The 50 Best Hotels 2026

Written By shane eaton

The fourth edition of The 50 Best Hotels was unveiled on 15 September 2026 at Les Salles du Carrousel in Paris, the first time the ceremony has been held outside London. Rosewood Hong Kong took the top spot for a second consecutive year, but the headline for anyone reading from this side of the Alps is Europe's dominance of the list, with 21 hotels, and Italy's share of it.

Italy and France finished level on six properties each in the top 50. Add the extended 51-100 list, published two weeks before the ceremony, and Italy pulls clear: nine more hotels, more than any other country in Europe. Fifteen Italian addresses in the global top 100.

The top 50

Passalacqua (No.5), Lake Como. The highest-ranked hotel in Europe, and therefore Best Hotel in Europe by default. It also takes the Best Boutique Hotel Award for a third consecutive year, an award reserved for the highest-ranked property with fewer than 50 rooms operating independently of a major group.

Four Seasons Firenze (No.12). The Renaissance palazzo and its eleven-acre Giardino della Gherardesca continue to do what almost nothing else in Florence can, which is offer real silence within walking distance of the Duomo. Four Seasons Firenze is also home to the Atrium Bar, one of the greatest hotel bars in the world.

Casa Maria Luigia (No.18), Modena. The highest new entry on the list, and winner of the Lavazza Highest New Entry Award. Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore's twelve-room country house outside Modena has always been more of an extension of their table than a hotel in the conventional sense, which is presumably the point.

Bulgari Roma (No.32). The jeweller's Roman flagship on Piazza Augusto Imperatore, facing the Mausoleum of Augustus, holds its place.

Portrait Milano (No.39). A new entry, and the only Milanese hotel on either list. The Lungarno Collection property occupies the sixteenth-century Archiepiscopal Seminary on Corso Venezia. Don’t miss an aperitivo (and pasta in bianco) at 10_11, the hotel’s restaurant and bar on the ground floor.

San Domenico Palace (No.50), Taormina. A new entry for the Four Seasons-managed former convent, which has been trading on its White Lotus afterglow for a few seasons now and evidently still has it.

Nine more in the 51-100

The extended list is where Italy's depth really shows, and where the geography broadens well beyond the usual Como and Amalfi axis.

  • No.58 Il San Pietro di Positano (new entry), the highest-ranked independent hotel anywhere on the extended list

  • No.60 Splendido, Portofino

  • No.62 Castiglion del Bosco (new entry), Montalcino

  • No.66 Orient Express La Minerva (new entry), Rome

  • No.68 Forestis Dolomites (new entry), Bressanone

  • No.84 Borgo Santandrea, Amalfi

  • No.88 Borgo Egnazia, Savelletri

  • No.91 Villa Treville (new entry), Positano

  • No.95 Reschio, Lisciano Niccone

Italian brands were unusually visible among the partners this year: Lavazza sponsoring the Highest New Entry Award, Ferrari Trento the Most Admired Hotel Group Award, Monte Vibiano the Best Hotel in Africa, and SeiBellissimi, in its first outing as Official Italian Cocktails Partner, the Art of Hospitality Award that went to Badrutt's Palace in St. Moritz. Between that and fifteen hotels in the top 100, Italy arguably had a better night in Paris than France did.

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