Nepal received around 1.16 million tourists by air in the year 2025, registering 1 percent growth over the previous year. In total Nepal welcomed 1,158,459 visitors from January to December in 2025 by air, against 1,147,548 tourist arrivals recorded in the previous year, according to the data released by Nepal Tourism Board.
Altogether 292,438 Indian visitors arrived in Nepal by air in 2025, which is 8 percent less than previous year’s arrival from the southern neighbour by air, 317,781. The decline in Indian visitors can be attributed to the Gen Z protest of September last year, which toppled K.P. Oli led government resulting in death of 77 people. However, the overall tourist arrival was good in the year 2025 despite the political unrest as the country registered 1 percent growth in global tourist arrival by air, said Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Tourism Board Deepak Raj Sharma.
Now the situation has returned to normal and we expect more arrivals by next year, he added.
India continues to be the largest source of foreign visitors to Nepal as the share of Indian tourists in 2025 was 35.2 percent in the total arrival, highest among the world. The top five countries generating tourists to Nepal are India with 292,438, visitors USA with 112,316, China with 58,684, UK with 57,545 and Bangladesh with 49,357 visitors. Region-wise speaking, South Asia or the SAARC countries generated the highest, 408,103 tourists, while other Asian countries comes next with 253,311 tourists and Americas generate 221,018 tourists to Nepal. Nepal achieved 97 percent recovery in the number of tourist arrivals as compared to the pre-pandemic level. In 2019, when Nepal was not affected by the corona virus pandemic, the country received a total of 1,197,191 tourists by air.
