Italian Agriturismo Market Latest: Revenue, Statistics, and Growth Analysis

A Farm Stay Planet study:

Italy’s agriturismo sector is large, highly concentrated in a few rural areas, increasingly international and gradually expanding beyond accommodation and food into a broader range of farm-based experiences.

The latest complete national data also point to southern Italy and the islands as the main areas of growth.Updated September 2026.

The latest complete national agriturismo statistics currently available from Istat cover 2024. Where later regional or policy information is available, it is identified separately.

26,360 authorised agriturismo businesses in Italy in 2024.
4.7m+ agriturismo guests in 2024
54.8% of guests were from abroad
€1.934bn estimated current-price economic value in 2024

The number of agriturismi grew only 0.9% in 2024, while guest arrivals grew 4.3%.

The strongest increase in the number of businesses came from the Mezzogiorno, especially the islands.

Sicily’s agriturismo supply grew 8.9% in one year, thre largest increasde in the country, while foreign agriturismo arrivals there increased 15.7%.

Italian agriturismo is therefore becoming more than a Tuscany market. That region remain exceptionally important, of course, but the latest data show a more dynamic southern and island market, a strongly growing international customer base and a continuing expansion of activities beyond the standard rooms and meals.

How big is agriturismo in Italy?

In 2024, Istat counted 26,360 authorised agriturismo businesses, 231 more than in 2023. The national total increased by 0.9%.

Istat’s annual census covers agricultural businesses authorised to conduct at least one agriturismo activity, rather than simply accommodation businesses marketed as rural or countryside stays.

That distinction matters. Under Italy’s national framework, agriturismo is connected to agricultural activity.

An agriturismo is an agricultural enterprise authorised to provide one or more qualifying hospitality, food, tasting or recreational services in connection with the farm. Regional legislation then defines how the national framework is applied locally.

The result is a sector that is broader than the English-language phrase “farm stay” sometimes suggests. A business may offer accommodation, but an authorised agriturismo may instead or additionally provide meals, tastings, educational activities, excursions, sports or other activities.

Of the 26,360 businesses, 21,449 offered accommodation in 2024. That is 81.4% of the sector. The remainder shows why treating agriturismo as a synonym for farm hotel misses a significant part of the market.

There were also 13,092 businesses authorised for restaurant services and 6,750 authorised for tastings. Because an agriturismo can be authorised for more than one activity, these figures always overlap.

Italy’s agriturismo market is heavily concentrated

The national total hides a striking geographical concentration. The North accounted for 43.5% of Italy’s agriturismo businesses in 2024, the Centre for 36.5% and the Mezzogiorno for 19.8%.

Tuscany alone accounted for 22.2% of all Italian agriturismo businesses. The Province of Bolzano followed with 13%. Together, those two territories contained more than a third of the country’s agriturismi.

The real growth story is in the South

The strongest increase was not in Tuscany. It was in the Mezzogiorno, where the number of agriturismo businesses increased 2.5% in 2024. Within that figure, the islands grew 6.1%.

Sicily

+8.9%

Sardinia

+2.6%

Basilicata

+3.3%

Campania

+2.2%

Piedmont

+2.0%

Sicily stands out. Its supply of agriturismo businesses increased 8.9% in a single year, making it one of the clearest signs of a changing geographical market.

Istat also recorded a 31.1% increase in new agriturismo authorisations across the islands, with Sicily’s new authorisations rising from 55 to 120.

By contrast, Istat identifies signs of possible saturation in some of the country’s historically established agriturismo territories, specifically mentioning Tuscany, Umbria and the Province of Bolzano.

That does not mean these markets are declining. Tuscany and Umbria still recorded 1.1% growth in the number of businesses in 2024.

Tuscany still very much dominates demand

Tuscany’s importance is even clearer when we look at guests rather than businesses. The region accounted for 28.1% of all agriturismo arrivals in 2024, compared with 22.2% of the country’s agriturismo businesses.

The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region accounted for another 17.0% of arrivals, with the Province of Bolzano receiving just under 80% of arrivals within that region.

For comparison, no other Italian region accounted for more than 9.8% of national agriturismo arrivals; Veneto was next at 9.8%, followed by Sicily at 5.4% and Puglia at 4.7%.

Tuscany remains the country’s dominant agriturismo destination, but business concentration and visitor concentration are not identical.

Tuscany has 22.2% of businesses but 28.1% of arrivals. Looking only at the number of properties therefore gives an incomplete picture of demand.

Foreign visitors now make up the majority

One of the clearest changes in the latest data is the international nature of the market. In 2024, foreign visitors represented 54.8% of agriturismo arrivals, compared with 45.2% for Italian visitors.

The international share increased from 51% in 2023. Overall, foreign agriturismo arrivals rose 12.1% in 2024.

The pattern differs by region. Foreign guests represented 60.5% of arrivals in the North-east, 56% in the islands and 54% in the Centre.

In the South, by contrast, foreigners represented 44.1% of arrivals.

The average stay was 3.6 days in 2024. Italian guests stayed an average of 3 days, while foreign guests stayed 4.2 days.

For travellers, the figures show how far agriturismo has moved beyond its traditional domestic market.

More than half of guests are now international, and international guests stay longer on average than Italian guests.

Where do agriturismo guests actually go?

The distribution of visitors is more concentrated than the distribution of properties.

Istat found that 42% of arrivals and 52% of overnight stays were concentrated in just 382 agriturismo municipalities in Tuscany and the Province of Bolzano.

Those municipalities represent only 7.6% of Italian municipalities with at least one agriturismo.

Italy has agriturismi across much of the country, but visitor demand is far from evenly distributed.

The geographical footprint of the businesses themselves is much broader.

In 2024, 5,030 Italian municipalities had at least one agriturismo, equivalent to 63.7% of all Italian municipalities. Those municipalities covered 79.5% of Italy’s land area.

The highest density areas for agriturismo

Italy had approximately 9 agriturismo businesses per 100 square kilometres in 2024. The Centre had the highest macro-regional density at 16.6 per 100 km². Tuscany reached 25.5, while the Province of Bolzano reached 46.3.

Nearly 53% of agriturismo businesses were located in hilly areas, 31% in mountainous areas and 16% on plains. Density was also highest in hilly territory, at about 11 businesses per 100 km².

Ten municipalities have an extraordinary concentration

Istat identified ten municipalities with at least 100 agriturismo businesses each:

• Appiano sulla strada del vino / Eppan an der Weinstraße, South Tyrol
• Caldaro sulla strada del vino / Kaltern an der Weinstraße, South Tyrol
• Castelrotto / Kastelruth, South Tyrol
• Cortona, Tuscany
• Grosseto, Tuscany
• Manciano, Tuscany
• Montalcino, Tuscany
• Montepulciano, Tuscany
• San Gimignano, Tuscany
• Noto, Sicily

Together they contained 1,418 businesses, or 5.4% of all Italian agriturismi, despite occupying only 0.85% of the country’s surface area. Their combined density was 54.9 agriturismo businesses per 100 km².

This helps explain why some famous rural destinations can feel saturated with farm accommodation while other parts of Italy have a much thinner supply.

Agriturismo is becoming more experiential

Accommodation, food and tastings remain central to the sector, but complementary services are growing.

In 2024, 13,265 agriturismo businesses, or 50.3% of the national total, offered at least one complementary service. These included horse riding, excursions, nature observation, trekking, mountain biking, educational farms, courses and sports activities.

The longer-term picture is more revealing. Between 2010 and 2024, Istat recorded a 220% increase in agriturismo businesses offering educational farms and a 141% increase in those offering nature observation.

Over the same period, the number offering mountain biking fell 36%, trekking fell 7.7% and horse riding fell 7.6%.

So while the range of activities is expanding, not every traditional activity is growing. The mix of experiences is changing.

Educational farms are a particularly strong growth area

There were 2,340 agriturismi authorised as educational farms in 2024. Their number increased 12.2% from 2023 and has more than tripled since 2010.

Istat also found that around 39% of agriturismo businesses with educational farms were managed by women, about five percentage points above the proportion across the sector as a whole.

Food remains central to the agriturismo model

Agriturismo is not simply rural accommodation with a farm attached. Food is embedded in the legal and commercial concept.

In 2024, 13,092 businesses were authorised for restaurant services and 6,750 for tastings. More than 9,600 businesses combined accommodation and restaurant services, representing 36.4% of all agriturismo businesses.

There were 5,473 businesses combining accommodation with tastings. That combination represented 25.5% of businesses with accommodation.

The Italian legal framework also specifies that agriturismo meals are based predominantly on products from the farm and agricultural businesses in the local area. The precise rules and operating requirements are then shaped by regional legislation.

For visitors, this is one of the main differences between a genuine agriturismo and a generic countryside hotel: the agricultural activity is part of the underlying model, rather than simply the setting.

The economic scale of the sector

Istat estimates the current-price economic value of Italian agriturismo at just over €1.934 billion in 2024, up 3.3% from 2023.

Over the preceding ten years, the value of the sector increased at an average annual rate of 5.3%.

The average estimated economic value per agriturismo business was just over €73,300 in 2024. The regional pattern was very uneven: the North-east exceeded €103,000 per business on average, while the islands were at approximately €23,500.

These figures should not be interpreted as average turnover or profit for an individual farm stay.

Istat describes the measure as the economic value of agriturismo production at current prices and includes intermediate costs in the calculation. It is a sector-level statistical measure, not a typical property P&L.

That distinction matters because agriturismo is an agricultural diversification activity.

The value of the sector cannot be read in the same way as hotel-room revenue, and comparing a single agriturismo with a hotel using this number would be misleading.

Why the southern market deserves attention

The strongest conclusion from the latest national statistics is that the geography of growth is changing.

The traditional heartlands remain dominant. Tuscany, South Tyrol and Umbria have exceptionally high concentrations of businesses and visitors.

But the Mezzogiorno is growing faster than the North and Centre, and the islands are the most dynamic part of the country in terms of business growth. There is also evidence of strong growth in new authorisations.

In 2024, new agriturismo authorisations increased 13.5% across the Mezzogiorno. The islands recorded a 31.1% increase in new authorisations, driven especially by Sicily, where the number rose from 55 to 120.

At the same time, foreign arrivals in the islands increased 15.7%. These figures do not prove a single cause or guarantee future success, but together they make Sicily, Sardinia and other southern destinations particularly interesting areas to watch

The market is becoming less one-dimensional

If you think of Italian agriturismo only as Tuscan vineyards and Umbrian farmhouses, you are looking at the established core rather than the whole sector.

The latest official data show a broader market: more international demand, more experiences and faster supply growth in southern Italy and the islands.

What exactly counts as an agriturismo?

Istat’s definition follows Law 96 of 20 February 2006. Agriturismo consists of hospitality and reception activities carried out by agricultural entrepreneurs through their agricultural enterprise, in connection with cultivation, forestry or animal husbandry.

The permitted activities include accommodation or open-air hospitality, food and drink service, tasting of farm products including wine, and recreational, cultural, educational, sporting, excursion and horse-tourism activities.

Each Italian region and autonomous province then establishes its own implementing rules.

The exact requirements for becoming an agriturismo, the permitted scale of activities and some operational details can therefore differ from one part of Italy to another.

What the latest research says about the wider rural-tourism picture

The national statistics sit within a wider rural-development policy context. A 2023 research report from Italy’s Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics (CREA), using Istat and ISMEA-RRN data, reported more than 4 million agriturismo guests and 15.57 million overnight stays in 2022.

It also found that agriturismo was the most widespread diversification activity among Italian farms with remunerative connected activities, accounting for 38% of them.

That CREA research also highlighted the scale of the physical accommodation offer: more than 290,000 beds and more than half a million restaurant seats in the 2021 supply data it analysed.

The policy picture is still evolving. The EU CAP Network’s recent work on farm diversification identifies Italy’s agriturismo system as a major example of farm diversification and notes that the sector operates within a national framework combined with regional implementation.

Italy’s 2023–2027 CAP planning also allocates funding to agriturismo and wider rural tourism interventions.

These policy sources provide context, but the most recent national counts and visitor figures in this report come from Istat’s 2024 census and tourism data.

Our interpretations:

Italy’s agriturismo sector is still expanding, but slower at a national level. The number of businesses rose just 0.9% in 2024.

Visitor demand is growing faster than supply then as arrivals for overnight stays grew 3.2% in 2024.

International demand has now become the majority. Foreign visitors represented 54.8% of arrivals and stayed 4.2 days on average, compared with 3 days for Italian visitors.

Tuscany remains the dominant agriturismo destination. It accounts for 22.2% of businesses and 28.1% of arrivals.

The growth is shifting south, though. The Mezzogiorno grew 2.5% in businesses in 2024, compared with 0.5% in both the North and Centre.

Sicily is particularly notable. Its number of agriturismo businesses grew 8.9% in 2024.

The product is becoming more experiential. Half of all agriturismo businesses offered at least one complementary activity in 2024.

Educational tourism is one of the strongest long-term trends. Educational farms were up 220% from 2010 to 2024.

The market is highly concentrated. Just 382 municipalities in Tuscany and Bolzano accounted for 42% of arrivals and 52% of overnight stays.

Agriturismo is therefore a mature sector with a strong established core, but it is also changing. The customer base is becoming more international, experiences are expanding and the geographical centre of growth is moving towards southern Italy and the islands.

FAQs

How many agriturismi are there in Italy?

Istat recorded 26,360 authorised agriturismo businesses in 2024, the latest complete national dataset currently available.

How many Italian agriturismi offer accommodation?

21,449 businesses, or 81.4% of all authorised agriturismo businesses, offered accommodation in 2024.

Which Italian region has the most agriturismi?

Tuscany has the largest number, accounting for 22.2% of all Italian agriturismo businesses in 2024.

Which Italian region is growing fastest?

Sicily recorded the strongest increase among Italian regions in 2024, with the number of agriturismo businesses rising 8.9%.

Are agriturismi popular with foreign visitors?

Yes. Foreign visitors represented 54.8% of agriturismo arrivals in 2024. They stayed an average of 4.2 days, compared with 3 days for Italian visitors.

What activities do Italian agriturismi offer?

Depending on the property, activities can include meals, tastings, educational farm experiences, horse riding, excursions, nature observation, trekking, mountain biking, courses and sports activities.

In 2024, 50.3% of agriturismo businesses offered at least one complementary service.

Is an agriturismo the same as a rural hotel?

No. Agriturismo is a legally defined form of agricultural diversification in Italy. It must be connected to an agricultural enterprise and is subject to national and regional rules.

A rural hotel or countryside accommodation business does not necessarily meet those requirements.Sources & methodology

Primary source: Istat’s annual census of authorised agriturismo businesses and related tourism data. The 2024 report was published on 9 March 2026.

Istat’s survey is an annual administrative census covering authorised agricultural businesses and records accommodation, restaurant, tasting and other agriturismo activities.

Cross-checking: We checked the principal figures against Istat’s 2024 report and its methodological notes, then compared the interpretation with research and policy material from CREA, ISMEA-RRN and the EU CAP Network.

Where figures come from different reference years or measure different things, that is stated explicitly rather than combined into a single statistic.

An authorised agriturismo business may offer food, tastings, tours or other services without offering overnight accommodation, and businesses almost always hold authorisations for more than one activity.

Current-data note: The latest complete nationwide Istat agriturismo dataset available at the time of publication covers 2024.

Later regional tourism statistics may exist, but they should not be presented as a replacement for the national 2024 agriturismo census until comparable national data are published.

References