Germany's online vacation rental bookings hit record 68.3 million overnight stays in 2025, driven by domestic demand

Record total of 68.3 million overnight stays

The three major online platforms Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia together mediated 68.3 million overnight stays in German holiday homes and apartments during 2025. The Federal Statistical Office reported the figure on Tuesday, citing data from EU statistics agency Eurostat. That marks an increase of 13.0 percent compared with 2024, and a leap of 83.4 percent above the pre-pandemic level of 2019. The record came despite TripAdvisor no longer being included in the platform data after it withdrew from the short-term accommodation booking market. The numbers therefore understate the full platform-mediated market but still set a fresh high-water mark for digital short-term rentals.

Domestic demand leads the surge

Guests from within Germany booked 48.5 million of the total overnight stays, a rise of 15.3 percent from the year before. The domestic tally has more than doubled since 2019, confirming that the post-pandemic appetite for holiday rentals inside Germany has held and even accelerated. Foreign visitors accounted for 19.8 million stays, an increase of 7.8 percent on 2024. The domestic segment thus grew roughly twice as fast as the international segment, pushing the domestic share to around 71 percent of all platform bookings.

International guests and the Berlin magnet

The largest groups of international guests came from the Netherlands, Poland and the United States. Dutch travellers generated 2.9 million overnight stays, Poles 2.1 million and Americans 1.3 million. France and Switzerland also ranked among the top source countries. Berlin stood out as the epicentre of foreign demand: 67.7 percent of overnight stays in the capital were booked by visitors from abroad. No other federal state came close to that proportion.

Small properties dominate the platform market

Around 94 percent of the nights booked through the three portals were spent in accommodation units with fewer than ten beds. These micro-units are not captured by Germany's official monthly tourism statistics, which cover only establishments with at least ten beds. The platform data therefore provide a broader and more complete picture of the country's short-term rental market, filling a gap left by traditional hotel-focused surveys. The statisticians regard the platform figures as an important complement to the official accommodation numbers.

Regional contrasts in guest origin

Bavaria remained the most booked federal state, with 10.6 million overnight stays, followed by Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia at 8.1 million each. Travel patterns, however, differed sharply across the country. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein roughly 90 percent of guests came from within Germany. The city-states and western states attracted a far more international clientele. Besides Berlin's 67.7 percent foreign share, North Rhine-Westphalia recorded 42.3 percent and Baden-Württemberg 40.8 percent, both well above the national average.