisine, shape a large part of their travel budget and how they remember the city.

Half of these tourists (50.3%) organised their trip through a travel agency, so being present in the channels where trips are sold matters as much as the listing itself. In collective establishments the picture is different: 390,900 non-residents spent 1.488 billion lei, and 51.8% of them travelled on business and generated 53.8% of spending. Business travellers still stay mostly in hotels; in apartments, only 11.8% of foreigners came for professional reasons. An apartment well equipped for work, close to offices or a transport hub, can attract some of these guests, especially for stays of a few days.

Flights decide where your guests come from

Almost eight in ten non-residents staying in collective establishments (79.6%) and more than half of those staying in apartments (52.4%) arrived in Romania by plane. Air routes are effectively the map of your source markets, and in 2026 that map changed in both directions.

• Bucharest: the capital's two airports handled a record 8.45 million passengers in the first half of the year (+5.08%), after more than 17.7 million in the whole of 2025 (+10.26%).
• Brașov: Wizz Air is opening its tenth Romanian base here, with an Airbus A321neo based at the airport from December 2026. New routes to Chișinău, Barcelona, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and Madrid start between 17 and 20 December, and frequencies to Nuremberg increase from 26 October. The airline will operate 15 routes from Brașov in total.
• Routes closed: Wizz Air dropped six routes, including Bucharest–Bratislava, Bucharest–Paris Orly (after 9 August 2026), Bucharest–Pescara and Băneasa–Wrocław (from the end of October 2026). It cancelled the Timișoara–Birmingham route before launch and stopped Craiova–Memmingen flights. Flyone cancelled 8 of its 11 routes to Bucharest.

How they book: last minute and on mobile

According to FIHR, the removal of land border checks within the Schengen area has encouraged spontaneous travel. More than 45% of bookings for urban destinations such as Bucharest, Brașov and Oradea are made less than 7 days before arrival, and more than 75% of nights are booked on mobile devices.

For you, this has three practical consequences. Your calendar must stay open and up to date until the last minute, and instant booking becomes an advantage. The first photo and the first lines of the description must persuade on a small screen; our guide to photos and descriptions explains how to build a listing that converts. And messages need quick replies, including when guests write from another time zone. The last-minute settings and automatic replies Airbnb launched in 2026 are explained in our guide to the Airbnb Summer Release.

8 practical adjustments for foreign guests

1. Write your listing in English rather than relying on machine translation alone. English is the common language for most foreign guests. If one market brings you steady bookings, for example Germany or Italy, add its language too, at least for the description and the house rules.
2. Explain the way from the airport and the station. More than half of foreigners staying in apartments arrive by plane and almost one in five by car. List the transport options, the approximate journey time and where guests can park.
3. Offer self check-in. With evening arrivals and delayed flights, late check-ins are common. A key box or smart lock, with clear instructions and photos, removes the wait and the midnight messages.
4. Leave room for last-minute bookings. If almost half of city bookings arrive less than a week ahead, do not block free dates and do not cut prices too early. Use the platform's last-minute settings and track demand day by day.
5. Prepare a local guide. Bars and restaurants account for 27.2% of the spending of foreigners staying in apartments. A few honest recommendations, grouped by budget, are worth more than a long list of sights guests can find online anyway.
6. Equip the apartment for work. A desk, a comfortable chair and fast Wi-Fi, with the speed stated in the listing, make you relevant to business travellers, especially in the Bucharest–Cluj-Napoca–Timișoara pole, where FIHR places most tourists from Germany and Italy.
7. Track the events that bring in foreigners. Festivals, concerts and conferences attract more and more young people from abroad. In KeyBid Puls you can see upcoming events in your area and adjust your rates in time.
8. Make compliance visible. Since 8 July 2026, Airbnb has required hosts in Romania to register their listings for classification under Order 948/2026. Display your classification certificate and mention it in your listing; the state of the procedure is explained in our article on SITUR.

What comes next: the incoming bonus and growing competition

On 14 September 2026, at the launch of the study "White Paper on Tourism in Romania 2026" (Carta Albă a Turismului din România 2026), interim Economy Minister Irineu Darău said Romanian tourism is too dependent on Romanian tourists and that funds should be found to bring back the incoming bonus, an incentive for bringing foreign tourists to the country, in 2027, within budget limits. "It is guaranteed that a foreign tourist brought to Romania leaves much, much more than a few tens of euros," the minister said, as quoted by Digi24. In July, the same minister had announced a doubling of the tourism promotion budget compared with the previous year. For context, according to the OECD, the budget for tourism promotion and destination development fell to 26.8 million lei in 2025, from 55 million lei in 2024.

Competition is growing too. According to the same minister, accommodation capacity has grown by more than 20%, 30% or even 60% in counties such as Maramureș, Alba, Cluj, Gorj and Ilfov, but "the number of rooms does not equal the number of tourists who occupy them". The study also shows how digital the market already is: more than 80% of the operators surveyed have their own website, 53% use artificial intelligence for promotion, guest communication or internal processes, and more than 90% say fiscal and legislative instability is a problem for them. In a market with ever more supply, hosts who know where their guests come from and what they want will have an edge. Our guide to data-driven marketing campaigns shows how to turn this data into targeted campaigns.

Common mistakes

• Building your calendar only around Romanian holidays. In the first months of the year, Italy and the United Kingdom climb the ranking; in summer, Germany and the US do. Adjust prices for these windows too; our cold-season pricing calendar is a good starting point.
• Machine-translating house rules and access instructions. A translation error in the door code or the parking rules means a failed check-in and, often, a bad review.
• Replying slowly because of time zones. A guest from the US often writes while you are asleep. Automatic replies to common questions and instructions sent in advance cut the wait.
• Promising experiences you cannot deliver. Foreigners looking for authenticity read the description carefully. An outdated photo or an exaggerated promise quickly comes back in reviews.
• Depending on a single market. Israel, the third-largest market in 2025 and absent from the 2026 top three, shows how quickly demand from one country can change.

Frequently asked questions

Which countries do most foreign tourists in Romania come from in 2026?

In January–July 2026, most foreign tourists registered in accommodation establishments came from Germany (145,800), Italy (123,400) and the US (101,300), according to INS. In the first months of the year, Italy was in first place and the United Kingdom third.

How long do foreign tourists stay in Romania on average?

In January–July 2026, the average stay was 2.1 days, the same as for Romanian tourists. In July, foreigners stayed 2 days on average and Romanians 2.5 days. FIHR notes, however, that Americans and Britons choose longer stays; for ideas on such stays, see our guide to off-season offers and long stays.

Is it worth translating my listing into German or Italian?

English is the baseline. A second language is worth adding if your booking history shows that one market brings you guests consistently, or if your city has direct flights from that country. Germany and Italy are the top two markets nationally, but the mix differs from city to city.

What is the incoming bonus and when will it return?

It is a state incentive for bringing foreign tourists to Romania. On 14 September 2026, the interim Economy Minister said he wants it reintroduced in 2027, within budget limits. Until there is an official decision, do not count on it in your calculations.