Washington, DC welcomed 27.2 million visitors in 2025, including 25.1 million domestic visitors and 2.1 million international visitors. Visitor spending reached a record $11.9 billion, supporting 114,013 jobs and generating $2.4 billion in tax revenue. These figures show the scale of tourism for the capital’s hotels, restaurants, attractions, convention facilities, and transportation network.
Contents
- Visitor volume and spending
- Domestic and international travel
- Hotels, rooms, and restaurants
- Attractions and cultural visitation
- Events, conventions, and transportation
- Residents and the local market
Visitor volume and spending
Destination DC Research reported 27.2 million total visitors to Washington, DC in 2025, up 0.1% from 2024. The volume was nearly evenly stable year over year, while the economic value of travel increased more substantially. Visitor spending reached a record $11.9 billion in 2025, up 4.0% from 2024.
Tourism’s employment and public-finance effects also grew in 2025. Visitor spending supported 114,013 jobs in Washington, DC, up 2.3% from 2024. It generated $2.4 billion in tax revenue, up 4.4% from 2024. For restaurants and other visitor-facing businesses, those totals describe a market in which spending growth exceeded the change in total visitor volume.
The longer series provides useful context. Washington, DC attracted 25.95 million visitors in 2023, up 17% from 2022, according to 2023 Annual Visitor Statistics. Visitor spending reached $10.2 billion in 2023, up 29% year over year, supporting 102,366 jobs and generating $2.07 billion in combined local and federal tax revenue.
The same 2023 source reported about $392 in expenditures per visitor, $218 in wages per visitor, and about $80 in local tax receipts per visitor. It also reported that every 254 visitors created a new job in Washington, DC. These are reported source metrics for 2023, not calculations applied to the 2025 totals.
| Year | Total visitors | Visitor spending | Tourism-supported jobs | Tourism tax revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 23.8 million | $7.8 billion | 76,522 | $1.53 billion |
| 2019 | Not supplied | $8.15 billion | 78,266 | $1.61 billion |
| 2022 | 21.9 million | Not supplied | Not supplied | Not supplied |
| 2023 | 25.95 million | $10.2 billion | 102,366 | $2.07 billion |
| 2025 | 27.2 million | $11.9 billion | 114,013 | $2.4 billion |
The 2018 figures come from Destination DC Announces Record 23.8 Million Visitors to Washington, DC in 2018 and 2018 Washington, DC Visitor Statistics. The 2019 figures come from 2019 Washington, DC Visitor Statistics. The 2022 and 2025 figures are from 2022 Visitor Statistics and Destination DC Research 2025, respectively. The table leaves metrics blank where the supplied source did not provide a comparable value.
Domestic and international travel
Domestic travel made up the large majority of Washington, DC’s 2025 visitation. Destination DC Research counted 25.1 million domestic visitors, up 0.4% from 2024. International visitation was 2.1 million, down 4.0% from 2024. The two segments therefore moved in different directions during the same measurement year.
The 2023 breakdown recorded 24.0 million domestic visitors, equal to 105% of 2019 domestic visitation, and 1.95 million international visitors, up 40% year over year. Earlier figures show the recovery path: Washington, DC had 1.2 million international visitors in 2022, while total visitation was 21.9 million, down 12% compared with 2019.
The 2022 international source identified the United Kingdom as the origin of 131,000 visitors, Germany 117,000, Canada 116,505, India 96,000, and France 74,000. These country counts refer specifically to visitors to Washington, DC in 2022; they are not current forecasts or 2025 totals.
Spending data also distinguishes visitor segments. In 2018, domestic visitor spending was $5.7 billion and international visitor spending was $2.1 billion, according to 2018 Washington, DC Visitor Statistics. In 2019, domestic spending reached $5.9 billion and international spending reached $2.2 billion. The 2018 source also reported 19.5 million domestic arrivals through DCA and IAD and 4.2 million international arrivals through those airports.
Hotels, rooms, and restaurants
Washington, DC had approximately 179 hotels and 36,187 hotel rooms in 2025, according to Destination DC Research 2025. Across the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area, the figures were 798 hotels and 117,258 hotel rooms. The metropolitan totals cover a wider geography than the District totals and should not be treated as interchangeable.
The city also had 7,792 committable rooms within half a mile of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in 2025. Hotel development included 22 properties in the construction pipeline, representing 3,220 rooms expected for delivery in 2026 and beyond. Those pipeline rooms are expected future supply, not rooms already available during the 2025 measurement year.
The dining market included 2,661 Washington, DC restaurants in 2025. Michelin’s 2025 update listed 26 Michelin-starred restaurants and 28 Bib Gourmand restaurants. More than 70 restaurants offered private dining space. Together, these figures point to a substantial range of dining formats for leisure travelers, convention attendees, and residents entertaining visitors.
For an earlier lodging benchmark, Washington, DC’s hotel occupancy was 77% in 2022 and its average daily rate was $242, according to 2022 Visitor Statistics. Those values describe 2022 hotel performance and are not presented as 2025 occupancy or pricing.
Attractions and cultural visitation
The 2024 attraction counts show how strongly Washington’s visitor economy is anchored by memorials, museums, parks, and the National Mall area. The Lincoln Memorial drew 7.7 million visitors, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial drew 4.8 million, and both the Korean War Veterans Memorial and World War II Memorial drew 4.0 million.
The National Museum of Natural History drew 3.3 million visitors in 2024. The FDR Memorial drew 2.8 million, while the Thomas Jefferson Memorial drew 2.6 million. The National Air & Space Museum and National Zoological Park each drew 1.9 million; Rock Creek Park also drew 1.9 million. The National Museum of American History drew 1.8 million, and the National Museum of African American History & Culture drew 1.4 million.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial drew 0.6 million visitors in 2024. These individual site counts are from Destination DC Research 2025 and measure attraction visitation in 2024, even though the research summary was published for the 2025 tourism picture.
Earlier area-wide measures provide a different scope. In 2018, the National Park Service counted 31.3 million visits at Mall locations in the DC area, while Smithsonian Mall locations drew 20.7 million visits. A visit count at a site or group of sites is not the same measure as a unique person counted in total destination visitation, so these figures should be read as attraction-use measures rather than added to the citywide visitor total.
Events, conventions, and transportation
Washington, DC’s event infrastructure included four major sporting event venues with 185,000 total seats in 2025. The city had nine major professional teams. It also had 52 performing arts and theatre venues with more than 27,000 total seats. These facilities broaden the reasons visitors may travel beyond sightseeing and museum visits.
The Walter E. Washington Convention Center had 703,000 square feet of prime exhibit space, 198,000 square feet of meeting room space, 77 meeting rooms, and a 52,000-square-foot ballroom in 2025. It also had 38,000 square feet of flexible registration space. Convention capacity is especially relevant to hotels, private dining, restaurants, and other businesses serving scheduled groups.
Airport access operated at a large regional scale. Reagan National Airport, Dulles International Airport, and BWI served more than 87 million passengers combined in 2025, according to Destination DC Research 2025. This is a combined passenger figure for the three airports, not a count of visitors whose final destination was Washington, DC.
Residents and the local market
Tourism businesses operate within a resident market of 702,250 people in Washington, DC in 2025. Destination DC Research reported that 64% of residents held a bachelor’s degree or higher, 43% were Black, 12% were Hispanic or Latino, and 18% of the population was under age 18. The median household income was $109,870.
These demographic measures help describe the community in which the visitor economy operates, but they are not visitor characteristics. They also do not establish spending behavior for any particular restaurant, attraction, or neighborhood. The figures are useful context for a city where residents and visitors share hotels, restaurants, cultural venues, parks, sporting facilities, and transportation systems.
The historical economic series shows the scale of that shared market. Tourism supported $4.32 billion in wages in 2018 and $4.51 billion in 2019. Local and federal tourism tax revenue totaled $1.53 billion in 2018 and $1.61 billion in 2019. The 2019 source also used 307,000 Washington, DC households in its tourism tax-replacement calculation and reported about $331 in expenditures, $183 in wages, and about $36 in local tax receipts per visitor.
Taken together, the current and historical statistics describe a destination with 27.2 million annual visitors, a record $11.9 billion in visitor spending, 36,187 city hotel rooms, 2,661 restaurants, major cultural attractions, and a large convention and events infrastructure. The measurement periods differ across the sources: the headline visitor, hotel, restaurant, resident, venue, convention, and airport figures are for 2025; attraction counts are for 2024; and the historical benchmarks are explicitly identified by year.