In January 2026, we had an absolute record in tourism compared to January of all time. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the Armenian government.

Minister of Economy Gevorg Papoyan detailed that last year, starting from May, only September was the month that the 2025 indicator was not the best; in the case of September, it was in September 2023.

“In the case of January, the record was updated, and January 2026 is the best January among all Januarys. Previously, the best indicators were in 2023, 2024, 2025, then 2020, 2019, and so on, in order. There have never been 179,400 tourists in Armenia in January. The previous best indicator was 20,000 less, and we are 40,000 more than last year’s indicator; that is, this January we had 29 percent more tourists than last January,” the minister said.

Pashinyan, for his part, noted that he is pleased to record that 2025 is the first year when the number of Armenian citizens returning to Armenia is about 8,600 more than the number of those leaving the country.

“This means that according to the results of 2025, emigration has been replaced by immigration. But, in addition to Armenian citizens, we also see a very big change in tourist flows, because according to the results of 2025, including the inflow of foreign citizens exceeded the previous periods by 23 thousand; that is, we [i.e. Armenia] had the largest number of visitors. This was also visible during the New Year celebrations," The Armenian premier said, and noted that from now on, New Year celebrations in Armenia should be considered as a tourism product.