Nearly 3.8 million visitors to museums and exhibition centres in 2025

Municipal museums and exhibition spaces welcomed a total of 3.8 million people in 2025, more than a million of them (1,021,500 to be precise) going specifically to the Museu Picasso Barcelona, which once again was the municipal museum to attract the most visitors.

The second facility was the Museu d’Història de Barcelona, which has sites all over the city and attracted a similar figure (949,500), though slightly lower, as well as the  Castell de Montjuïc, a heritage site offering exhibitions and attracting 696,000 people.

The exhibitions that drew the largest volumes of visitors were Growing up between Two Artists. A Tribute to Claude Picasso (with 254,855 visitors) and From Montmartre to Montparnasse. Catalan artists in Paris, 1889-1914, which was seen by 209,915 people Both these exhibitions were at the Museu Picasso. Elsewhere, at the DHub, the exhibitions to draw the most visitors were How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Road to Design (with 48,754 people), followed by Miguel Milá. (Pre) industrial designer (35,912). At the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona, the exhibition Invisible Animals attracted 54,906 visitors (data for December pending), while Nature or Culture at the Centre Martorell d’Exposicions attracted 40,246 visitors.

The overall total of tourists visiting the city grew slightly, although there was a drop in the number of overnight stays, meaning fewer opportunities to visit museums and exhibitions.

In terms of the make-up of spectators, an estimated one in four visitors to municipal museums and exhibitions are city residents, with visitors from the rest of Catalonia accounting for 30% of the total. Among those coming from outside Catalonia, the highest volumes of visitors came from Madrid, Valencia and Andalusia, with 31%, 13% and 12% respectively.

As for international visitors, Europeans account for 55% of these, compared to 20% from the USA, 11% from Italy and 9% from France.