Short-term rentals in Poland have reached new records in popularity. Experts from RynekPierwotny.pl have analysed Eurostat data on the number of nights booked online.
As the summer holidays approach, property-related topics connected with tourism are gaining attention. One of them is short-term rental, especially as regulatory issues have recently been widely discussed. This time, however, experts from RynekPierwotny.pl focus not on the regulation of short-term rentals, but on the growing scale of the phenomenon. Eurostat data show that in 2025 Poland again recorded a record number of nights booked through popular online platforms, including Booking and Airbnb. Before looking more closely at these records, it is worth explaining where Eurostat obtains its short-term rental data.
What exactly does Eurostat count as overnight stays?
It is worth noting that cooperation between the EU statistical office and platforms offering short-term rental intermediation has been ongoing since spring 2020. At that time, an agreement was concluded under which four major platforms — Airbnb, Booking, Expedia and Tripadvisor — began providing data. Information for Poland goes back to the beginning of 2018, as shown in the chart. The four large platforms also provided historical data.
The chart shows the monthly number of nights in Poland booked through popular short-term rental platforms. It is important to note that this is a specific method of counting overnight stays. For example, if a family of three rents accommodation online for six days, Eurostat statistics will record this as 18 overnight stays.
Experts from RynekPierwotny.pl emphasise that Eurostat data on short-term rentals are still experimental and are published with a certain delay. The available information does not yet make it possible to distinguish between nights spent in different types of properties, such as apartments, holiday cottages or single-family homes. Eurostat does, however, state that the presented statistics on short-term rentals do not include hotels or campsites.
The chart shows seasonality and continued growth
Now that we know what the chart presents, it is worth looking at it more closely. This is especially true because the data for Poland reveal several interesting trends. One clearly visible feature is the seasonality of short-term rental nights, with a noticeable peak during the holiday months. As far as the summer results are concerned, it should be noted that August 2025 brought a new monthly record in Poland for the number of nights booked through online short-term rental platforms.
A record can also be seen on an annual basis, as the number of nights booked through online platforms changed as follows:
2018 — 15.59 million overnight stays, calculated as the number of guests multiplied by the number of nights spent
2019 — 19.69 million
2020 — 12.97 million
2021 — 15.03 million
2022 — 26.35 million
2023 — 32.74 million
2024 — 39.02 million
2025 — 44.39 million
According to experts from RynekPierwotny.pl, the chart clearly illustrates the brief pandemic slump and the subsequent growth trend. It is worth remembering that this growth is largely driven by domestic tourists. In 2024, their share in the number of short-term rental nights was 61%. A year later, it was also 61%.
Are some Polish regions already among the EU leaders?
The previously mentioned delays in the publication of short-term rental data mean that we still have to wait for detailed regional statistics for 2025 at the NUTS 3 level. However, the map with a broader level of detail, showing NUTS 2 regions, is also interesting. It presents data from August 2025, the month that proved to be a record one for Poland.
In the eighth month of 2025, three Polish voivodeships exceeded the threshold of one million nights booked through online short-term rental platforms, calculated as the number of guests multiplied by the number of nights spent. These were Małopolskie, with 1.57 million nights, Pomorskie, with 1.54 million, and Zachodniopomorskie, with 1.24 million. Results above one million nights placed these three Polish regions within the broader group of leading EU regions. However, it should be remembered that the statistical regions in the EU top ten recorded results ranging from around 3 million to 12 million nights.
The top three EU statistical regions in August 2025 were:
Adriatic Croatia — 12.16 million nights booked via online platforms
Andalusia — 7.97 million nights
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur — 7.59 million nights
As an interesting point, in terms of the annual number of nights booked through online platforms, Poland had already overtaken Croatia as a whole in 2024. In last year’s statistics, Poland ranked seventh in the EU, between Portugal and Croatia. However, as experts from RynekPierwotny.pl point out, the gap between Poland and the EU’s top three — France, Spain and Italy — remains very large.
