Eastern Europe Michelin Keys 2026: 13 Gained, 4 Lost
Central & Eastern Europe gained 13 Michelin Keys in the 2026 selection and lost 4. Every hotel that lost a Key was verified against its own MICHELIN Guide page.
Across Central & Eastern Europe, 13 hotels gained a MICHELIN Key or moved up a tier in the 2026 selection and four lost ground. The region's nine markets ended the year with 51 Key hotels against 43. That is growth of 18.6 percent, against 15.3 percent worldwide.
Croatia accounted for five of the region's 17 moves.
Chart: hotels in Central & Eastern Europe whose MICHELIN Key standing changed between the 2025 and 2026 selections. Source: MICHELIN Guide 2026 Key selection, released 18 September 2026. Every loss shown was re-checked on that hotel's own MICHELIN Guide page.
The scoreboard
| Movement | Hotels |
|---|---|
| New Keys awarded | 11 |
| Upgraded a tier | 2 |
| Dropped a tier | 1 |
| Key removed | 3 |
| Key hotels, 2025 → 2026 | 43 → 51 (+8) |
Market by market
| Country or territory | Key hotels 2025 | Key hotels 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland | 12 | 14 | +2 |
| Croatia | 9 | 12 | +3 |
| Slovenia | 6 | 5 | -1 |
| Montenegro | 6 | 5 | -1 |
| Bulgaria | 4 | 5 | +1 |
| Serbia | 4 | 4 | +0 |
| Monaco | 2 | 3 | +1 |
| Slovakia | 0 | 2 | +2 |
| Liechtenstein | 0 | 1 | +1 |
| Central & Eastern Europe | 43 | 51 | +8 |
Every hotel that gained
| Hotel | Where | Country | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blu Bay Hotel Sozopol | Sozopol | Bulgaria | no Key | One Key |
| Grand Park Hotel Rovinj by Maistra Collection | Rovinj | Croatia | no Key | One Key |
| Hotel Katarina | Orebić | Croatia | no Key | One Key |
| Palazzo President | Split | Croatia | no Key | One Key |
| Park Hotel Sonnenhof | Vaduz | Liechtenstein | no Key | One Key |
| Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo | Monte Carlo | Monaco | no Key | One Key |
| Heron Live Hotel | Sienna | Poland | no Key | One Key |
| Stary Niedźwiedź | Zakopane | Poland | no Key | One Key |
| LOFT Hotel & Wilson Palace | Bratislava | Slovakia | no Key | One Key |
| Marrol's Boutique Hotel | Bratislava | Slovakia | no Key | One Key |
| Vila Muhr | Bohinj | Slovenia | no Key | One Key |
| Hotel Villa Dubrovnik | Dubrovnik | Croatia | One Key | Two Keys |
| The Bristol Belgrade | Belgrade | Serbia | One Key | Two Keys |
Every hotel that lost ground
| Hotel | Where | Country | 2025 | 2026 | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace Elisabeth Hvar Hotel | Hvar | Croatia | Two Keys | One Key | Dropped a tier |
| SIRO Boka Place | Tivat | Montenegro | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| Nebesa Chalets | Kobarid | Slovenia | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| Peterc Vineyard Estate | Kojsko | Slovenia | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
Notable results
The gains were led by Croatia (4), Poland (2) and Slovakia (2). Two of them reached Two Keys or better: Hotel Villa Dubrovnik in Dubrovnik and The Bristol Belgrade in Belgrade. Promotions are scarcer than new entries — only 86 hotels worldwide moved up a tier — and the region took Hotel Villa Dubrovnik and The Bristol Belgrade. The heaviest single fall was Palace Elisabeth Hvar Hotel in Hvar, Croatia, from Two Keys to One Key.
The shape of the region's Key list
| Tier | Hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Three Keys | 2 |
| Two Keys | 10 |
| One Key | 39 |
| All Key hotels | 51 |
Three-Key hotels are 3.9 percent of the region's list, against 5.47 percent worldwide. The region holds about 1.8 percent of the world's Key hotels. Three of its 9 markets hold three or fewer Key hotels each — Slovakia, Monaco and Liechtenstein — so a single award or removal moves a national total noticeably.
| City or area | Key hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Belgrade | 4 |
| Zakopane | 3 |
| Krakow | 3 |
| Monte Carlo | 3 |
| Ljubljana | 2 |
| Herceg Novi | 2 |
Neighbouring markets
The larger markets around this region are covered separately, each with its own full list of gains and losses: Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Greece. Austria is the closest comparison for most of the hotels above, and the worldwide summary sets all of them against the global totals.
How the region compares
MICHELIN's second Key selection named 2,832 hotels worldwide on 18 September 2026, against 2,457 a
year earlier. Growth was uneven by tier: One-Key hotels rose 16.0 percent and Two-Key hotels 14.9
percent, while Three-Key hotels rose only 8.4 percent, from 143 to 155.
| Worldwide | Central & Eastern Europe | |
|---|---|---|
| Gained or improved a Key | 568 | 13 |
| Lost a Key or dropped a tier | 114 | 4 |
| Key hotels, 2025 | 2,457 | 43 |
| Key hotels, 2026 | 2,832 | 51 |
The additions were announced. The 114 downward moves were not, which is why they are listed in
full above. The complete worldwide breakdown, including how every loss was verified, is set out in
our analysis of the 2026 selection.
About these figures
The 2025 and 2026 selections were read hotel by hotel from the MICHELIN Guide's own country
listings, and every downward move worldwide was then re-checked against that hotel's individual
page on the Guide before being published. A hotel missing from a country listing has not
necessarily lost anything — several that plainly still hold Keys never appear in those listings —
so only a hotel the Guide still lists, now without a Key, is counted as having lost one. Hotels
whose Guide page has been removed entirely are marked "Left the Guide" rather than counted as
downgrades.
MICHELIN introduced the Key in 2024 as the hotel counterpart to its restaurant Star, awarding One,
Two or Three Keys across a selection of more than 9,000 hotels in over 100 countries on
architecture, design, service, character, consistency and value. Price is not a criterion. The
criteria are set out in the Guide's explainer; the full 2026 list is published here.
Author
2026/09/19
