International rail tourism sits between two measurable trends: strong travel demand and cross-border train use. In 2023, EU residents made 1.14 billion tourism trips with at least one overnight stay, while Eurostat recorded international rail activity across European reporting networks in 2024. These datasets measure different things, so the tourism figures provide context rather than a rail-mode total.
Contents
- Tourism demand and trip patterns
- International rail passenger-kilometres
- Largest rail markets by distance
- Other European passenger-kilometre markets
- International rail passenger volumes
- Smaller markets and country detail
Tourism demand and trip patterns
Eurostat reported that EU residents made 1.14 billion tourism trips with at least one overnight stay in 2023. The total was 5.7% higher than in 2022. These trips include all transport modes, including journeys that were not made by rail. Eurostat, “Europeans made 6% more tourism trips in 2023” provides the tourism context.
Domestic travel made up 73% of the 1.14 billion trips. The remaining share was international travel, but the source does not identify how many of those trips used trains. Short breaks were also prominent: trips lasting one to three overnight stays represented 56.5% of EU residents’ tourism trips.
Spending rose alongside trip volume. EU residents’ tourism expenditure reached an estimated €553 billion in 2023, 16.5% above 2022. Average spending was €97.6 per night on tourism trips with at least one overnight stay. The expenditure total is an estimate, while the trip shares and counts describe the reported 2023 tourism observation.
The United Kingdom provides another view of international demand. According to the UK Office for National Statistics’ Travel trends: 2023, overseas residents made 38.0 million visits to the UK in 2023. UK residents made 86.2 million visits abroad, including 55.5 million holiday trips abroad.
Europe was the main destination region for UK residents. It accounted for 66.7 million visits, or 77% of all overseas visits by UK residents, in 2023. UK residents spent £72.4 billion on visits abroad. Like the EU figures, these ONS measures describe international tourism broadly and do not isolate rail travel.
International rail passenger-kilometres
Passenger-kilometres combine the number of travellers with the distance travelled. Eurostat’s rail data reports international transport by the reporting country’s rail network. As a result, the international passenger-kilometres below cover only the distance inside that national territory. Passenger counts are trips as defined by Eurostat, not necessarily unique people.
The rail API reports passenger-kilometres in millions. The values in the following sections are the 2024 observations available in Eurostat’s Passenger transport by type of transport table. The source is official Eurostat data and may be revised.
Largest rail markets by distance
France recorded 8,401 million international rail passenger-kilometres in 2024, the highest figure in this set. Germany recorded 7,098 million. The two national networks therefore stand apart from the next group in the supplied data.
Switzerland recorded 1,249 million international rail passenger-kilometres, while Czechia recorded 1,839 million. The Netherlands recorded 982 million. These figures describe international distance on each reporting network, not the complete door-to-door distance of an international journey.
The remaining larger-market observations were below 1,000 million passenger-kilometres. Poland recorded 797 million, Italy 620 million, and Spain 466 million in 2024. Together, these measures show that international rail activity varied substantially even among established European rail markets.
| Reporting country | International rail passenger-kilometres, 2024 (million) |
|---|---|
| France | 8,401 |
| Germany | 7,098 |
| Czechia | 1,839 |
| Switzerland | 1,249 |
| Netherlands | 982 |
| Poland | 797 |
| Italy | 620 |
| Spain | 466 |
The comparison is useful for scale, but it should not be read as a ranking of international tourism destinations. Rail-network geography, border connections, route length within the reporting country, and the statistical definition of international transport all affect the passenger-kilometre result.
Other European passenger-kilometre markets
Several countries recorded international rail passenger-kilometre totals in the hundreds of millions. Sweden recorded 737 million in 2024, and Austria recorded 665 million. Denmark recorded 387 million, while Luxembourg recorded 203 million.
Ireland recorded 113 million international rail passenger-kilometres. The figures were lower in Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Croatia: Bulgaria recorded 30 million, Slovenia 44 million, and Croatia 25 million.
The country figures are best used as network-level indicators. A lower value does not by itself mean that fewer international visitors entered a country, because tourism arrivals and rail passenger-kilometres measure different populations and activities. Nor does a higher value establish that rail was the main mode used by international tourists.
Hungary recorded 558 million international rail passenger-kilometres in 2024. That places its reported network activity between the largest markets and the smaller observations in this dataset. Portugal recorded 17 million, Romania 83 million, and Norway 47 million.
Taken together, these observations show a wide spread across European reporting networks, from 17 million passenger-kilometres in Portugal to 737 million in Sweden within this group. The distance measure remains national-territory based, so cross-border routes are not represented by a single complete journey distance.
International rail passenger volumes
Passenger volume counts trips rather than distance. In Eurostat’s 2024 rail table, France recorded 30,329 thousand international rail passengers, equivalent to 30.329 million trips under the table’s unit. Germany recorded 23,198 thousand, or 23.198 million.
Austria recorded 13,624 thousand international rail passengers, Switzerland 12,262 thousand, and Sweden 16,036 thousand. Denmark recorded 17,353 thousand, while Luxembourg recorded 9,470 thousand. Czechia recorded 8,743 thousand.
These counts do not have the same meaning as the tourism totals in the earlier section. The 1.14 billion EU figure covers tourism trips with at least one overnight stay by EU residents and includes all modes. The rail figures count international rail passenger trips reported on national networks.
The passenger-volume observations can be compared directly within the rail table:
| Reporting country | International rail passengers, 2024 (thousand) |
|---|---|
| France | 30,329 |
| Germany | 23,198 |
| Denmark | 17,353 |
| Sweden | 16,036 |
| Austria | 13,624 |
| Switzerland | 12,262 |
| Netherlands | 10,931 |
| Luxembourg | 9,470 |
| Czechia | 8,743 |
The Netherlands recorded 10,931 thousand international rail passengers in 2024. Italy recorded 4,046 thousand, Poland 3,843 thousand, and Slovakia 4,847 thousand. Spain recorded 1,333 thousand. Bulgaria recorded 1,789 thousand, Ireland 665 thousand, and Türkiye 673 thousand.
Comparing passenger counts with passenger-kilometres requires care. A country can record many trips over relatively short distances or fewer trips over longer distances. Because Eurostat reports the distance inside the reporting territory, the passenger-kilometre value is not a complete measure of how far passengers travelled across all countries on an international itinerary.
Smaller markets and country detail
The smaller observations add useful detail to the picture of international rail tourism in Europe. Hungary recorded 4,024 thousand international rail passengers in 2024, alongside 558 million international rail passenger-kilometres. Romania recorded 300 thousand passengers and 83 million passenger-kilometres.
Norway recorded 604 thousand international rail passengers and 47 million passenger-kilometres. Portugal recorded 116 thousand passengers and 17 million passenger-kilometres. These are the 2024 observations in the Eurostat rail table, with passenger counts expressed in thousands and distance expressed in millions of passenger-kilometres.
Other smaller-network figures were also reported. Bulgaria recorded 30 million international rail passenger-kilometres, while its international passenger count was 1,789 thousand. Ireland recorded 113 million passenger-kilometres and 665 thousand passengers. Croatia recorded 25 million passenger-kilometres, and Slovenia recorded 44 million.
The different scales underline why both measures are useful. Passenger counts indicate the volume of reported international rail trips. Passenger-kilometres add the distance travelled within the reporting country’s network. Neither measure alone describes the full size of international tourism, and neither should be substituted for the broader tourism indicators published for EU residents or UK residents.
For independent travellers, the clearest statistical signal is therefore a combination of measures rather than one headline number: EU tourism demand was substantial in 2023; Europe represented 77% of UK residents’ overseas visits; and 2024 international rail reporting ranged from millions of passenger-kilometres in smaller markets to thousands of passenger trips in the country-level observations. The periods, populations, units, and geographic coverage should remain explicit whenever these statistics are compared.