One in five foreign guests is German, in Prague four out of five guests are foreigners, and summer brings almost twice as many people as winter. What the ČSÚ (Czech Statistical Office) figures for 2025 and the first half of 2026 say — and what to do about it in your apartment.
Before I had my own numbers, I guessed. I thought my guests were mostly Germans and Brits, and I wrote my invitations only in English. It was only when I started counting guests by country that it turned out the third most common nationality was Polish, and that in January I had a completely different mix than in August.
Who comes to you and when decides three practical things: how many reports you send to the cizinecká policie (Foreign Police), what language your invitation and portal should be in, and when you can afford to raise prices. This article is based on public figures from the Czech Statistical Office. It's not Ubyo data — the app is still too young for that — but these are the best figures that exist today.
Where the figures come from (and what they don't measure)
ČSÚ tracks two things. The first is occupancy in collective accommodation establishments: hotels, guesthouses, campsites. An apartment on Airbnb isn't part of it. The second is newer and more interesting for us: since 2018, ČSÚ has been receiving data directly from Airbnb, Booking and Expedia on stays booked through the platforms. For 2025 that was 12.2 million overnight stays, over 70% of them by foreign guests, and half of all nights — 6.1 million — were in Prague.
ČSÚ publishes the breakdown of guests by country quarterly, though, not monthly. That's why I talk about seasons from here on; you can find the monthly tables directly at ČSÚ.
2025 in numbers
Collective accommodation establishments welcomed 23.6 million guests, who spent 59.1 million nights here. There were 12.6 million domestic guests and 10.9 million foreign ones. Foreign guests grew faster (+4.1% guests, +5.0% nights) than domestic ones (+2.5% guests, +2.0% nights). The length of stay for both groups is around 2.5 nights nationwide; in Prague a foreigner stays 2.5 nights, a Czech only 1.8.
Who comes: a ranking that doesn't change
Germany is always in first place — roughly 2.3 million guests over the whole year, one fifth of all foreigners. Slovakia and Poland take turns in second and third place, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
| Period | Germany | Slovakia | Poland | Next in the ranking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January–March 2025 | 453,000 | over 100,000 | over 100,000 | United Kingdom, Italy (both over 100,000) |
| April–June 2025 | 665,000 | 269,000 | 259,000 | — |
| July–September 2025 | 660,000 | 290,000 | 340,000 | USA 190,000 |
| October–December 2025 | 570,000 | over 150,000 | over 150,000 | United Kingdom (over 150,000) |
| April–June 2026 | 650,000 | 262,000 | 255,000 | USA roughly 500,000 nights |
Prague is a different country. In the third quarter of 2025, 2.25 million guests stayed there and 83% of them were foreigners. The ranking: Germany 267,000, United States 163,000, Poland 125,000, United Kingdom 119,000. Americans, fourth nationwide, are second in Prague. And one more Prague figure: in the winter quarter of 2025, the capital hosted 62% of all the Czech Republic's foreign guests, but only 17% of domestic ones.
Who's growing: in 2025 the biggest year-on-year increase came from guests from Israel; in Prague in the third quarter there were 16,000 more Poles, 12,000 more Turks and 7,000 more Israelis, while the number of Germans fell by 13,000. Almost 30,000 guests came from China in the first quarter of 2025, 39% more than a year earlier. Guests from Ukraine are growing too.
When they come: summer is almost double winter
| Period | Total guests | Total nights | of which nights by foreigners |
|---|---|---|---|
| January–March 2025 | 4.1 million | 10.5 million | 5.0 million |
| April–June 2026 | 6.4 million | 15.1 million | 7.1 million |
| July–September 2025 | 7.9 million | 21.2 million | 8.0 million |
| October–December 2025 | 5.2 million | 12.2 million | — |
The third quarter brings almost twice as many guests as the first. What's more interesting, though, is who drives that seasonality: Czechs. Domestic guests spent 13.2 million nights in summer, 41% of their annual total; foreigners 8.0 million, only 30%. Foreign demand is spread more evenly — and in Prague that shows the most: 2.2 million guests in spring 2026 versus 2.25 million in summer 2025 is practically the same number.
By nationality, a few patterns can be read from the figures:
- Germans come all year round, peaking from April to September. They're the only ones who never drop out of first place.
- Poles have summer: 340,000 in the third quarter versus 259,000 in the second, plus the mountains in winter.
- Slovaks come evenly, with no pronounced peak.
- Americans come in summer, and to Prague.
- Brits and Italians show up in the top five only in the winter and autumn quarters — Advent, New Year's Eve, city weekends.
Outside Prague, the Olomouc, Karlovy Vary, Zlín and Moravian-Silesian regions grew in the third quarter of 2025; in spring 2026, the Moravian-Silesian, Hradec Králové and Liberec regions. The Karlovy Vary region, on the other hand, fell by 4.3% in spring 2026.
2026: growth has stalled
The second quarter of 2026 brought only +0.5% arrivals and +0.3% nights year on year. Domestic guests are flat, foreign nights are up 0.7%, and there are 0.6% fewer Germans. Demand hasn't collapsed, but for the first time since COVID it isn't growing — while the supply of apartments is. For 2027, I wouldn't count on it “filling up somehow”.
What this means for your apartment
- In Prague, almost every booking means a report. Four out of five guests are foreigners, including Germans and Slovaks — all of them get reported, within 3 working days. Outside Prague it's the other way around: most guests are Czech, so your main records are the evidenční kniha (guest register) and the poplatek z pobytu (tourist tax).
- German and English cover two thirds of foreigners. Slovaks understand Czech, Poles appreciate a Polish translation of the invitation, and in winter Italian comes in handy. An invitation and guest portal in the guest's language aren't a courtesy, they're how you get the check-in completed before arrival.
- Guests from outside the EU are on the rise — Americans, Brits, Turks, Israelis, Chinese. That means a passport instead of an ID card, a visa number or biometric passport in the report, and a sanctions list check, which makes sense for these countries.
- Seasonal pricing, but not blindly. In Prague the difference between spring and summer is small; raising prices makes sense around events and weekends. Outside Prague, summer is a third of annual revenue and January to March is a weak period, unless you're in the mountains.
- Short stays mean lots of check-ins. With an average of 2.4 nights in Prague, a reasonably well-booked apartment has 10 to 12 arrivals a month. That's the point where copying ID documents by hand becomes impossible to keep up with.
In Ubyo, Analytics shows you your own version of these figures: occupancy by month, platform share, and guests by nationality from completed check-ins. Once there are enough apartments in the app, we'll publish an anonymous summary — with no link to specific apartments.
Sources: ČSÚ, Rapid Information: Tourism for Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 2025 and Q2 2026; Tourism in Prague in Q3 2025; Data from online accommodation platforms.
Marco, founder of Ubyo — He has been running apartments in Prague for over seven years and wrote Ubyo because he didn’t want to do any of this by hand.
For information only, not legal or tax advice — always discuss your specific situation with a professional. This article is a translation of the Czech original.
