In the 1st quarter of 2026, trips taken by residents in Portugal grew by 7.0% (following a 13.2% rise in the 4th quarter of 2025), totaling 5.6 million trips. This development reflects a slowdown in the growth of domestic trips (+3.4%; +12.8% in the 4th quarter of 2025), reaching 4.6 million trips (83.4% of all travel), and an acceleration in the growth of trips abroad (+30.0%; +15.7% in the 4th quarter of 2025) to 923.8 thousand trips (16.6% of the total).
The main purposes of travel in the 1st quarter of 2026 were “visit to relatives or friends”, which accounted for 2.4 million trips (43.7% of the total, +2.8 p.p. compared to the 1st quarter of 2025), and “leisure, recreation or holidays”, which made up 2.3 million resident trips (41.1%; +0.3 p.p. from the 1st quarter of 2025).
“Hotels and similar establishments” accounted for 30.3% of overnight stays (4.7 million) in residents’ tourist trips in the 1st quarter of 2026, but “free private accommodation” remained the most common type of lodging (58.6% of all overnight stays), with 9.0 million overnight stays spent in residents' trips.
In terms of trip planning, the internet was used in 29.2% of cases (+2.1 p.p.), with this option used in 71.8% of trips abroad (-4.4 p.p.) and 20.7% of domestic trips (+1.4 p.p.).
It should be noted that the monthly results of the quarter might have been influenced by the moving calendar, particularly the effects associated with the Carnival and Easter periods.
