Why are so many houses in Albania empty? The census numbers (2026)

The 2023 population and housing census is the first full count of Albania's homes in over a decade, and its headline is stark: one conventional dwelling in three had nobody living in it on census day. The share differs sharply by building type - apartment blocks stand emptiest, the semi-detached houses of the towns fullest.

One definition matters: "uninhabited at the census moment" includes everything from a never-sold new flat to a summer apartment, an emigrant's family house and a home between tenants. The census does not ask why a dwelling is empty.

The vacancy is not spread evenly: it piles up on the coast. The Durrës prefecture is above the national rate, and Vlorë is the extreme - more than half of all dwellings uninhabited, with 26,923 of its 57,079 empty homes sitting in buildings of 21 flats or more. That is not old village stock; that is the new seaside block.

The census records the fact, not the cause - but the distribution speaks. If vacancy were mainly rural abandonment after emigration, detached village houses would lead; they do not. The emptiest category is the flat in a big block, and the emptiest prefectures are the two coastal ones where construction has been fastest. That is the signature of homes built or bought not to be lived in year-round: summer flats used a few weeks a year, second homes of emigrants who return in August, and newly finished units still waiting for an owner.

So "every third home empty" does not mean a third of Albania is a ghost town. It means the coastal market carries a large seasonal and investment layer on top of the lived-in stock - worth knowing before you read any supply statistic, and before you buy into a building that comes alive only in July.

Three practical consequences.

• Visit in winter, not only in season. A block that is 40% empty in February tells you what your service charges fund, whether the entrance is maintained and who your neighbours actually are. Our where-to-live page ranks the towns by year-round life.
• Vacancy has not made property cheap: the Bank of Albania price index kept rising through 2026, as our market page shows with the house-price block. Empty stock and rising asking prices coexist because much of the empty stock is not for sale.
• For a rental investor the number is competition: tens of thousands of seasonal flats surface on the booking platforms every summer. The budget guide shows what each price band buys, and the second-home page prices the running costs of a flat that stands empty most of the year.