Construction

🏗️ Construction

Construction was first the engine and then the dead weight of the Spanish economy. In 2006 it came to generate 12.4 % of Spain's value added, compared with an EU average of 6.2 %, and in 2007 it employed 2.78 million people, 13.1 % of everyone in work. After the bubble burst, the sector's real activity fell to 53 % of its 2007 level in 2014. In 2025 it accounts for 5.9 % (EU: 5.6 %) and Spain ranks 12 of 27 EU countries. Figures are per inhabitant and, those in euros, adjusted for inflation (2025 euros). The homes started and completed each year are covered in New construction.

The boom and the bust

In 1995 construction already weighed more in Spain than in the EU (9.3 % of value added compared with 6.2 %). In 2007 it was the country of the 27 where it weighed most and accounted for 13.1 % of employment, compared with 7.7 % in Europe. The lowest share since then was in 2024, at 5.6 %. In 2025, with 5.9 % of value added and 7.1 % of employment (EU: 5.6 % and 6.7 %), Spain ranks 12 of 27.

Without the effect of prices (in volume), the value added of Spanish construction in 1995 was 67 % of its 2007 level; it bottomed out in 2014 at 53 % and in 2025 it stands at 62 %. For the EU as a whole it is at 85 % of 2007. Per inhabitant, the sector's value added went from 3,672 € in 2007 to 1,835 € in 2025, in today's euros.

Employment

According to the LFS, in Q2 2026 1.64 million people worked in construction, 33.3 per 1,000 inhabitants and 7.2 % of everyone in work. At the start of 2008 there were 2.68 million (58.1 per 1,000 inhabitants); the low point of the series was 20.1 in Q1 2014. In 2007, using Eurostat's annual data, Spain had 61.5 people employed in the sector per 1,000 inhabitants compared with 35.0 in the EU; in 2025, 32.5 compared with 32.8.

The sector's unemployment rate, calculated with the unemployed who left a construction job less than a year ago, went from 9.9 % at the start of 2008 to a peak of 28.6 % in Q1 2012; in Q2 2026 it is 5.1 %.

In the Social Security system, construction had an average of 1.50 million registered workers in September 2026 (30.5 per 1,000 inhabitants and 7.0 % of all registered workers), 2.7 % more than a year earlier. 28.1 % are self-employed, compared with 31.7 % in January 2021. Since January 2026 the Social Security system classifies using the new CNAE-2025, which may cause small jumps.

Public works

Official tendering is the budget of the works that administrations put out to tender (including VAT). In 2025 it came to 514 € per inhabitant in 2025 euros: 139 € from central government (including its public entities, such as Adif, Aena or the Port Authorities, which contribute 90 €) and 374 € from the «territorial bodies», which in this statistic combine regional governments and town councils without separating them. 60 % was civil engineering and the rest building. The highest figure since 1996 was 1,461 € in 2006 and the lowest, 161 € in 2012.

Data from 2024 onwards are provisional.

Central government's share depends on the Spanish Government. Each bar is coloured by the party in government on 1 July of that year; this is a description, not an explanation: each period coincides with a different phase of the economic cycle. Under PP governments (14 years of the series) central government tendering averaged 208 € per inhabitant per year, and under PSOE governments (16 years), 252 €. The highest was 531 € per inhabitant in 2008 and the lowest, 56 € in 2020.

By region, in 2025 those receiving the most tendering per inhabitant were Extremadura (824 €), Castilla y León (810 €), País Vasco (756 €), and those receiving the least, Castilla-La Mancha (275 €), Comunidad de Madrid (338 €), Región de Murcia (415 €). 1.7 % of the total for Spain cannot be assigned to any region (works spanning several) and does not appear on the map. The party column is that of the regional government, but territorial tendering mixes the region's with that of its town councils.

How much is built

In 2025 the associations of quantity surveyors approved projects for 2.83 new-build homes per 1,000 inhabitants (139 thousand). In 2006, at the height of the bubble, there were 19.4 per 1,000 (866 thousand homes); in 2013, just 0.73. The floor area to be built went from a peak of 3.60 m² per inhabitant to 0.60 m².

By region, in 2025 the most new homes per inhabitant were approved in Comunidad Foral de Navarra, Andalucía, Comunidad Valenciana and the fewest in País Vasco, Cantabria, Cataluña (from 3.9 to 1.9 per 1,000 inhabitants). The statistic does not include Ceuta or Melilla.

To compare with Europe, Eurostat's building permits have to be used, which are not the same as the surveyors' approvals: for Spain, Eurostat gives 200 thousand homes with permits in 2025, compared with 139 thousand approved, because the INE sends it a different source (municipal licences). The two series cannot be mixed. Using permits, in 2025 Spain ranked 12 of 27 countries, with 4.1 homes per 1,000 inhabitants compared with 3.6 in the EU.

Cement gives another measure of activity. In 2006 Spain consumed 1,260 kg per inhabitant; in 2013, 231 kg, and in 2025, 337 kg (in 1995 it was 641). 17 % of output was exported.

Output and costs

Eurostat's construction production index measures activity in volume. In 2024 Spain's stood at 46 % of its 2007 level (EU: 90 %); the low point was 43 % in 2022. By branch, in 2025 building stood at 39 % of 2007 and civil engineering at 41 %.

Beware of 2025: the total rises by 26.2 % and specialised construction by 32.1 %, while building changes by 3.4 % and civil engineering by -7.3 %. That jump looks like a break in the series and should not be read as a boom.

Building a new home (materials and labour) cost an index of 118.9 in 2025 (2021 = 100), compared with 92.2 in 2020. Adjusted for general inflation, the index stands at 100.4: above 100 means building has become more expensive than other prices since 2021. The real peak was 103.6 in 2022. Spain does not publish its own cost index on Eurostat: its cost series is the same as the output price series. In the EU, the output price of new housing stood at 124.2 in 2025.

The companies

In 2024 Spain had 8.8 construction companies per 1,000 inhabitants (EU: 9.0; rank 18 of 27), with an average of 3.1 people employed in each (EU: 3.4). Each person employed generated 49.5 thousand euros of value added, 92 % of the EU average (53.7 thousand); in Germany, 64.1 thousand; in France, 61.4, and in Italy, 59.2.

Spain also has some of the world's largest construction companies. Deloitte's Global Powers of Construction 2025 ranking includes 7 Spanish groups among the world's 100 largest listed construction companies by revenue, 4 of them in the top 50; the highest placed is ACS (number 10 in the world), which earns 91.8 % of its sales outside Spain.

By region

In 2024 construction generated 5.7 % of Spain's value added (12.0 % in 2007), 1,751 € per inhabitant in today's euros. It weighs most in Illes Balears (8.0 %), Extremadura (7.0 %), Principado de Asturias (6.8 %), and least in Comunidad de Madrid, Cataluña, La Rioja. All regions weigh less today than in 2007; the biggest fall is in Andalucía, which has gone from 14.6 % to 6.4 % (-8.2 points).

Methodology and sources

• Share of the economy and comparison with the EU: Eurostat, national accounts by industry nama_10_a10 (GVA at current prices and in chain-linked volumes) and nama_10_a10_e (employment); population, nama_10_pe. Construction = NACE section F.
• Employment: INE, Labour Force Survey (EPA), people employed by sector and province (table 65354) and unemployed by sector of last job (table 65331), CNAE-2009, since 2008. The sector's unemployment rate is an approximation: the unemployed who left their job more than a year ago have no sector. Registered workers: Social Security, average registered workers by activity (General Scheme and Self-employed).
• Official tendering: Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, official construction tendering, by region via ISTAC (E20004A_000001); the share of state public entities, from the Banco de España, Statistical Bulletin, table 23.9. Budget including VAT in the year of tender. «Territorial bodies» = regional governments + local authorities (the open source does not separate them). Party of the Government on 1 July of each year.
• Approvals: site management approvals (visados) from the associations of quantity surveyors (Ministry of Transport), by region via ISTAC (E20006A_000002) since 2000 and for Spain since 1992 in the Banco de España, table 23.8. Permits: Eurostat sts_cobp_a (dwellings in residential buildings excluding communal residences); they are not comparable with the approvals.
• Cement: Banco de España, table 23.11 (data from Oficemen and the Ministry of Industry). Apparent consumption = production + imports − exports; full years only.
• Output and costs: Eurostat sts_copr_a (production index, calendar adjusted, 2021 = 100, rebased to 2007 = 100) and sts_copi_a (construction costs and output prices of new housing). The 2025 jump in the total and in specialised construction for Spain is treated as a possible break in the series.
• Companies: Eurostat, structural business statistics sbs_ovw_act (enterprises, persons employed and value added; current euros of the year, for comparing countries only). Large construction companies: Deloitte, Global Powers of Construction, figures cited with source (revenue in millions of current dollars, only those given by the source).
• Regions: Eurostat, regional GVA nama_10r_3gva, which reproduces the INE's Regional Accounts.
• Constant euros: INE CPI (2025 euros); between 1996 and 2001, linked with Eurostat's HICP for Spain (prc_hicp_aind). No figures in euros are given before 1996. Population from the INE (regions) and Eurostat (Spain and EU).