Moroccans replace Brits as main foreign property buyers in Spain

During the first half of 2026, Moroccan citizens led the way in terms of property purchases by foreigners in Spain, with 4,960 transactions compared to 4,541 by the British.

That’s according to the latest data published by Spain’s General Council of Notaries, which shows that Spanish property purchases by Moroccans represented 8 percent of all transactions by non-Spaniards during this period, compared to the 7.3 percent share of the British.

During the previous quarter, just 29 transactions separated the two nationalities, but the latest notary data shows that Moroccans purchased 419 more homes than Brits from January to June 2026.

Home purchases by Moroccan citizens began to accelerate in 2018, when transactions grew by 28.8 percent year-on-year in the first half of that year. 

That trend has continued ever since, and Moroccan buyers did previously outnumber British buyers in Q1 2021. In fact, in Q3 of that year, Brits were also surpassed slightly by German property purchasers.

The latest data confirms what we have reported previously – as things stand, Britons are no longer the main foreign property buyers in Spain, whereas they used to be the main buyers by a long shot.

READ ALSO: The reasons why Brits are buying far fewer homes in Spain

To put it into context, in the first quarter of 2016 – a few months before the Brexit vote  – British buyers accounted for 21.91 percent of all foreign transactions.

But a decade on, they make up 7.3 percent of the foreign buyer share.

UK nationals still routinely rank as the main foreign buyers in Spain despite the Brexit-derived setbacks relating to freedom of movement, non-EU property taxes and other difficulties, but they are now among the main foreign buyers rather than being head and shoulders above the rest.

After Moroccan and British buyers, foreign buyers from Italy (4,109 property purchases), Romania (3,974), and Germany (3,907) completed the top five spots.

Moroccan buyers are snapping up homes mainly in Murcia (36.1 percent of foreign buyer total), Navarre (34.3 percent), La Rioja (25.1 percent), and Aragón (23.7 percent), Spanish regions where tourism isn’t the main industry.

On the other hand, buyers from the United Kingdom continue to prefer the usual popular spots on the coast: Andalusia (represting 11.2 percent of the foreign buyer share), Murcia (9.5 percent), the Canary Islands (8.4 percent), and the Balearic Islands (8.1 percent).

Whereas more than 98 percent of Moroccan buyers are residents in Spain, in the case of Britons 52.6 percent were non-residents buying Spanish holiday homes.

Moroccans also pay the lowest average property prices: €801 per square metre, compared to Americans, the foreigners who paid the highest average price per square metre (€3,948). 

In other words, for a typical 80-square-metre apartment, a Moroccan pays just over €64,000, compared to €315,840 paid by a US citizen. 

Along with Americans, above-average prices (€2,644 per square metre) were also recorded among foreign buyers from countries such as Poland, Belgium, Ireland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and the United Kingdom. 

The growing presence of foreigners in the Spanish property market has been blamed by many for shortages and surging prices, but this latest data from the General Council of Notaries also showed that non-Spanish buyers – in particular non-residents – are purchasing fewer homes overall, with the steepest drop since the Covid-19 pandemic.

READ MORE: Property purchases by foreigners in Spain see sharpest fall since 2020