Immigration pushes Spain’s population towards 50 million threshold
This comes as both immigration and housing are politicised topics on Spain’s general election campaign.
Spain is fast approaching the 50 million threshold, with population growth spurred almost entirely by immigration in recent years.
New data from Spain’s national stats body shows that the resident population of Spain stood at 49,935,642 as of 1st October 2026, a new record high that inches the country closer to 50 million residents.
During the third quarter of the year, the number of residents in Spain increased by 130,223, whilst year-on-year growth stood at 435,551.
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This demographic growth has one clear driving force: immigration.
According to the Continuous Population Statistics from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE), foreigners have accounted for 98.8 percent of the population increase recorded between July and September.
In total, the number of people born outside Spain currently living in the country reached 10,433,091, representing around a fifth of the population.
This figure is higher than the number of residents with foreign nationality, as it also includes those who have acquired Spanish nationality.
When analysing the population by nationality, the number of foreign nationals increased by 86,883 people during the quarter, reaching 7,518,237.
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INE methodology distinguishes between place of birth and nationality, two variables that paint a different picture of the country’s current demographic composition.
As such, during the third quarter, the population with foreign nationality increased by 86,883 people, whilst the Spanish population grew by 43,340.
Within the latter group, however, the number of those born in Spain fell by 8,383, bringing the total to 38,979,613.
By contrast, the number of Spaniards born abroad rose by 51,723.
The increase in population is also reflected in the rowing number of households, which also recorded a new all-time high in INE records.
Spain had 19,953,529 households as of October 1st, after adding 69,162 during the third quarter alone – an increase of 1.24 percent.
As both housing and immigration form important parts of the Spanish general election campaign, this surge in inward migration combined with a shortfall of housing units worsened the housing crisis in Spain.
