Christmas and New Year's Eve hotel prices, 2026

1. 1. Christmas: the going rate was a median 3.9% lower than in mid January, a difference within chance

   211 hotels had a going rate (the rate most booking sites agreed on) for both the Christmas stay (December 23 to 27, 2026) and the January stay (January 12 to 16, 2027). Hotel by hotel, the Christmas rate was a median 3.9% lower (95% interval -8.1% to 0.0%), a median $5 a night less. It was higher at 88 hotels, lower at 119 and the same at 4 (exact sign test, p = 0.037). Before pricing we set p < 0.025 as the bar for a clear difference, since this page makes two comparisons; this one does not, so we do not read the difference as a Christmas effect. The interval does not reach above zero: in this sample there is no sign that the median hotel was priced higher for Christmas than for mid January. Across all hotels with a price, the median going rate was $148 a night for Christmas and $166 for mid January, before taxes and fees. On the all-in going rate, where the sites reported taxes and fees for both stays (211 hotels), the median was 3.0% lower. The two stays share 3 of their 4 nights' weekdays; the Christmas stay has a Saturday night where the January stay has a Tuesday night.

2. 2. New Year's Eve: the going rate was a median 6.8% higher than in mid January

   207 hotels had a going rate (the rate most booking sites agreed on) for both the New Year's Eve stay (December 29, 2026 to January 2, 2027) and the January stay (January 12 to 16, 2027). Hotel by hotel, the New Year's Eve rate was a median 6.8% higher (95% interval 0.0% to +13.9%), a median $10 a night more. It was higher at 118 hotels, lower at 83 and the same at 6 (exact sign test, p = 0.016). Before pricing we set p < 0.025 as the bar for a clear difference, since this page makes two comparisons; this one clears it, narrowly: with some single cities left out it would not (see how much one city moves it, below). Across all hotels with a price, the median going rate was $178 a night for New Year's Eve and $166 for mid January, before taxes and fees. On the all-in going rate, where the sites reported taxes and fees for both stays (207 hotels), the median was 7.6% higher. The two stays have the same weekdays (Tuesday to Friday nights).

3. 3. A site listed the stay 5% or more below the going rate at 192 of 223 hotels for Christmas and 181 of 217 for New Year's Eve

   For Christmas, 192 of the 223 hotels with a price (86.1%) had at least one booking site listing the stay 5% or more below the going rate; for New Year's Eve, 181 of 217 (83.4%); for mid January, 169 of 213 (79.3%). Among the hotels priced for both stays, 31 had such a listing only for Christmas and 18 only for mid January (more for Christmas; exact test, p = 0.09, within what chance alone could produce); for New Year's Eve, 27 had such a listing only for New Year's Eve and 20 only for mid January (more for New Year's Eve; exact test, p = 0.38, within what chance alone could produce). For comparison, in the study's 17 snapshots up to October 10, 2026 (2-night stays, cities worldwide), the share ranged from 61% to 81%. Christmas and New Year's Eve were above that range; these are 4-night stays in large US cities, and one snapshot cannot say which of those made the difference.

4. 4. Where a lower listing existed, the typical gap was about $26 a night for Christmas and $32 for New Year's Eve

   At the 192 Christmas hotels with a listing 5% or more below the going rate, the median gap was 16.9%, about $26 a night before taxes and fees, or about $104 over the 4 nights. For New Year's Eve, at 181 hotels: 18.5%, about $32 a night, about $128 over the stay. For mid January, at 169 hotels: 18.1%, about $29 a night.

5. 5. Super.com had the lowest price most often for all three stays

   Among the 192 Christmas hotels with a listing 5% or more below the going rate, Super.com had the lowest price most often (93 of 192, 48.4%), then KAYAK.com (27), then Vio.com (21). For New Year's Eve, among 181: Super.com had the lowest price most often (88 of 181, 48.6%), then Vio.com (21), then KAYAK.com (19). For mid January, among 169: Super.com had the lowest price most often (99 of 169, 58.6%), then Hotels In America (11), then Vio.com (10). A site that is lowest at one hotel is often not lowest at the next, so the hotel and dates you want are what to check.

6. 6. At 178 of 192, the lowest listing for Christmas named no room

   Of the 192 Christmas hotels with a listing 5% or more below the going rate, the lowest listing named a room at 14 (7.3%) and no room at 178, so its price alone does not say which room it buys. On the study's original room check, a lower listing whose room name matched the room at the going rate turned up at 11 of the 192. New Year's Eve: a room named at 9 of 181, a match at 3. Mid January: a room named at 17 of 169, a match at 14.

City by city

The median going rate a night for each stay, before taxes and fees, with how many hotels had a price in brackets; and the median change of the going rate against mid January, hotel by hotel, for the hotels priced for both stays (how many in brackets). Nine hotels a city: a city's figures are a small sample, so read them as a pointer, not a city average. Sorted by the New Year's Eve change. For New Year's Eve, the median was higher than mid January in 16 of 25 cities, most in Las Vegas (+149.2%), Honolulu (+84.8%), Philadelphia (+38.3%), and lower in 9, most in San Francisco (-70.3%), Atlanta (-30.9%), Tampa (-21.2%). For Christmas, the median was higher than mid January in 8 of 25 cities, most in Honolulu (+62.9%), New York (+22.5%), Anaheim (+14.7%), and lower in 17, most in San Francisco (-76.0%), Atlanta (-40.8%), New Orleans (-38.0%).

Each city's hotel by hotel rows, with how many sites listed each hotel and which was lowest, are in the CSV below.

What this shows, and what it does not

It shows what booking sites listed on Google Hotels on one day, October 13, 2026, for 225 hotels: 9 in each of 25 US cities. These are one day's prices, about ten weeks ahead; they will move. It is not a forecast and not every hotel: a sample this size has room for chance (each figure above says how much where it matters), the hotels are US only, and Google Hotels does not list every site. The going rate and the gaps are nightly rates averaged over the 4 nights, before taxes and fees as most sites list them; the hotel pages and the checker show prices all-in where the sites report taxes and fees.

The comparison week is mid January, not a typical week of the year, and it is not a perfect match for both holidays. It has the New Year's Eve stay's weekdays exactly; against Christmas it has a Tuesday night where Christmas has a Saturday night. It checks out on Saturday, January 16, the first day of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day long weekend, so its last night is that weekend's eve. It was priced further ahead (91 days) than Christmas (71) and New Year's Eve (77). A city's own events in any of the three weeks move its figure.

How much one city moves the two comparisons, a check we added after pricing: leaving out one city at a time, the New Year's Eve median stayed between +6.2% (without Honolulu) and +8.9% (without Washington DC), it stayed above zero every time, and it met the bar we set (p < 0.025) in 14 of the 25; the Christmas median stayed between -5.0% (without Minneapolis) and -2.5% (without New Orleans), it stayed below zero every time, and it met the bar we set in 8 of the 25. In two cities the January week itself was far pricier than either holiday, which pulls both comparisons toward lower holiday rates: Atlanta ($279 a night in January, against $119 for Christmas and $148 for New Year's Eve) and San Francisco ($678 a night in January, against $159 for Christmas and $183 for New Year's Eve).

Christmas and New Year's Eve hotel prices: common questions

Method and data

The same method and the same hotels as our Thanksgiving page (Thanksgiving week hotel prices, 2026), which follows the hotel price dispersion study with the same scoring code as its weekly snapshots. The 25 cities anchor 25 of the largest US hotel markets, each named as the study names its city there (Anaheim for the Anaheim and Santa Ana area, Honolulu for Oahu, Tampa for Tampa and St. Petersburg, Scottsdale for the Phoenix area, where the study has no Phoenix city). In each city we use the first 9 hotels, in Google's order, of that city's newest study snapshot that had a going rate there: the list the Thanksgiving page fixed before its first search, used here unchanged. The stays, the comparisons and the bar for a clear difference were written down before any search for this page. Each hotel was priced by its Google property token three times, for December 23 to 27, 2026, for December 29, 2026 to January 2, 2027 and for January 12 to 16, 2027, all on October 13, 2026 (UTC), for 2 adults, as a traveler in the US, in US dollars: 675 searches in all, one a hotel a stay. For each hotel and stay we kept every booking site Google Hotels listed. The going rate is the rate the largest number of listings agree on, with ties broken low; a lower listing counts when it is 5% or more below it; the room check asks whether the lowest listing names a room, and whether a lower listing's room name matches the room at the going rate. A hotel with no price for a stay is left out of that stay's figures and kept in the CSV with its price columns empty.

Per-hotel data, all three stays (CC BY 4.0): christmas-new-year-hotel-prices-2026.csv. Same columns as the study's CSVs, plus the all-in going rate where the sites reported it and the stay's name. Each hotel's measured prices from the study, all-in: hotel prices by city.