Since the beginning of the century, following the work published by Balaguer and Cantavella-Jordá (Appl Econ 34:877–884, 2002), a significant number of studies have emerged analyzing the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). However, in the recent years, studies have begun to incorporate the effects of tourism on the environment into this analysis, given that this activity often entails significant environmental degradation. In this context, the aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between tourism, economic growth, and pollutant emissions for the 27 countries of the European Union during the period 1995–2022. A cointegration test and an econometric estimation model will be applied to analyze the relationships between the described variables, utilizing the Granger causality test. The results obtained determine that the variables are significant, indicating that tourism has a causal relationship with economic growth. However, this expansion of tourism also has significant negative effects on environmental pollution.