Average Hotel Occupancy Rate (2026 Data)

On an average night in 2025, American hotels sold 62.3%¹ of their rooms. The other four in ten stayed dark, and that share decides much of what a guest pays and how easy a last-minute booking is. The figure looks steady, yet it fell to 44.0%² in 2020, sits far higher in a handful of cities such as New York, and swings wildly with the calendar: in August 2025 Croatia's hotels filled 98.2%³ of their beds, in January barely a fifth.

This page sets out the occupancy numbers that matter for planning a trip or judging a hotel market: the US rate since 2009, the busy and quiet months, the fullest cities, how luxury hotels compare with budget ones, and where the United States stands against Europe, Japan, Singapore and Dubai. Along the way it shows how occupancy, the average daily rate and revenue per available room fit together, with a worked example from real data.

What the average hotel occupancy rate means

Occupancy is a simple ratio: rooms sold divided by rooms available over the same nights. A hotel with 200 rooms that sells 150 of them tonight runs at 75%. Over a year the industry adds up every room night on offer and every room night sold. The US average of 62.3%¹ in 2025 therefore means that for every 1,000 room nights hotels could sell, 623 found a paying guest.

The average room rate formula in a hotel

Occupancy is one of three linked measures. The average daily rate (ADR) is room revenue divided by the room nights actually sold. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) is the same revenue divided by every room night on offer, sold or not, which makes it equal to ADR multiplied by occupancy. The table works through Hawaii's final 2025 hotel figures.

Hawaii's hotels sold 73.82%⁴ of the room nights they had on offer in 2025, so about 74 of every 100 rooms found a guest on an average night. Room revenue divided by those rooms sold gives an ADR of $366.46⁴; the same revenue spread over every room available, sold or not, gives a RevPAR of $270.51⁴, which is $366.46 multiplied by 0.7382.

The same three measures describe the whole US market. For the country as a whole, the hotel average daily rate was $160.54¹ in 2025, and the hotel average revenue per room available was $100.02¹. Multiply the first by the 62.3% occupancy and you get the second. Both are measured before taxes and fees.

The question of what a room costs, with taxes, by brand and by city, is covered on our hotel cost page; here the focus stays on how full hotels are.

Hotel occupancy rates by year

The long run tells a story of a slow climb, a collapse and an incomplete recovery. After the 2008-2009 recession, US occupancy stood at 55.1%⁵ for 2009. Demand then grew faster than new hotels were built, and by 2018 occupancy had reached 66.2%⁶, the highest the industry had recorded.⁶ That is 11.1 points above 2009.

The climb had a simple cause: guests arrived faster than new rooms opened. In 2011 demand grew 5%¹⁰ while supply grew 0.6%¹⁰; in 2012 room nights sold rose 3.0%¹¹ against supply growth of 0.5%¹¹. By 2017 the building boom had caught up, with supply up 1.8%¹⁶, the most since 2009, and demand up 2.7%¹⁶. In 2019 the two grew at the same 2.0%¹⁷, and occupancy stopped rising.

Then came 2020. Occupancy fell to 44.0%² for the year, and for the first time more than a billion room nights went unsold.² The drop from 2019 was 22.1 points. Recovery was quick at first: 57.6%¹⁸ in 2021, 62.7%¹⁹ in 2022 and 63.0%⁷ in 2023, the highest level since the pandemic.⁷ It then stalled. The rate held at 63.0%⁸ in 2024 and slipped to 62.3% in 2025, the first full-year decline since 2020.¹ So the answer to whether hotels are as full as before the pandemic is no: 2025 ran 3.8 points below 2019.

The straight-line projection on the chart is our calculation from the 2009-2025 series, not a forecast; the 2020 collapse widens its range, and the post-2022 plateau suggests the earlier climb is not simply resuming.

Revenue per room and the average rate since 2009

Prices told a different story from occupancy. Hotels came out of the pandemic with fewer guests but higher rates, so revenue per available room reached a record in current dollars (not adjusted for inflation) even while rooms stayed emptier than in 2019. Adjusted for consumer prices, which rose 25.9% between 2019 and 2025,²⁰ the 2019 RevPAR of $86.76¹⁷ equals about $109.26 in 2025 dollars, so in real terms 2025's $100.02 was still below 2019.

Between 2009 and 2025 RevPAR grew 1.86 times in current dollars, from $53.71⁵ to $100.02, while the average rate rose 1.65 times, from $97.51⁵ to $160.54. In 2025 the average rate still edged up while occupancy fell, which left RevPAR almost flat.¹

Fewer hotel jobs than before the pandemic

No official dataset gives hotel occupancy for every state, but hotel employment shows the same unfinished recovery. Hotels and motels, excluding casino hotels, counted 1,548,238²¹ jobs in 2025, 6.7%²¹ fewer than in 2019, or 111,545 jobs. Most states are still below their 2019 level; Texas, Florida and four Mountain West states are above it.

Hotel occupancy rates by month

The calendar moves occupancy more than any year-to-year trend. In the United States, January was the lowest of the months collected: hotels sold 52.5%²² of their rooms in January 2025. Demand builds through spring, peaks with summer travel at 68.5%²³ in June and 68.2%²⁴ in July, and fades again in November to 57.9%²⁵. The spread between the best and the worst of the 11 months collected for 2025 was 16.0 points.

US occupancy also slipped below the previous year in most months of 2025: the October release marked the eighth monthly decline in a row.³² Autumn holds up well: October, at 65.8%³², ran ahead of every spring month.

Europe: a far sharper summer peak

European hotels live by a steeper cycle. Across the EU, bed-place occupancy ran from 32.38%³ in January 2024 to 64.32%³ in August, roughly doubling within seven months.

Beach and ski destinations stretch the cycle to extremes. Croatia's hotels were virtually full in August 2025, at 98.2%³ of bed-places, after 21.9%³ in January, a gap of 76.3 points. Greece ran from 12.7%³ in January to 81.2%³ in August. Austria shows the opposite shape, with two peaks: ski season pushed February to 77.9%³ and April dropped to 31.9%³.

Germany, with city and business hotels, had the flattest curve of the four.

England, Spain and Japan

Monthly occupancy follows the same shape in England but at a higher level, partly because the English figures count rooms and come from a panel covering about a third of the market. In 2025, English hotels sold 66%³³ of rooms in January and 86%³³ in July, 20 points apart, and the year as a whole averaged 79%³³, the same as 2024. Weekends run ahead of weekdays in England too: in December 2025, Friday and Saturday nights reached 78%³³ against 72%³³ from Sunday to Thursday.

Spanish hotels, by contrast, sell more than half their rooms even in winter. Room occupancy ran from 56.75%³⁴ in January 2025 to 79.43%³⁴ in August, a 22.68-point swing.

Japan's year peaks in autumn rather than summer. Across all lodging types, room occupancy rose from 54.6%³⁵ in January 2025 to 66.6%³⁵ in October, and business hotels sold 81.4%³⁵ of their rooms that month.

Hotel occupancy rates by city

Big gateway cities run far fuller than the national average. In 2025 New York City led the major US markets with 84.1%¹ occupancy, 21.8 points above the US rate.¹ Las Vegas, Miami, the Hawaiian Islands and Boston completed the top five, all at 72.5%³⁶ or more.

Houston had the steepest drop among the 25 largest markets, down 8.6% to 58.9%¹, while St. Louis posted the largest gain, up 6.5% to 61.7%¹. Monthly peaks run higher still: New York's hotels sold 89.4%³² of their rooms in October 2025 and 88.5%²³ in June.

The leader has changed with the recovery. Tampa topped the 25 largest markets with 68.4%¹⁸ in 2021, a year when none of them had regained its 2019 occupancy, and O'ahu led with 75.4%¹⁹ in 2022, before New York took the lead. At the bottom, Minneapolis/St. Paul sank to 33.3%² in 2020, and in 2024 St. Louis (58.1%⁸), Minneapolis (58.7%⁸) and Detroit (59.1%⁸) had the lowest rates of the group.⁸

Las Vegas: weekends nearly full

In Las Vegas the day of the week matters a great deal. In 2025 the city's hotels averaged 80.3%³⁷ occupancy, but weekends ran at 88.8%³⁷ and midweek nights at 76.6%³⁷, a gap of 12.2 points. April weekends reached 93.8%³⁷, while July midweek nights fell to 70.9%³⁷. The 80.3% is not comparable with the 74.6% benchmark figure above: the two count different samples of hotels.

Location within the city matters as much as the day. The Strip averaged 83.2%³⁷ in 2025 and Downtown 67.5%³⁷, 15.7 points lower, and the citywide rate was 3.3 points below 2024.³⁷

Beach destinations

Among fifteen sun-and-sea destinations, Hawaii's islands among them, O'ahu was the fullest in 2025 at 78.5%⁴, ahead of Kaua'i and Fiji. Cabo San Lucas came last at 54.3%³⁶, and Maui County sold 64.4%⁴ of its rooms, 2.9 points more than in 2024.

Europe's fullest regions

Of 294 European regions with data, the Balearic Islands had the highest hotel bed-place occupancy in 2025 at 79.82%³⁸, followed by Cyprus and the Canary Islands. Capital regions such as Paris, Madrid, Prague and Lisbon also make the top 20. Crete ranked 34th at 54.9%³⁸ for the year as a whole; its summer months run far higher, as the Greek national pattern above shows.

Japan by prefecture

In Japan the big cities lead. Osaka's lodging sold 78.6%³⁵ of rooms in 2025 and Tokyo's 76.3%³⁵, while Nagano, in the mountains, was the lowest at 39.0%³⁵.

Occupancy by hotel class and size

In Hawaii, luxury hotels run emptiest. In 2025 upper upscale hotels sold 77.0%³⁶ of their rooms and midscale and economy hotels 77.5%³⁶, while luxury hotels sold 66.1%³⁶, although that was 5.2 points more than in 2024.

On O'ahu, the state's biggest hotel market, the spread is wider still: upper upscale hotels sold 81.6%³⁶ of their rooms in 2025 and luxury hotels 59.4%³⁶, 22.2 points less.

In Spain, four-star hotels sold 77.1%³⁴ of their rooms in 2025 on our room-weighted average of the monthly figures, more than five-star hotels at 69.4%³⁴, and the lowest categories trailed: one-silver-star hostels sold 44.5%³⁴, 32.6 points less.

In Japan the gap between lodging types is wide. City hotels sold 74.1%³⁵ of their rooms in 2025 and business hotels 75.3%³⁵, while ryokan, the traditional inns, sold 38.2%³⁵: 35.9 points less than city hotels. City hotels have not caught up with their pre-pandemic level of 79.5%³⁵ in 2019, while business hotels nearly have.

Across all of Japan's lodging, from city hotels to inns and hostels, room occupancy climbed from 51.8%³⁵ in 2011 to 62.7%³⁵ in 2019, collapsed to 34.3%³⁵ in 2020 and 2021, and was back to 61.6%³⁵ by 2025, 1.1 points short of the pre-pandemic level.

Size matters too. Across the EU, hotels with 250 rooms or more filled 60.34%³⁹ of their beds in 2025, against 36.24%³⁹ in hotels with fewer than 25 rooms, a 24.1-point gap.

England's December figures by hotel size show the same pattern: hotels with more than 300 rooms sold 79%³³ of rooms in December 2025, those with up to 100 rooms 68%³³.

How US hotel occupancy compares with the world

Two caveats help when reading any occupancy figure. First, some countries count beds, not rooms. A double room sold to one traveler is a full room but a half-empty pair of beds, so bed-place occupancy usually runs lower: European hotels sold 60.3%³⁹ of their rooms in 2025 but filled only 49.87%³⁹ of their beds. Where extra beds and family rooms are well used it can run higher, as in Cyprus (78.0%³⁹ of beds against 71.5%³⁹ of rooms) and Croatia.

Second, a benchmark sample and an official survey of a city's hotels can give different answers for the same place, because they count different hotels.

Across Europe, hotels filled 49.87%³⁹ of their beds in 2025, back at the 2019 level after the pandemic. Island states lead: Cyprus at 78.0%³⁹ and Malta at 67.3%³⁹, with Spain third. Several central and eastern European countries sit below 40%.

The gap between beds and rooms varies by country. Ireland's hotels sold 77.0%³⁹ of their rooms in 2025 but filled only 58.0%³⁹ of their beds; German hotels sold 60.38%³⁹ of rooms and filled 43.08%³⁹ of beds. Counted by rooms, as in the United States, EU hotels sold 60.3% in 2025, close to the US 62.3%. The measure fell to 37.26%³⁹ in 2020 and passed its 2019 level of 60.11%³⁹ in 2025.

Asia's hub cities run much fuller. Singapore's hotels averaged 82.0%⁴⁰ occupancy in 2025, 4.9 points below their 2019 level of 86.9%⁴⁰ but far above most of Europe and the United States. The city managed this while its count of gazetted hotels grew from 100⁴⁰ in 2008 to 285⁴⁰ in 2025, and its occupancy has not dropped below 80.5%⁴⁰ in any year since 2023.

Dubai, which has added rooms fast, still fills them. Its hotels averaged 80.7%⁴¹ occupancy in 2025, 18.4 points above the US rate, and sold 44.85 million⁴¹ room nights, 1.4 times the 2019 total of 32.11 million⁴².

Dubai's occupancy dipped to 72.9%⁴² in 2022 and has risen every year since, even as the city's room count grew to 154,264⁴¹ by the end of 2025. Putting the room-based figures for 2025 side by side gives a rough world league table.

Read side by side, the United States sits near the bottom of these room-based figures, level with Japan's all-lodging rate of 61.6%³⁵ and the EU, while Singapore, Dubai and Las Vegas run around 80%. The US total covers hotels of every kind across the whole country, while the high scorers are single city markets.

The average length of a hotel stay

How long guests stay shapes occupancy too, because every check-out leaves a room to resell. The typical stay in an EU hotel was 2.43 nights⁴⁴ in 2025, and it has been shrinking slowly from 2.55 nights⁴⁴ in 2012. Holiday islands keep guests longest: Cyprus at 4.73 nights⁴⁴ and Malta at 4.4 nights⁴⁴, against 1.66 nights⁴⁴ in Sweden and Norway at the other end of the scale. Dubai's guests stayed 3.7 nights⁴¹ on average in 2025.

Among the big markets, Spain's hotel guests stayed 3.09 nights⁴⁴ and Italy's 2.92 nights⁴⁴, while Germany (2.03 nights⁴⁴) and France (1.77 nights⁴⁴) are dominated by short stays. The EU-wide average has drifted down for more than a decade, with a dip to 2.41 nights⁴⁴ in 2020.

What occupancy means for travelers

For a traveler the occupancy rate is a rough guide to bargaining power. The national average of about six rooms sold in ten leaves four in ten empty on an average night. The picture flips in the places people most want to go. New York's hotels were 84.1%¹ full across 2025 and reached 89.4%³² in October; Las Vegas weekends ran at 88.8%³⁷; Croatia's hotels were all but full in August.

In those markets and on those dates, spare rooms are scarce.

Occupancy and price do not always move together: in 2025 US occupancy fell while the average rate still rose. Empty rooms are most plentiful in low season and midweek: January in the United States (52.5%²²), January in Greece (12.7%³ of beds) or a July midweek night in Las Vegas (70.9%³⁷).

The table below gathers the busiest and quietest months from the series on this page.

The pattern repeats: the quietest month is January in six of the seven places, and the gap to the peak is widest on beach coasts: Croatia moves by 76.3 points over the year, against 8.5 in Las Vegas. For a traveler with flexible dates, that gap matters more than the choice between two similar destinations.

Finally, the length of a stay matters to the hotel as much as to the guest. Shorter stays mean more check-ins and more cleaning per night sold, and the slow drift toward shorter European hotel stays means hotels must win more guests just to stay as full.

Conclusions

1. US hotels are emptier than before the pandemic and earn less per room in real terms. Occupancy of 62.3% in 2025 was 3.8 points below 2019. Revenue per available room reached $100.02, the highest in the series in current dollars,¹ but below the $109.26 that 2019's level is worth after inflation.
2. The national average hides two different hotel businesses. Gateway and leisure markets run at 72.5% to 84.1% (New York, Las Vegas, Miami, Hawaii, Boston), well above the 62.3% national total; a similar split shows in Japan between city hotels (74.1%) and ryokan (38.2%).
3. In seasonal places, timing beats place. Croatia's 76.3-point swing between August and January is larger than the 43.88-point gap between Europe's fullest and emptiest countries over the year (78.0% vs 34.12%).
4. Luxury is not the fullest end of the market. Four-star hotels in Spain (77.1%) beat five-star (69.4%); in Hawaii, upper upscale (77.0%) and midscale and economy hotels (77.5%) ran fuller than luxury (66.1%); and large hotels fill more beds than small ones (60.34% vs 36.24% in the EU).
5. Stays are getting shorter, so hotels need more guests to stand still. The average EU hotel stay fell from 2.55 to 2.43 nights between 2012 and 2025, while room occupancy recovered to 60.3%: more arrivals now fill the same share of rooms.