Spain’s Canaries seek 10-year residency rule for property purchases

The regional government in Canary Islands is seeking new ways to stop non-residents buying up property in the archipelago, as locals in the second Spanish region with lowest salaries struggle to find affordable housing.

The government has submitted two draft regulations to central government in Madrid, proposed as urgent measures to curb property speculation and provide local councils with “effective” tools to regulate property sales and rentals. 

The Canary Islands was at the forefront of Spain’s intertwined anti-tourist and housing protests movements of recent summers, and this is not the first time that Canary authorities have attempted to tie property rights to residency on the archipelago.

“We are trying to prevent housing – or at least part of it – from becoming not merely a subject of speculation, but a commodity. And this debate has become so polarised that we have lost sight of what it means for someone to own a home,” sources told Spanish daily El País.

READ ALSO: Non-residents or foreigners? Spain’s Canaries debate who should face property limits

The regional government’s aim is for the new proposals to be approved by the Spanish Cabinet before the November 29th election, and ratified by Spain’s Standing Committee, which sits while parliament is dissolved for the election.

The measures require the approval of not only Madrid but authorisation from Brussels because they affect the Canary Islands’ status as an outermost region of the EU.

Foreign nationals have long had a presence, whether tourist or resident, on the islands off the coast of Western Sahara.

Foreign nationals account for 27.4 percent of house purchases there, according to data from the Association of Land Registrars. 

In the province Santa Cruz de Tenerife – which includes the islands of Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro – these transactions account for a staggering 34 percent of the total.

READ ALSO: ‘The island can’t take it anymore’ – Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism

As such, the first draft of the bill is to guarantee access to housing for residents of the Canary Islands. 

El País reports that the proposed legislation is based on the archipelago’s status as an outermost region (OR), as recognised in Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The Canary Islands justifies this on the grounds of the pressures caused by its island status, limited land area and gentrification resulting from the mass purchase of property by non-residents in a limited space.

The legislation would restrict the purchase of housing to individuals who have resided continuously for 10 years in any municipality in the Canary Islands, regardless of the buyer’s nationality. 

Therefore, this would include both Spaniards from the mainland or the Balearics, as well as foreign nationals.

The authorisation period would rise to 15 years if residence in Canarias has been intermittent. 

Proof would be provided by means of a certificate of registration on the municipal register. This requirement also applies to rent-to-buy schemes. 

The text also sets out other limits, such as each person purchasing a maximum of two properties, which must be in different localities, and anyone owning two or more properties will be treated as a non-resident for the purposes of this regulation.

Similarly, companies may only purchase properties to sell them to private individuals or to let them out. 

Transactions that fail to meet the requirements will be declared null and void and may not be registered in the Land Registry.

As states earlier, this is far from the first time residents and local government have tried to control the rental market on the Canary Islands, particularly focusing on non-resident buyers.

The idea of placing restrictions on foreigners from buying properties in the Canaries was first floated in 2022, when Canary nationalist political party Nueva Canarias asked the regional government to address the large number of property purchases by non-residents in the archipelago. 

Then in 2025 the regional government announced it would formally ask the European Union for help on the matter. 

In January 2026, it sent an official request to the European Commission asking them to authorise these restrictions.