Human Written & Fact Checked · Updated
121 Puerto Rico Tourism Statistics for 2026
Puerto Rico had 7,077,000 visitors in fiscal year 2025 on the Planning Board's count, and they spent $6,514.9 million. Hotels and paradores endorsed by the Tourism Company registered 2,163,479 non-resident guests in FY2025-26, and 1,924,764 cruise passengers passed through Old San Juan, the most in each series.
This page gathers the current official figures on Puerto Rico tourism in one place: visitor numbers and spending, where visitors come from and why, hotels, the San Juan airport and cruise port, the forts of Old San Juan, jobs and the economy, the weather, recorded crime and how 2026 is going. Every number links to the body that published it, with the date.
The figures measure different things, so we keep them apart. The Planning Board counts tourists in any kind of lodging plus cruise passengers. The Tourism Company counts hotel check-ins, not arrivals, so a guest who stays in two hotels counts twice. The Institute of Statistics visitor survey uses its own method, and airport figures count passengers in both directions or boardings only. Puerto Rico's fiscal year runs from July to June and is labelled FY every time; calendar years are labelled as such.
Headline figures
- The Planning Board counted 7,077,000 visitors in FY2025 (July 2024 to June 2025), the most in its 2016-2025 series and 2.8% more than in FY2024. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Visitors spent $6,514.9 million in Puerto Rico in FY2025, up 8.4% on FY2024, on the Planning Board's balance-of-payments measure. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- 63% of air visitors in FY2023-24 were Puerto Ricans who live outside Puerto Rico, and 93% came from the United States. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Endorsed hotels and paradores registered 2,163,479 non-resident guests in FY2025-26, up 7.0% on the year before. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- San Juan's Luis Munoz Marin airport handled 13,643,686 passengers, arriving and departing, in calendar 2025, up 3.0% on 2024. (ASUR, Jan 2026)
- 1,924,764 cruise passengers passed through Old San Juan in FY2025-26 on 653 ship calls, the most in a series that starts in FY2018-19. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- Rooms in endorsed hotels and other lodgings averaged $325.18 a night in January to June 2026, up 10.7% on a year earlier. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- The forts and city walls of San Juan National Historic Site had 1,402,132 recreation visits in 2025, up 5.4% on 2024. (National Park Service, 2026)
- 47.4% of air visitors in FY2023-24 stayed mainly with friends or family, against 22.2% in a hotel or resort and 20.1% in a short-term rental. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Leisure and hospitality businesses employed 98,600 people on average in FY2025, 10.3% of non-farm payroll jobs. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Accommodation and food services added $3,416.8 million to Puerto Rico's GDP in FY2025, about 2.6% of the total. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Travel made up 75% of Puerto Rico's exports of services in FY2025. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Non-resident hotel registrations fell 34.2% in FY2018 (July 2017 to June 2018), the fiscal year that included Hurricane Maria. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
How many tourists visit Puerto Rico each year?
Puerto Rico gets about seven million visitors a year on the Planning Board's count, which takes in overnight tourists and cruise passengers. The total has risen every year since the pandemic and is well above the 2016 level.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| FY2016 | 5.00m |
| FY2017 | 4.93m |
| FY2018 | 4.26m |
| FY2019 | 4.93m |
| FY2020 | 3.88m |
| FY2021 | 2.75m |
| FY2022 | 4.60m |
| FY2023 | 6.29m |
| FY2024 | 6.89m |
| FY2025 | 7.08m |
- Of the FY2025 total, 5,774,800 were overnight tourists and 1,302,200 were cruise passengers, whom the Planning Board calls excursionists. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Only 2,001,900 tourists stayed in hotels and other lodgings in FY2025; 3,772,800, or 65%, stayed with family and friends, in short-term rentals or elsewhere. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Visitors rose from 4,596,300 in FY2022 to 6,292,200 in FY2023 and 6,885,500 in FY2024. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- The low point was FY2021, with 2,754,700 visitors and no cruise passengers at all, against 5,002,400 in FY2016. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- In FY2018, which includes Hurricane Maria in September 2017, visitors fell to 4,259,800 from 4,926,800 in FY2017. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- An earlier edition of the same table put visitors at 4,379,200 in FY2010, who spent $3,210.7 million, and 5,051,100 in FY2015, who spent $3,825.0 million. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (archived appendix), 2015)
The Planning Board counts tourists staying in any type of lodging plus cruise passengers, and includes Puerto Ricans living abroad who come back to visit. FY2023 and FY2024 are revised and FY2025 is preliminary. The FY2010 and FY2015 figures come from the 2015 edition of the appendix, read from an archived copy of the Planning Board file; that edition also counted transient military as excursionists, so it is not joined to the 2016-2025 series and no change is worked out across the two. These totals are a different measure from the Tourism Company's hotel registrations and the visitor survey, and the three are not compared.
How much do visitors spend in Puerto Rico?
Visitor spending has grown faster than visitor numbers, and most of it now comes from tourists who do not stay in hotels. These are the Planning Board's balance-of-payments estimates, in current dollars.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| FY2016 | $3.97bn |
| FY2017 | $3.87bn |
| FY2018 | $3.30bn |
| FY2019 | $3.61bn |
| FY2020 | $2.92bn |
| FY2021 | $2.79bn |
| FY2022 | $4.57bn |
| FY2023 | $5.38bn |
| FY2024 | $6.01bn |
| FY2025 | $6.51bn |
- Visitors spent $6,012.0 million in FY2024 and $3,973.5 million in FY2016. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Overnight tourists spent $6,268.6 million in FY2025 and cruise passengers $246.3 million, or about $189 each. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Tourists staying outside hotels spent $3,920.7 million in FY2025, more than the $2,347.9 million spent by hotel guests. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Dividing spending by tourists gives about $1,086 per overnight tourist in FY2025: about $1,173 for hotel guests and $1,039 for those staying elsewhere. These are our calculations and are per trip, not per day. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Spending fell to $2,786.5 million in FY2021, the lowest year in the 2016-2025 series. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Puerto Rico residents spent $1,110.5 million travelling outside the island in FY2025, leaving a travel surplus of about $5.4 billion. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Visitor spending was equal to about 7.4% of gross national product and 5.0% of GDP in FY2025, a rough guide to scale and not tourism's share of the economy. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
This is the travel credit in Puerto Rico's balance of payments, in nominal dollars and not adjusted for inflation. It is direct visitor spending, not total economic impact. The visitor survey in the next section estimates spending with a different method, so its totals are not compared with these.
What does the visitor survey say about spending?
The Institute of Statistics visitor survey, the first since 2017, estimates what air visitors spend in a fiscal year. Its method differs from the Planning Board's, so its totals stand on their own.
- Air visitors spent $2.547 billion in FY2023-24, an average of $768 each across an estimated 3,319,573 air visitors. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Adding cruise passengers takes the survey total to about $2.6 billion, roughly 3% of gross product; the Institute says the figure is not an estimate of total economic impact. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Visitors who are not Puerto Rican spent $933 each on average, against $670 for Puerto Rican visitors. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Puerto Rican visitors still accounted for 52% of air visitor spending, because there are more of them. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Lodging took the largest share of air visitor spending, 32%, followed by car rental at 13% and transport services at 6%. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
The survey covers 23,782 departing travellers at the three international airports and the Old San Juan cruise piers from July 2023 to June 2024. The report says its spending figures are not comparable with earlier editions. It also gives a casino share that it describes as unusually high and to be read with caution, so that share is left out here.
Where do Puerto Rico's visitors come from?
Nine in ten tourists come from the US mainland, and Florida sends far more than any other state. Many of them are Puerto Ricans who live there.
- 5,257,700 of the FY2025 tourists came from the United States, or 91%; 494,300 came from foreign countries and 22,800 from the US Virgin Islands. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (visitor statistics), 2026)
- Florida supplied 33% of air visitors from the US in FY2023-24, New York 10% and Texas 7%; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, Connecticut and North Carolina 3% to 5% each, and the other states 22%. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- In FY2013-14, the latest year with hotel registrations by state, New York residents made 237,429 registrations, Florida 225,662, New Jersey 114,524, California 80,792, Texas 78,970 and Illinois 74,731. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (selected statistics), 2014)
- The US mainland made 1,485,931 of the 1,633,150 non-resident hotel registrations in FY2013-14. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (selected statistics), 2014)
The Planning Board figures count tourists in all types of lodging. The state shares come from the visitor survey of air travellers. The state hotel registrations date from FY2013-14, the last year published, and count hotel check-ins only, so they are a different measure from the survey and are not read as a trend.
Who visits Puerto Rico, and why?
Most air visitors come for a holiday or to see family, and many travel alone. They rate the trip highly and most say they will come back.
- A holiday was the main purpose for 36.2% of air visitors in FY2023-24 and visiting friends or family for 31.7%; 7.2% came on business, 4.3% for a funeral and 4.1% for a birthday. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Women made up 58.8% of air visitors. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- Women aged 40 to 59 were the most common visitor profile, at 25% of visitors, and 53% of visitors held a bachelor's degree or higher. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- 45.1% travelled alone, 28.3% with family, 21.4% with a partner and 4.4% with a group of friends. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- 66% of air visitors were very satisfied with their visit and 29% satisfied. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- 79% said they were very likely to return and 17% likely. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
Profile figures are weighted results from the survey of departing air travellers aged 16 and over. A large share are Puerto Ricans visiting family, which is likely to lift the share who say they will return.
What do visitors do, and where do they go?
Nights out and beaches top the list, and two in three air visitors spend time in the San Juan area. Hotel stays are even more concentrated in the capital region.
- 86.6% of air visitors went to restaurants, bars, concerts or other nightlife in FY2023-24, 66.0% to beaches and water activities, 39.9% to museums and historic sites, 16.8% on ecotourism and 8.4% to casinos. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- 57.5% of visitors who are not Puerto Rican went to museums or historic sites, against 29.6% of Puerto Rican visitors. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- 65.5% of air visitors spent time in the San Juan metropolitan region; 30.6% went to Porta Este, 28.0% each to Porta del Sol and Porta Atlantico, 19.9% to Porta Caribe and 14.5% to Porta Cordillera. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
- The San Juan metro region (Porta Capital) took 746,747 non-resident hotel registrations in January to June 2026, nearly two-thirds of the island total. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- Metro hotels registered 1,587,714 guests in calendar 2025, 88% of them non-residents. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
The Porta names are the Tourism Company's tourism regions. The survey shares are for regions visited and add up to more than 100%. The hotel figures count check-ins at endorsed lodgings, not visitors.
How full are Puerto Rico's hotels, and what do rooms cost?
About seven in ten rooms in endorsed hotels and other lodgings were full in 2025, and rates rose sharply in early 2026. Hotel stays are short, under three nights on average, and the large San Juan hotels are the fullest.
- Island-wide occupancy was 71% in calendar 2025, up 1.1 points on 2024, and the average daily rate was $282, down $6. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Endorsed lodgings registered 2,634,285 guests in 2025, of whom 2,110,437 were non-residents and 523,848 Puerto Rico residents. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Puerto Rico residents made 19.19% of hotel check-ins in FY2025-26. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- Endorsed lodgings sold 3,562,424 room nights in 2025 out of 4,997,986 available. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Guests stayed 2.6 nights per hotel visit on average in 2025, down from 2.7 in 2024. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Occupancy averaged 77.13% in January to June 2026, up from 74.64% a year earlier. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- Selected large lodgings with 80 rooms or more in the San Juan metro region were 90% full in January to June 2026, and those outside it 83%. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- In the metro region, hotels with more than 200 rooms were 82% full in 2025 at $307.86 a night, against 61% at $206.28 for properties with up to 80 rooms. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Metro hotels averaged $278 a night in 2025, down from $283. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- The North region (Porta Atlantico), which includes Dorado, had the highest average rate in 2025, $483 a night, peaking at $779 in December; the East (Porta del Mar) averaged $326. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- The December 2025 island rate of $369 was the highest month of the year, up from $342 in December 2024. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
These figures cover hotels, resorts, paradores and guest houses endorsed by the Tourism Company that report to it, not short-term rentals. Registrations are check-ins, not arrivals: a visitor who uses two hotels counts twice. The 80-room figures come from a smaller set of selected lodgings and are a different base from the island-wide occupancy. Monthly data is provisional.
How have hotel stays changed since 2010, and how did the hurricanes show up?
Non-resident hotel registrations are at their highest since at least 2000, after two deep falls: Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the pandemic in 2020. Hurricane Fiona in 2022 left only a small dip in the figures.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| FY2010 | 1.35m |
| FY2011 | 1.41m |
| FY2012 | 1.50m |
| FY2013 | 1.59m |
| FY2014 | 1.63m |
| FY2015 | 1.74m |
| FY2016 | 1.80m |
| FY2017 | 1.84m |
| FY2018 | 1.21m |
| FY2019 | 1.50m |
| FY2020 | 1.21m |
| FY2021 | 1.17m |
| FY2022 | 1.78m |
| FY2023 | 1.82m |
| FY2024 | 1.92m |
| FY2025 | 2.02m |
| FY2026 | 2.16m |
- Non-resident registrations rose from 1,349,449 in FY2010 to 1,835,900 in FY2017. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
- In October 2017, the month after Maria, registrations were 26,920, down 74.2% on October 2016; FY2019 then recovered 24.0% to 1,497,238. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
- After Fiona in September 2022, registrations were 103,800 that month, down 6.2% on a year earlier, and 112,052 in October, down 7.6%; the fiscal year as a whole still grew. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
- By calendar year the low point was 2020, with 798,840 non-resident registrations. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
- March 2026 had 224,263 non-resident registrations, the highest month in the series, which goes back to July 1999. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
- Puerto Rico residents' hotel registrations fell for a third year running to 513,721 in FY2026, 27% below FY2023 and 40% below the 851,995 of FY2013. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators), Nov 2026)
The Planning Board publishes this series from Tourism Company data, so its totals match the Tourism Company reports to within a registration. It counts check-ins at hotels and paradores only. After Maria the hotel figures also included relief and recovery workers, who are not counted separately. One month in FY2023 is an estimate.
How do visitors fly to Puerto Rico?
Almost all air travel goes through San Juan, where traffic is far above its 2019 level. Not every passenger is a visitor: the visitor survey puts visitors at about half of all air passengers.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 8.37m |
| 2019 | 9.45m |
| 2020 | 4.85m |
| 2021 | 9.68m |
| 2022 | 10.31m |
| 2023 | 12.20m |
| 2024 | 13.25m |
| 2025 | 13.64m |
- 11,907,658 of SJU's 2025 passengers flew to or from the US mainland and other US territories, up 1.8%, and 1,736,028 were on international flights, up 12.0%. (ASUR, Jan 2026)
- SJU passengers rose from 9,448,253 in 2019 to 12,197,553 in 2023 and 13,247,382 in 2024. (ASUR, Nov 2026)
- International passengers rose 21.3% in 2024 to 1,549,909, and by 2025 were almost 75% above the 992,260 of 2019. (ASUR, Jan 2025)
- On the FAA's count of boardings, SJU enplaned 6,658,037 passengers in 2025, up 2.58%, and ranked 38th among US commercial airports. (FAA, Sep 2026)
- Aguadilla (BQN), the second-busiest airport, had 335,014 boardings in 2025, down 7.1%, and Ponce (PSE) 95,055, down 30.9%. (FAA, Sep 2026)
- Vieques had 35,973 boardings in 2025, Ceiba 23,214, Culebra 19,812, up 35.1%, San Juan Isla Grande 17,466 and Mayaguez 8,991. (FAA, Sep 2026)
- About 49% of air passengers at the three international airports in FY2023-24 were visitors, 46% residents and the rest passengers on a stopover. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
Two measures are used. ASUR, the majority owner of the SJU operator Aerostar, reports total passengers counted in both directions, arrivals and departures, in its stock exchange filings. The FAA, the regulator, counts enplanements, that is boardings only, so its figure is about half of ASUR's. Flights to the US mainland count as domestic. Both include residents, and neither is a count of visitors.
How many cruise passengers visit San Juan?
Cruise traffic in Old San Juan hit a new high in FY2025-26, well above the year before the pandemic. Most passengers are on port calls, and about one in four start or end their cruise in San Juan.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| FY2018-19 | 1.81m |
| FY2019-20 | 1.28m |
| FY2020-21 | 0 |
| FY2021-22 | 0.42m |
| FY2022-23 | 1.26m |
| FY2023-24 | 1.36m |
| FY2024-25 | 1.35m |
| FY2025-26 | 1.92m |
- FY2025-26 beat the FY2018-19 total of 1,814,157 passengers on 558 calls, and was up 42.8% on the 1,348,245 of FY2024-25. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- By calendar year, 1,615,039 passengers came on 563 ship calls in 2025, up 13.1% on 2024 and still below the 1,780,626 of 2019. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- Homeport cruises, which start or end in San Juan, carried 446,011 passengers in FY2025-26 on 256 calls, against 1,478,753 passengers on 397 port-of-call visits. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- December is the peak month: 272,309 passengers came on 110 calls in December 2025, against 68,865 on 16 calls in May 2025. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- Using a cruise industry study, the Tourism Company estimated that 1,178,417 cruise passengers in transit in FY2023-24 spent $69.74 each, about $71.5 million in all. (Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey), Oct 2024)
Port figures count passenger movements in Old San Juan; homeport passengers are counted as they board or leave a ship. The Planning Board's count of cruise excursionists in the visitors section is a different measure. The transit spending estimate comes from the Tourism Company via the visitor survey report and uses a different method from the Planning Board's cruise spending, so the two are not compared.
What are Puerto Rico's most visited sights?
The Spanish forts of Old San Juan, El Morro and San Cristobal, draw well over a million visits a year, more than before the pandemic.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 1.20m |
| 2020 | 0.36m |
| 2021 | 0.80m |
| 2022 | 1.03m |
| 2023 | 1.31m |
| 2024 | 1.33m |
| 2025 | 1.40m |
- Visits to San Juan National Historic Site rose from 1,197,345 in 2019 to 1,314,819 in 2023 and 1,329,728 in 2024, after falling to 357,100 in 2020. (National Park Service, 2026)
- March was the busiest month in 2025, with 165,092 visits, and December next with 160,046; October was the quietest, with 64,685. (National Park Service, 2026)
- Visitors to the site spent $150,754,000 in nearby communities in 2023, supporting 1,752 local jobs and a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $226,888,000. (National Park Service (visitor spending), Aug 2024)
A recreation visit is a park-service count of entries, not of individual people, and includes residents. Yearly totals are the sum of the park service's monthly figures. The 2023 spending estimate uses new park-specific survey data, so it is not comparable with earlier park releases.
What is tourism worth to Puerto Rico's economy?
Puerto Rico has no official tourism satellite account, so the best official guides are the size of the hotel and restaurant sector and the number of leisure and hospitality jobs. Both include spending by residents.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| FY2016 | 81,000 |
| FY2017 | 81,000 |
| FY2018 | 74,600 |
| FY2019 | 77,000 |
| FY2020 | 73,900 |
| FY2021 | 69,800 |
| FY2022 | 83,100 |
| FY2023 | 90,100 |
| FY2024 | 95,300 |
| FY2025 | 98,600 |
- Accommodation and food services output was $2,121.4 million in FY2016, before the rise of recent years. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Leisure and hospitality jobs averaged 81,000 in FY2016 and fell to a low of 69,800 in FY2021. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts), 2026)
- Leisure and hospitality employed 104,200 people in September 2026, against 100,100 in September 2025 and 80,700 in September 2016. (BLS, 2026)
- That was 10.9% of the 954,500 non-farm payroll jobs in Puerto Rico in September 2026. (BLS, 2026)
- Hotels and other lodging employed 14,800 people in September 2026, little more than the 14,200 of September 2016. (BLS, 2026)
- Restaurants and bars employed 82,300 in September 2026, up from 62,000 in September 2016, and account for most of the growth in leisure and hospitality jobs. (BLS, 2026)
- Leisure and hospitality jobs fell from 79,000 in September 2017 to 66,800 in October 2017, after Hurricane Maria, and did not regain the September 2017 level until 2019. (BLS, 2026)
- Hotel and lodging jobs averaged 12,400 in FY2009-10 and 14,600 in FY2013-14. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (selected statistics), 2014)
Sector output is value added in nominal dollars and includes restaurants that serve residents, so it is not a tourism-only measure. Puerto Rico's GDP is swollen by manufacturing profits booked by multinationals, which makes shares of GDP look small. The fiscal-year job figures are revised and seasonally adjusted averages; the monthly BLS figures are not seasonally adjusted and September 2026 is preliminary. Both come from the same payroll survey.
When is the best time to visit Puerto Rico?
February and March are the driest and busiest months, and September and October the quietest and cheapest, at the peak of the hurricane season. San Juan is warm all year, with only a small gap between the warmest and coolest months.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| Jul | 194k |
| Aug | 186k |
| Sep | 126k |
| Oct | 143k |
| Nov | 166k |
| Dec | 190k |
| Jan | 201k |
| Feb | 190k |
| Mar | 224k |
| Apr | 189k |
| May | 166k |
| Jun | 188k |
- Hotel occupancy in 2025 peaked at 81% in March and fell to 55% in September and 60% in October. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- Room rates were lowest in September 2025, at $224 a night, and October, at $228. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- July was SJU's busiest month in 2025, with 1,381,674 passengers, and September the quietest, with 785,846. (ASUR, Nov 2026)
- San Juan's average temperature is 80.9F, with an average daily high of 86.7F and low of 75.1F. (NOAA, 2021)
- August is the warmest month, averaging 83.5F, and January the coolest, at 77.6F. (NOAA, 2021)
- San Juan gets 59.87 inches of rain a year; March is the driest month, with 2.18 inches, and November the wettest, with 7.37 inches. (NOAA, 2021)
- The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November and peaks on 10 September, with most activity from mid-August to mid-October. (NOAA National Hurricane Center, 2026)
Weather figures are the official 1991-2020 climate normals for the San Juan airport station on the north coast; the El Yunque rainforest and the mountains are far wetter. The hurricane season dates cover the whole Atlantic basin, not Puerto Rico alone. Hotel figures count check-ins at endorsed lodgings.
How safe is Puerto Rico for visitors?
Recorded crime fell slightly in 2025 and again in the first nine months of 2026. The police do not publish separate figures for crimes against visitors.
- Police recorded 20,463 Type I crimes in 2025, down 2.0% on 2024; 6,432 were violent crimes and 14,031 property crimes. (Puerto Rico Police, Jan 2026)
- 463 murders were recorded in 2025, against 495 in 2024. (Puerto Rico Police, Jan 2026)
- Robberies fell 17.8% to 1,032 and vehicle thefts 30.4% to 1,552, while aggravated assaults rose 1.4% to 4,472. (Puerto Rico Police, Jan 2026)
- San Juan municipality recorded 4,760 Type I crimes in 2025, including 82 murders; Vieques recorded 67 Type I crimes and Culebra 20. (Puerto Rico Police, Jan 2026)
- 14,727 Type I crimes and 333 murders were recorded in January to September 2026, down 1.6% and 1.2% on the same months of 2025. (Puerto Rico Police, Oct 2026)
These are crimes reported to the police, which the police mark as preliminary. They are counts, not rates, and San Juan is the most populous municipality. No breakdown for tourist victims is published.
How is Puerto Rico tourism doing in 2026?
Hotels and cruise ships are busier in 2026 than in 2025, while passenger numbers at San Juan airport are a little lower. The Planning Board expects visitor spending to keep growing.
View data table
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| Jan | 261k |
| Feb | 241k |
| Mar | 239k |
| Apr | 157k |
| May | 79k |
| Jun | 105k |
| Jul | 82k |
- Non-resident hotel registrations were 1,158,466 in January to June 2026, against 1,105,424 a year earlier. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- All hotel guests, residents included, numbered 1,421,978 in the first half of 2026, up 3.1%. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Sep 2026)
- In July to September 2025, the months of Bad Bunny's concert residency in San Juan, non-resident hotel registrations were 505,529, up 14.6% on a year earlier; the Tourism Company report does not link the figures to the residency. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report), Mar 2026)
- 1,163,700 cruise passengers came through Old San Juan in January to July 2026, up 31.3%, on 394 ship calls. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- Homeport passengers rose 72.3% to 275,955 over the same months. (Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report), Sep 2026)
- SJU handled 11,129,777 passengers in January to October 2026, down 2.4% on the same months of 2025. (ASUR, Nov 2026)
- October 2026 traffic rose 4.8% to 897,121, from 855,798 in October 2025. (ASUR, Nov 2026)
- SJU traffic in July 2026, 1,310,943 passengers, and August 2026, 1,126,633, was 5.1% below the same months of 2025. (ASUR, Nov 2026)
- The Planning Board's August 2026 forecast assumes visitor spending grows 8.0% in FY2026 and 2.1% in FY2027, with real gross product growth of 0.3% and 0.2%. (Puerto Rico Planning Board (forecast), Aug 2026)
The 2026 monthly figures are provisional, and June 2026 was the latest hotel month published when this page was checked. The 2025 airport base includes the residency months; ASUR gives no reason for the 2026 changes. The Planning Board forecast figures are input assumptions in nominal terms, not results.
Glossary
- FY
- Puerto Rico's fiscal year, July to June. FY2025 runs from July 2024 to June 2025, and FY2025-26 from July 2025 to June 2026.
- Planning Board
- The Puerto Rico Planning Board (Junta de Planificacion), which publishes the island's economic accounts, including visitor numbers and spending.
- PRTC
- The Puerto Rico Tourism Company, the government tourism body that collects hotel and cruise statistics.
- Institute of Statistics
- The Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, which ran the FY2023-24 visitor survey with the Tourism Company and hosts many official datasets.
- Excursionist
- In Planning Board figures, a visitor who arrives on a cruise ship and does not stay overnight on the island.
- Endorsed lodging
- A hotel, resort, parador or guest house endorsed by the Tourism Company and reporting to it; short-term rentals are not included.
- Parador
- A small inn endorsed under the Tourism Company's parador programme.
- Registration
- A guest check-in at an endorsed lodging. A visitor who stays in two hotels counts twice, so registrations are not arrivals.
- Porta regions
- The Tourism Company's tourism regions, such as Porta Capital for the San Juan metro area.
- ADR
- Average daily rate, the average price paid for a hotel room per night.
- SJU
- Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan (Carolina), run by Aerostar, majority owned by ASUR.
- Enplanement
- A passenger boarding an aircraft, about half of an airport's total passenger count.
- Homeport
- A cruise that starts or ends in San Juan, as opposed to a port-of-call visit.
- Recreation visit
- A park-service count of entries for recreation, not a count of individual people.
- Type I crime
- The main recorded-crime categories in police statistics, including murder, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and vehicle theft.
Methodology and sources
Figures come from the Puerto Rico Planning Board (its statistical appendix, economic indicators workbook and forecast), the Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel and cruise reports), the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics visitor survey, the Puerto Rico Police, the airport owner ASUR, and federal bodies (FAA, National Park Service, NOAA and BLS), labelled by dataset. Each number links to the document that carries it, with the date. Measures that count different things are given side by side and not merged: the Planning Board's visitor counts and balance-of-payments spending against the Institute of Statistics survey estimates, hotel check-ins against visitors, total airport passengers against boardings, and port passenger movements against the Planning Board's cruise excursionists. Fiscal years (July to June) are labelled FY and no chart mixes fiscal and calendar years. The FY2010 and FY2015 visitor figures come from an archived copy of the Planning Board's 2015 appendix, because the original link no longer works. Where we work out a share or an average ourselves, the text says so. Monthly 2026 figures are provisional. The page is reviewed monthly and the date is shown at the top.
- ASUR · Jan 2026
- ASUR · Nov 2026
- ASUR · Jan 2025
- ASUR · Nov 2026
- BLS · 2026
- BLS · 2026
- BLS · 2026
- BLS · 2026
- FAA · Sep 2026
- National Park Service · 2026
- National Park Service (visitor spending) · Aug 2024
- NOAA · 2021
- NOAA · 2021
- NOAA National Hurricane Center · 2026
- Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (visitor survey) · Oct 2024
- Puerto Rico Planning Board (archived appendix) · 2015
- Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic accounts) · 2026
- Puerto Rico Planning Board (economic indicators) · Nov 2026
- Puerto Rico Planning Board (forecast) · Aug 2026
- Puerto Rico Police · Jan 2026
- Puerto Rico Police · Oct 2026
- Puerto Rico Tourism Company (cruise report) · Sep 2026
- Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report) · Sep 2026
- Puerto Rico Tourism Company (hotel report) · Mar 2026
- Puerto Rico Tourism Company (selected statistics) · 2014