Over 220,000 new registrations: European caravanning market remains at a high level

Frankfurt am Main, 20 January 2025

Caravanning has been growing in popularity in Europe for years – and there is no end in sight to this trend. In 2024, the European market for leisure vehicles recorded growth of around 5.2 per cent compared to the previous year. A total of over 221,000 new motor caravans and caravans were registered. While new registrations in the motor caravan segment recorded an increase, the figures for caravans were below the previous year’s level but remained stable.

With around 221,000 newly registered leisure vehicles in 2024, the European caravanning industry recorded an increase of around 5.2 per cent compared to the previous year. This means that the 200,000 mark for new registrations was exceeded once again – as in previous years.
Germany is by far the largest caravanning market in Europe and once again accounted for the largest share of new registrations with 96,392 units. With growth of 6.7 per cent, the German market remained at a high level in 2024. This positive trend was also evident in other major European markets: France, the second largest market in Europe, reported 33,783 new registrations, an increase of 7.6 per cent compared to the previous year. The number of new registrations in the United Kingdom also rose to a total of around 28,011 units (+10.4 per cent), significantly exceeding the 2023 level.

Motor caravan registrations up, caravan segment remains stable

The positive development in the leading European caravanning markets was primarily driven by the motor caravan segment. This segment recorded a total of 160,467 new registrations, which corresponds to a significant increase of 9.6 per cent compared to the previous year: Germany, the largest market, significantly exceeded its previous year’s result with 74,718 new registrations (+9.1 per cent). France followed with 26,396 new registrations and an increase of 10.3 per cent, while the United Kingdom, the third-largest motor caravan market, registered 16,567 units – an increase of 36 per cent.
With a total of 60,865 new registrations (-4.7 per cent), the caravan segment recorded declining figures in almost all of Europe, but remained stable overall: 21,674 new caravans were registered in Germany (-1 per cent), meaning that the vehicle segment almost reached the previous year’s level. In the United Kingdom, the number of new registrations fell to around 11,400 units (approx. -13 per cent), while the Netherlands recorded an increase of 6.1 per cent with 7,192 caravans.
‘The European caravanning industry has impressively demonstrated its resilience and adaptability in recent years despite challenging market and economic conditions. In 2024, over 220,000 leisure vehicles were registered – a result that impressively demonstrates the stable demand and unbroken appeal of caravanning among European holidaymakers. Since 2018, the number of annual new registrations has remained consistently above 200,000, which underlines the remarkable continuity of the European market in the long term. This positive development gives the industry good reason to look ahead to the caravanning year 2025 with confidence,’ says Jost Krüger, Secretary General of the European Caravan Federation (ECF), summarising the developments of the past year.

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The European Caravan Federation
The European Caravan Federation (ECF) is the umbrella organization that represents the interests of the national associations of the European caravan and motor caravan industry. Founded in 1964, the ECF is composed of 12 national organizations, each of which represents the interests of the industrial arm of the caravanning industry in each of the EU member states. The ECF is the lobbying organization for the European caravanning industry in Brussels. In this capacity, the ECF lobbies EU legislators on political, economic, and technical matters that are of concern to ECF members.