Almost everyone we spoke to this summer said the same thing. The roads were emptier. August was full but not heaving. Something had changed, and nobody could quite say what.
So we stopped guessing and went to look at the official numbers instead. Airport traffic, hotel beds, overnight stays, employment records, vehicle permits.
The short answer is that the island really is quieter, and it is quieter on purpose. There are 2.000 fewer rental cars this year than last, because the law says so. Summer visitor numbers stopped growing three years ago. And while everyone argues about August, Ibiza has been quietly filling up its winter instead.
Here is what the data actually shows, and what it means if you own a home here or are thinking about buying one.
The season is stretching, and the peak is not
Start with the cleanest number available: passengers arriving at Ibiza airport, counted once per traveller, split into four parts of the year.
Arriving passengers at Eivissa airport. 2026 runs to July, so the last two panels compare 2019 with 2025.
January to April is up 23% since 2019. High summer is up 8%. The quiet months are growing roughly three times faster than the peak.
Look at July and August across the last three years: 1.433.674, then 1.444.438, then 1.459.636. That is under 2% of growth in three years. Summer has effectively stopped growing.
Meanwhile January to April 2026 hit 714.751, the highest on record, and it is still climbing. The low season is not just recovering. It is expanding.
People come more often and stay less long
Arrivals are only half the picture. The other half is how long people stay, and that has been falling steadily.
Nights booked in tourist accommodation and average length of stay. The bottom panel compares first halves only, so 2026 is like for like.
Between 2019 and 2025, visitors rose 13% but nights rose only 4%. Average stay fell from 5,83 nights to 5,40, a drop of 0,43 nights per visitor.
Total nights actually peaked in 2023 at 19,68 million and have fallen for two years since, even though 2025 set an arrivals record. Measured in bed nights, demand is flat to falling. Measured in people, it is rising.
First half 2026 is the first sign of that turning, with nights up 4,4% and average stay back to 4,98. Treat it carefully though. Easter fell in April in 2025 and across March and April in 2026, and Easter trips are short, so some of this is the calendar rather than a change in behaviour.
Who is coming, and who is not
Full calendar years. 2022 is the base because it was the first complete season after the pandemic.
The UK is still the biggest foreign market by a distance, at 936.304 arrivals, nearly double Italy. Italy is the strongest performer of the big five, up 20%. France is up 18% and on current trends passes the Netherlands within a couple of years.
Germany and the Netherlands both grew 5%, the slowest of the large markets. We would read that as maturity rather than weakness. These are established markets that found Ibiza long ago, not ones discovering it now.
Below them, Ireland is up 71% and Austria 63%. Switzerland, at 131.459 arrivals, is now a serious market for an island this size, and a wealthy one.
One caveat worth knowing: the data records the airport a flight departed from, not the passenger’s nationality. A German flying via Barcelona counts as Spain.
The island swapped cheap beds for good beds
Ibiza cannot build more tourist beds. The total has sat at roughly 77.700 since 2017 and is not moving. So the only way to grow was to improve what was already there.
| Hotel beds | 2017 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 stars | 5.659 | 3.635 | −36% |
| 3 stars | 18.897 | 13.809 | −27% |
| 4 stars | 7.812 | 13.120 | +68% |
| 4 stars superior | 413 | 2.240 | +442% |
| 5 stars | 3.354 | 4.649 | +39% |
| 5 stars G.L. | 381 | 1.223 | +221% |
| All beds | 78.113 | 77.697 | −0,5% |
Just under 10.000 beds moved up a tier. In 2017 a third of Ibiza’s hotel beds were four or five star. Today it is more than half.
Tourist apartments fell 12%. Agroturismos rose 35% and small rural inns 133%. Both ends of the market grew. The cheap middle shrank.
This is the single best explanation for why spending keeps rising while visitor numbers barely move. Daily spend went from 167 euros in 2019 to 222,80 in 2024, and total tourist spending on the island reached 3.970,8 million euros, up 31% on 2019.
Where that happened
Sant Antoni made the sharpest turn. Four and five star beds went from 1.335 to 3.714, up 178%. It is still the least upmarket municipality at 40%, but nowhere moved further.
Eivissa did the opposite. The town cut cheap beds hard, down 46%, rather than adding many premium ones. It now has the highest share on the island at 64%.
Santa Eulària and Sant Joan grew through agroturismo instead. Santa Eulària now has 19 of them, the most anywhere on Ibiza.
Jobs tell the same story
Tourism sector size against visitor arrivals. In 2020 arrivals collapsed 84% while the number of registered businesses went up, because companies stay on the register even when nobody is trading.
| Tourism jobs, Ibiza | 2017 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation | 8.589 | 11.741 | +37% |
| Food and drink | 10.360 | 11.022 | +6% |
| Transport | 2.824 | 4.017 | +42% |
| Other activities | 2.826 | 3.243 | +39% |
| Total | 24.099 | 30.023 | +25% |
Almost 6.000 more tourism jobs, servicing the same number of beds. Staff per bed in peak season rose 18%. That is what better service looks like in a spreadsheet.
One thing to understand about the food and drink line. A company is classified by its main activity, so waiters employed by a hotel to run its own restaurant are counted under accommodation. As hotels move upmarket they bring restaurants in house, so part of that flat line is jobs moving onto the hotel payroll rather than genuine decline.
The island is spreading out. Peak season tourism jobs since 2017: Sant Joan up 84%, Santa Eulària up 35%, Sant Antoni up 21%, Sant Josep up 20%, and Ibiza town up 2,7%. The capital’s share of island tourism employment fell from 43% to 37,5%. Winter jobs grew nearly 40% island wide, more than twice the summer rate.
Fewer cars, more taxis
Since 2025 the Consell caps how many vehicles can circulate between June and September. Rental cars dropped from 16.000 to 14.000 this year, and the total cap fell from 20.168 to 17.668. Demand far exceeds that: rental firms applied for 24.112 vehicles for the 2026 season and were allocated 14.000.
Campervans now need a campsite booking, and the island has around 200 pitches. Arrivals fell from 3.305 in 2024 to roughly 800 this season.
Taxi licences went the other way, to about 980, with Ibiza town approving 13 more fixed licences in August. Road traffic fell 4,2% in 2025, the first drop in a decade, and bus trips hit a record 7,42 million.
If you own something remote, this matters. Guests have fewer ways to reach you, and the rental firms are warning that outlying areas may see demand soften. Access is becoming part of a property’s value.
There is simply more to do now
A few years ago the island ran on a short list. The same handful of beach clubs, the same restaurants, the same parties. That list has broken open.
Jobs in sport, culture, boat charter and activities grew 39% since 2017, almost as fast as hotels and far faster than restaurants. The Balearics registered 621 recreational boats in the first seven months of 2026, up 16,5%, and lead Spain for charter registrations.
Restaurants are not emptying. They are simply no longer the only option. Better hotels have the pool, the DJ, the restaurant and the brand on site, so some guests stay in. Others spread across an island with far more worth leaving the hotel for than five years ago. Both are true at once.
What this means if you own or are buying
Supply is capped, so quality is the only lever
No new tourist beds, no new holiday rental licences, fewer rental cars. Where supply cannot grow, whatever already exists and is already licensed gets more valuable. A property with a valid tourist licence is not just a house. It is a permission that cannot be reissued.
The centre of gravity is moving north and east
Ibiza town is flat on summer employment while Santa Eulària, Sant Joan and Sant Antoni grow. If you are buying for the next ten years rather than the last ten, that is where to look.
Winter is becoming real
Low season arrivals up 23%, winter employment growing at twice the summer rate, taxi licences added specifically for year round demand. The case for a home you use all year rather than for twelve weeks is stronger than it has been.
Coming next
This edition looked at tourism. The next one turns to the property market itself: prices by municipality, transaction volumes, who is buying, financing and the tax picture for non resident owners. If there is something you would like us to dig into, tell us and we will put it in.
Get in touch if you would like to talk about any of this, or about a property on the island.
Sources and notes
Ibestat and INE for visitor arrivals, air traffic from Aena, Social Security affiliations, tourist accommodation from AETIB, and property transactions. Consell d’Eivissa for vehicle caps. Autoritat Portària de Balears for sea arrivals. IbizaPreservation Sustainability Observatory. Colegio de Registradores, Apibaleares, FEHIF, ANEN, FITIE and municipal taxi plans. Municipal boundaries from es-atlas and the Instituto Geográfico Nacional.
All figures are for the island of Ibiza only, excluding Formentera, unless stated. Accommodation data runs to 2024, the latest published. Airport data runs to July 2026. Figures for 2026 vehicle and campervan arrivals are estimates scaled from part year actuals and are marked as such. Country of origin means the airport a flight departed from, not the passenger’s nationality.
