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21.9 million overnight stays in 2025: Sardinia up 16%, Gallura holds 35% of all nights

Sardinia counted 5,170,093 arrivals and 21,922,765 overnight stays in 2025, up 16.4% and 16.0% on 2024, according to the tables published in August by the Regione Sardegna Osservatorio del Turismo (ROSS1000-SIRED data extracted on 18 June 2026, which may differ marginally from ISTAT's certified series because of late corrections). Foreign visitors supplied 12,170,692 nights, 55.5% of the total and up 21.5%, led by Germany (3,262,084), France (1,608,906) and Switzerland (1,042,919); Poland (+36.3%) and the United States (+33.3%) grew fastest among the larger markets. The Province of Gallura Nord-Est Sardegna registered 1,624,729 arrivals and 7,696,261 overnight stays (+15.5% and +11.5%), 35.1% of all nights on the island and more than Cagliari (5,170,269) or Sassari (3,297,115). Olbia logged 362,778 arrivals and 1,161,262 nights (+11.3% and +7.6%), third among Sardinian comuni after Alghero and Arzachena. Golfo Aranci was one of the fastest-growing comuni on the island: 59,380 arrivals and 333,123 nights, up 35.0% and 42.1%, with an average stay of 5.61 nights. Hotels added 8.0% to 11,015,596 nights, while extra-hotel accommodation rose 25.2% to 10,907,169, now 49.8% of the total; non-business private lets alone grew 37.3% to 4,460,195 nights. The season also widened: April was up 39.9% and September (3,485,434 nights) exceeded June. For visitors this means a longer bookable season in Gallura, more demand for apartments and villas, and busier shoulder months.

Source: Regione Sardegna — Osservatorio del Turismo

Four views of an AZULIS apartment: living room with sofa and TVs, dining area and kitchen, bedroom, and white facade with balconies

The Gallura comuni in detail

Alghero remains the island's most visited comune with 507,650 arrivals and 1,813,687 nights (+14.1%), followed by Arzachena (283,187 arrivals, 1,352,148 nights, +13.8%), Olbia (1,161,262 nights) and Cagliari (442,982 arrivals, 1,123,435 nights, +16.5%). Within Gallura, San Teodoro reached 1,002,013 nights (+12.1%), Budoni 924,377 (+19.0%), Palau 716,259 (+2.3%), Santa Teresa Gallura 579,346 (+39.4%), Golfo Aranci 333,123 (+42.1%) and La Maddalena 325,838 (−4.0%). Olbia's average stay of 3.20 nights is the shortest of the large Gallura destinations, consistent with its role as the airport and ferry gateway; Golfo Aranci (5.61 nights) and Budoni (6.68) are longer-stay resort markets.

Who came

Italians accounted for 2,278,680 arrivals and 9,752,073 nights (+10.2% and +9.7%); Lombardy alone supplied 2,319,790 nights, Sardinian residents 1,621,059 and Lazio 977,161. Among foreign markets, the United Kingdom (834,973 nights, +17.0%), Spain (518,981), the Netherlands (516,797, +23.2%) and Austria (421,262, +25.5%) followed the top three. The United States delivered 122,231 arrivals and 398,607 nights (+30.8% and +33.3%), a rise recorded before the first scheduled New York–Olbia flights began in May 2026.

Month by month

  • April: 769,094 nights (+39.9%)

  • May: 1,557,278 (+9.5%)

  • June: 3,429,104 (+21.8%)

  • July: 4,931,512 (+19.7%)

  • August: 5,456,409 (+16.6%)

  • September: 3,485,434 (+11.7%)

  • October: 1,416,009 (+1.0%)

June to September carried 17.3 million of the 21.9 million nights; the April jump and a September larger than June are the clearest signs of a lengthening season.

Where people stayed

The companion report on accommodation capacity counts 52,147 registered structures and 459,983 beds in Sardinia at the end of 2025: 1,076 hotels with 116,171 beds, 5,047 complementary structures (campsites, holiday villages, agriturismi, residences) and 46,024 private lodgings with 215,625 beds, 46.9% of all beds on the island. Gallura holds 17,906 structures and 176,732 beds, 38% of the Sardinian total, of which 15,926 are private lodgings. Non-business private lets grew from 32,263 registered units in 2024 to 43,952 in 2025 (+36.2%), partly reflecting the national CIN registration obligation that brought previously unregistered homes into the statistics.

A note on the numbers

These are the Region's Osservatorio tables, drawn from the ROSS1000-SIRED reporting system on 18 June 2026; they can differ marginally from the ISTAT-certified series because late corrections keep flowing into the regional archive. Coverage is uneven: 86.5% of hotels reported, but only 43.8% of private lodgings island-wide and 31.8% in Gallura, so nights in private lets, especially around Olbia, are under-recorded and the true extra-hotel share is likely higher than 49.8%.

Sources: Regione Sardegna, Osservatorio del Turismo — Movimento turistico 2025 · Capacità ricettiva 2025 · Osservatorio report index · ANSA, ISTAT certification (23 July 2026) · RENTAL12 Olbia rental statistics (monthly)

Related reading

Elsewhere on Sardinia Blog: how the 2026 season tracked to August, with foreign nights up and Italian nights down; Sardinia second in Italy for summer 2026 occupancy; and the 319,000 island homes with no permanent resident. Also: the Eurostat platform-booked nights for the first quarter of 2026. And in Gallura, the developer's retreat at Cala Finanza.

Sardinia Blog is published within the Rental12 ecosystem, an owner-operator letting homes it owns in Olbia and Golfo Aranci rather than a property manager acting for other owners. Its own reading of the 2025 record season and its press archive are company statements, not independent evidence.