First by arrivals, 4 by earnings — the single most useful fact on this page. Spain earns 105 bn € (2025) on fewer visitors. Any claim that France is the world's leading tourism country has to say leading by what. Ahead of France by earnings, 2024, as the source publishes them in dollars: United States 214 bn $; Spain 107 bn $; United Kingdom 83 bn $; France 77 bn $. Source: UN Tourism.
The country in figures
| What is counted | Value | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| visitors including same-day; metropolitan France | 102.0 m | 2025 | DGE, bilan touristique |
| arrivals with an overnight stay, same-day excluded | 102.0 m | 2024 | UN Tourism, ITH 2025 |
| balance-of-payments travel credits | 77.5 bn € | 2025 | Banque de France via DGE |
| residents' spending abroad, same balance-of-payments item | 57.4 bn € | 2025 | Banque de France |
| net balance of the travel item | 20.0 bn € | 2025 | Banque de France, годовой отчёт |
| average spend per stay, national | 760 € | 2025 | DGE |
| internal tourism consumption: spending by tourists and same-day visitors, resident and non-resident | 211.0 bn € | 2023 | INSEE, compte satellite du tourisme |
| direct tourism GDP: value added plus taxes on products | 108.7 bn € 3.8% of GDP | 2023 | INSEE Focus 369 |
| nights by international visitors, all accommodation | 743.0 m | 2025 | DGE |
| nights by residents inside the country, all accommodation | 835.0 m | 2025 | DGE |
| nights by residents abroad | 248.0 m | 2025 | INSEE / Atout France |
| salaried jobs in tourism industries | 1.5 m 7.5% of total employment | 2023 | INSEE |
Source markets by spending
| Market | Spending in France (2024, m €) | Hotel nights (2025, m) | Hotels and campsites (2025, m) | Arrivals 2018 (m) | Nights per trip 2018 | Derived: € per hotel night | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belgium | 9,706 | 5.5 | 11.1 | 11.6 | 6.2 | — | |
| United Kingdom | 7,898 | 10.2 | 15.5 | 13.0 | 6.5 | — | |
| Germany | 7,487 | 7.9 | 20.3 | 12.3 | 6.6 | — | |
| Switzerland | 7,197 | 4.3 | 6.8 | 6.8 | 5.5 | — | |
| United States | 6,932 | 12.0 | 12.0 | 4.5 | 7.7 | 578 € | |
| Spain | 4,823 | 5.2 | 7.3 | 6.7 | 5.0 | — | |
| Italy | 3,783 | 5.3 | 6.3 | 7.0 | 6.0 | — | |
| Netherlands | 2,755 | 4.1 | 17.8 | 4.7 | 6.9 | — | |
| Canada | 1,441 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 9.9 | 848 € | |
| China | 1,393 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 2.2 | 5.4 | 819 € | |
| Brazil | 1,275 | 1.4 | — | 1.1 | 7.7 | 911 € | |
| Australia | 910 | 1.1 | — | — | 7.4 | 827 € | nights for 2024 from Eurostat rather than an INSEE publication: the national tables keep Australia inside a group |
| Luxembourg | 688 | — | — | — | — | — | arrivals are published together with Belgium; no separate row |
| Japan | 682 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 6.5 | 682 € | |
| Mexico | 595 | — | — | — | — | — | spending only; nights sit inside the «Americas» group |
| South Korea | 358 | 0.6 | — | — | — | 597 € | nights for 2024 in Eurostat only; French tables carry no separate row for Korea |
| India | 246 | — | — | 0.6 | 6.6 | — | nights are not published separately: India sits inside «other Asian countries» |
| Russia | — | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 8.4 | — | spending not published: the series shows zero, which is suppression, not an absence of spending |
Three columns, three different years, and they are not interchangeable. Spending is balance-of-payments travel credits by counterpart country for 2024 — it includes same-day visitors, business travel and cross-border workers' consumption, and excludes international transport paid to foreign carriers. Nights are 2025, hotels only or hotels with campsites, by the guest's country of residence. Arrivals are 2018 — France has published no country-of-residence arrivals table since: the 2018 survey is the last one, and the 2024 and 2025 headline totals were released without any country split at all. The named markets here account for 82% of national receipts.
The last column is OURS, not a statistic: spending for 2024 divided by hotel nights for 2025. No publisher stands behind it, the numerator and denominator have different perimeters and different years, and it exists only to separate volume markets from value markets. It is left empty for the nine neighbouring countries on purpose — Banque de France рассчитывает однодневных посетителей по девяти соседним странам, а потребление приграничных работников — по четырём, so for them most of the spending has no hotel night attached to it, and the ratio would read as wealth when it is really proximity. Spending per arrival is not here at all: the arrivals column is 2018, and dividing across six years would manufacture a plausible number with no meaning.
Markets the sources do not publish separately
| Group | Hotels and campsites | Change | Year | Who is inside |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other Asian countries | 4.3 m | — | 2024 | India, South-East Asian countries and others |
| Near and Middle East | 2.7 m | +30.8% | 2025 | Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Israel and neighbours |
| Scandinavia | 1.8 m | +6.3% | 2025 | Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland |
| Oceania | 1.1 m | — | 2018 | Australia and New Zealand |
Presence counts every property in the register operated by the group, Palace and five-star alike; the brands column lists marques, not properties.