Entries to Albania rose 3% in September

Albania’s Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) reported 2,024,320 entries into the country and 2,141,133 departures during September 2026. The figures cover Albanian and foreign citizens and count border movements rather than unique people. The bulletin was published on 23 October and compares the month with September 2025, when arrivals were 1,965,601 and departures 2,127,386.

The movement differed by citizenship. Albanian citizens accounted for 737,629 entries, up 4.5% from 705,917 in September 2025. Foreign citizens made 1,286,691 entries, a 2.1% increase from 1,259,684. On the departure side, movements by Albanian citizens rose 6.6% to 823,874, while foreign-citizen departures fell 2.8% to 1,317,259. These are classifications in border-administration records, not counts of visitors staying in Albania.

The nine-month comparison shows growth on both sides of the border. INSTAT recorded 17,476,873 arrivals from January through September 2026, 5.3% more than the 16,594,662 in the same 2025 period. Arrivals by Albanian citizens rose 6.0% to 6,746,482; foreign-citizen arrivals increased 4.9% to 10,730,391. Cumulative departures reached 17,504,378, up 4.8% year on year.

The departure components also grew over January–September, despite the decline in foreign departures during September alone. Departures by Albanian citizens rose 4.9% to 6,860,930, and foreign-citizen departures rose 4.7% to 10,643,448. This contrast illustrates why a single month should not be treated as the direction of the full-year trend. The September foreign-citizen decline is a one-month comparison; the cumulative measure covers nine months and remains above the previous year.

INSTAT cautions that the flow totals are not a simple migration or tourism balance. Its methodology counts every entry and every exit, so a person crossing more than once is counted repeatedly. The institute says observed differences between arrivals and departures can also reflect border-control facilitation during high traffic, which may leave some incoming movements unregistered; frequent crossings by residents of border areas for commercial activity; and dual citizens declaring different citizenship at entry and exit.

The source is administrative data supplied by the State Police’s Border and Migration Directorate, calculated by INSTAT. The figures are preliminary and may be revised. INSTAT also says changes in how the administrative source reports data led it to identify inconsistencies in some disaggregated indicators. To preserve reliability, the September bulletin temporarily presents only breakdowns at levels that passed its validation; more detailed indicators will follow once verification and harmonisation are complete.

That caveat limits what can be inferred from the release: it does not provide a dependable September breakdown by transport mode or travel purpose, despite describing those dimensions as part of the publication’s broader statistical objective. Nor should arrivals be equated with tourist visits or overnight stays. The reported totals describe border entries and exits across air, sea and land points, while tourism visitor statistics use a separate definition based on travel away from a person’s usual residence for less than 12 months and a non-profit main purpose.

The distinction is useful for interpreting the headline increase. September’s total entries rose 3.0% year on year, but that does not by itself show that hotel tourism, visitor spending or unique foreign arrivals rose at the same rate. The data establish the volume of recorded crossings and their citizenship split, with a clear preliminary-data warning; they do not identify the motives behind travel or explain why foreign departures and Albanian departures moved in opposite directions during the month.