The latest figures from Tourism Research Australia, covering the year to December 2025, show that 8.3 million international travellers came to Australia, spending $39.2 billion. The number of visitors was up eight per cent compared to a year ago, while visitor spend jumped a massive 19 per cent in 2025 compared to the 2024 calendar year.
Nights spent in Australia by international visitors reached 312.7 million in 2025, up six per cent on 2024.
Compared to pre-COVID levels, spend by international visitors in Australia was up by 25 per cent in 2025 and nights spent in Australia were up by 14 per cent. While the spend is likely largely due to significant global inflation since 2019, the nights in Australia metric indicates that visitors are spending longer Down Under, especially as there are still fewer visitors travelling yet more visitor nights overall.
However, business travel, which includes travel for conferences and exhibitions, was down three per cent in 2025 compared to 2024 in terms of number of travellers – 758,000 trips is the official figure – and five per cent down for spend in Australia, which was $1.9 billion.
The business events data dashboard on the Tourism Research Australia site has not been updated for a year and still carries results for the 2024 calendar year.
Western Australia saw the biggest rise in the number of international visitors, with overseas travellers up 23 per cent on 2024, followed by the Northern Territories where short-term international arrivals were up 15 per cent. Both Queensland and Tasmania saw a 10 per cent rise in international visitors.
Meanwhile, international arrivals to New South Wales were up eight per cent, travellers to Victoria were up four per cent and South Australia inched up by one per cent, with the national capital the only region to go backwards, with international visitors declining by eight per cent compared to 2024.
The top five visitor markets in terms of number of visitors were New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and India. Chinese visitors delivered the highest spend in Australia at $11.25 billion and the biggest improvement to spend, up 39 per cent compared to 2024.
