Buying an Existing Campsite: A Due Diligence Checklist

Why buying a campsite often beats building one

If you are weighing up buying a campsite against building one from a bare field, the short answer is that buying is usually the faster and less risky route. The permits already exist, the guest base already exists, and revenue starts the day you take the keys. Getting a new campsite through zoning and licensing can take years in most European countries, and plenty of applications never make it through at all.

An established site also comes with something you cannot buy separately: years of reviews on ACSI, ADAC and Google, returning guests who rebook without being asked, and a name that locals recognise. That momentum is worth real money.

The trade-off is just as real. You inherit the maintenance backlog the previous owner deferred, a reputation you did not create, and seasonal guest contracts that may run for years at rates you would never set yourself. Due diligence is the process of finding out exactly how much of each you are taking on before the price is fixed. The rest of this checklist walks through it in the order we would tackle it.

Considering building from scratch instead? Read our guide to starting a campsite

Permits and zoning: confirm what actually transfers

Start with the operating licence, because everything else depends on it. In some municipalities the licence attaches to the land, in others to the operator, and in the second case it does not automatically transfer with the sale. Ask the seller for the current licence documents and confirm with the municipality, in writing, that you can continue operating under them.

Then count the pitches. Walk the site with the permit in hand and compare the permitted pitch count against what is physically there. Unpermitted expansions are more common than buyers expect: a corner field converted to ten extra pitches during a busy summer fifteen years ago, never registered. If the paperwork says 80 pitches and you count 95, you are buying 80, and possibly an enforcement problem.

Check for seasonal occupancy restrictions too. Many sites are licensed for recreation only, with rules against permanent residence, and some carry restrictions on winter opening or on the number of accommodation units versus touring pitches. These rules vary enormously by country and municipality, so budget for a local lawyer who knows campsite transactions in that specific region. It is one of the cheapest insurances in the whole deal.

The financial records to demand

A campsite that has been run properly can produce its numbers within a week. Ask for three full years of each item below, not a single-page summary the broker prepared. You want to see the seasonality, because a site that earns 70 percent of its revenue in July and August is a very different business from one with a solid shoulder season, and the monthly pattern also tells you how exposed the site is to one wet summer or a late Easter.

A seller who cannot produce these records, or who explains that a lot of the shop turnover was cash and never made the books, is telling you something. Either the business was run carelessly or the claimed earnings are not provable, and in both cases the price should reflect that.

• Occupancy by month, per pitch type, for three years
• Average daily rate per pitch type and how it moved between seasons
• Revenue split: touring pitches, rental accommodation, seasonal contracts, shop and catering, extras
• Staff costs, including seasonal hires and the hours the owning family worked unpaid
• Energy contracts and consumption, since a 2021 fixed contract expiring next year can shift the cost base badly
• Maintenance spending per year, itemised, so you can see what was actually kept up

See how campsite revenue streams typically break down

The physical inspection: where the money hides

The sanitary block is the most expensive building on any campsite to replace, so inspect it as if the whole deal depends on it, because financially it might. Look past the fresh paint at the pipework, the drainage falls, the hot water capacity and the state of the shower trays. Bring a builder for this part. A cosmetic refresh costs a few thousand euros; a full rebuild of a mid-sized block is routinely a six-figure project.

Check the electrical infrastructure per pitch. Sites wired decades ago for 6 amp connections struggle with modern motorhomes, air conditioning and e-bike charging, and upgrading to 10 or 16 amp across a whole field means new cabling and often a heavier grid connection. Walk the terrain after rain if you can, and look for wet spots and moss lines that reveal drainage problems the summer photos never show.

If the site is wooded, pay an arborist for a survey. Mature trees are a selling point until one drops a limb on a caravan, and a backlog of neglected crown work across 200 trees is a serious line in the budget. Finally, drive the access road slowly and imagine it under a stream of 8-metre motorhomes in July. As a rough rule of thumb, budget your first two winters for catch-up maintenance rather than improvements, because that is usually what they get spent on anyway.

Seasonal guests: the community you are marrying into

Most established European campsites carry a block of seasonal pitch holders, the vaste gasten or Dauercamper, and they deserve their own chapter in your due diligence. Ask for every contract: the rates, the notice periods, what is included, and any side agreements the previous owner made verbally over the years. Verbal arrangements have a way of becoming very firm expectations.

The uncomfortable pattern is that long-standing seasonal rates are often well below market. Raising them is legally straightforward in most cases and socially explosive in nearly all of them. These guests have been there longer than you have, they know each other, and they will compare notes on everything you do.

On the first site I helped take over, we raised seasonal rates 8 percent in year one to bring them closer to market. It was defensible on paper. We spent that entire summer managing a quiet revolt, three departures of families who had camped there for over twenty years, and a one-star review that mentioned the previous owner by name. The rate rise was probably right; announcing it in month two was not. Price that lesson into your plans: either accept below-market seasonal income for a few years or accept the turbulence of correcting it.

What a campsite is actually worth

Campsites are usually priced on a multiple of sustainable earnings plus the underlying land value, not on turnover and not on the seller's emotional attachment. Sustainable earnings means the profit the site produces after paying a realistic salary for the work the owning family does, which is often far less than the headline figure in the sales brochure.

The multiples and the land values vary hugely by country and location. A coastal site in the south of France and an inland terrain in the Ardennes are different markets entirely, and there is no reliable European average worth quoting. What matters is engaging a valuer who specialises in leisure and hospitality property, not a residential estate agent who will price it like a large house with a nice garden. The fee for a specialist valuation is small against the risk of overpaying by 20 percent on a seven-figure purchase.

Use the due diligence findings as negotiation material. A dated sanitary block, an expiring energy contract and below-market seasonal rates are all legitimate, documentable reasons to adjust the price, and a serious seller expects that conversation.

Your first season: change little, listen a lot

The strongest move in your first season is restraint. Keep the staff who want to stay, keep the opening hours, keep the bread service. Guests who have holidayed on the same pitch for a decade are watching for signs that everything is about to change, and every unnecessary change you make in year one costs trust you will want later.

Spend the season listening instead. Work the reception desk yourself for at least part of the summer, because that is where you learn which facilities guests complain about, which extras they ask for, and what the previous owner promised people. Keep a simple list of everything you hear; by September it becomes your investment plan for the winter, ranked by how often each item came up.

The one change worth making early is digital, precisely because it upsets nobody. A proper website, online booking and a guest information hub can be set up quietly in the off-season, they make the site easier to run from day one, and no seasonal guest ever staged a revolt over a better website. Start there, bank the early win, and save the visible changes for year two when the community has decided you can be trusted.