India Now Sends Nepal More Tourists Than Its Next Four Biggest Markets Combined — the Real 2026 Arrival Numbers
Nepal Tourism Board's fresh mid-year data show 621,624 foreign arrivals in the first half of 2026 and an accelerating June — here's exactly where visitors are coming from, and what the surge means for booking an autumn trek.
India sent Nepal more tourists in June alone than the United States, China, Bangladesh and Australia sent combined. That's not a rounding trick — it's the headline number buried inside Nepal Tourism Board's freshly released mid-year figures, and it says more about who is actually filling Nepal's trails right now than almost any other statistic the country publishes.
Key facts
- 621,624 foreign tourists arrived in Nepal between January and June 2026
- June 2026 alone: 91,363 arrivals, up 19.5% on June 2025 and 22% above pre-pandemic June 2019
- India supplied 45.76% of June's arrivals — more than the next four source countries combined
- The United States was the second-largest single market, at 12.95% of arrivals
A steadily climbing first half
Nepal Tourism Board's month-by-month data for the first half of 2026 show a market that grew almost every month: 92,573 arrivals in January, 105,441 in February, a peak of 120,516 in March, 107,934 in April, 102,626 in May, and 91,363 in June — a total of 621,624 for the half-year. June's dip from March's peak is normal seasonality (March sits inside Nepal's spring trekking window), not a slowdown: June 2026 was still up nearly a fifth on the same month a year earlier.
Where visitors are actually coming from
Nepal Tourism Board director Mani Raj Lamichhane confirmed the scale of India's lead directly: “Indian tourists accounted for more than 45 per cent of total arrivals in June.” The rest of June's top five reads like a familiar list, but the gap to India is the real story.
| Country | Arrivals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| India | 41,809 | 45.76% |
| United States | 11,836 | 12.95% |
| China | 9,995 | 10.94% |
| Bangladesh | 4,322 | 4.73% |
| Australia | 2,896 | 3.17% |
Add up the U.S., China, Bangladesh and Australia and you get 29,049 visitors — still well short of India's 41,809 alone. Most Indian arrivals are short-haul pilgrimage and leisure trips rather than multi-week treks, but the American and Chinese numbers have the most direct read-through to our trails: both are core trekking-and-climbing markets, and both grew as part of the same wave that pushed the half-year total up double digits.
What this means for trekkers
What this means for you
If you're weighing when to book an autumn 2026 trek, this data points the same direction our own booking calendar does: arrivals are running noticeably ahead of last year, and Nepal's tightest windows — Everest Base Camp and Annapurna lodges in peak October — will fill earlier than they did in 2025. That gets sharper once Dashain and Tihar hit; we've covered how those festival weeks squeeze guides, flights and buses separately. The practical takeaway is simple: book your autumn slot now rather than in September.
None of this changes what a Nepal trek actually costs or requires — it just tells you that more people, from more places, are deciding to come. For a market like Australia, now the fifth-largest source of visitors and still growing, we've laid out exactly what that looks like in practice, flights and all, in a companion piece.
Source: Rising Nepal Daily / Nepal Tourism Board
Cover photo: Volker Meyer via Pexels (Pexels License).
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