September Tourism Holds Steady as Annual Arrivals Remain Below 2025
- September arrivals reached 148,801 tourists, down just 0.5 per cent from September 2025, indicating broadly stable monthly performance.
- Arrivals strengthened late in the month, averaging 5,346 tourists daily over the final ten days, peaking at 6,284 on 26 September.
- Despite recent stability, year-to-date arrivals of 1,571,977 remain 3.9 per cent below 2025, leaving the Maldives 64,512 tourists behind.
Tourist arrivals to the Maldives held close to last year’s level in September, although the month provided little recovery from the shortfall accumulated earlier in 2026.
The country welcomed 148,801 tourists during the month, compared with 149,563 in September 2025. The difference of 762 tourists represents a decline of approximately 0.5 per cent, indicating that September’s arrivals were broadly stable despite the weaker performance recorded across the year so far.
Figures from the Ministry of Tourism & Civil Aviation’s daily update show that total international visitors reached 150,764 in September, down 0.2 per cent from a year earlier. This broader figure includes business visitors, whose numbers rose from 1,551 to 1,963, partly offsetting the small decline in tourists. No cruise passengers were recorded during the month.
September’s tourist arrivals remained approximately 12.1 per cent above the 132,795 recorded in the same month of 2024. The figures therefore show that the Maldives retained most of the increase achieved last September, but did not build further on it.
Compared with August, tourist arrivals fell by 23.8 per cent from 195,390. A similar decline between August and September occurred in both 2024 and 2025, suggesting that the monthly fall followed an established pattern rather than signalling a new deterioration on its own.
September averaged approximately 4,960 tourists a day. Arrivals strengthened towards the end of the month, with the final ten days averaging 5,346 tourists daily, compared with 4,767 during the first twenty days. The busiest day was 26 September, when 6,284 tourists arrived.
The near-flat September result followed a modest year-on-year increase in August, when tourist arrivals rose by approximately 1.7 per cent. Together, the two months showed more stable arrival numbers than the substantial declines recorded in March, April and June.
However, that stability has yet to close the annual gap. By the end of September, the Maldives had received 1,571,977 tourists, compared with 1,636,489 during the first nine months of 2025. Arrivals remained approximately 3.9 per cent lower, leaving the country 64,512 tourists behind last year’s pace heading into the final quarter.
