Immigration

🌍 Immigration

How many foreign nationals live in Spain, how many people arrive and leave each year, which routes are used by those who arrive irregularly, how many apply for asylum and how many acquire Spanish nationality.

Foreign-born population (migrant stock): Spain 18.5 EU 14.1OECD 12.1France 13.8Portugal 10.8Germany 19.8Italy 11Morocco 0.3US 15.2China 0.1 % of population · 2024 · World Bank (WDI, ONU DAES) All countries →

Figures that depend on the size of the population are given per inhabitant. Irregular arrivals and asylum applications are given as numbers of people because they do not grow with Spain's population.

The foreign population

By nationality at 1 January (Continuous Population Statistics). People born abroad who already hold Spanish nationality count as Spanish, so the foreign-born population is considerably larger. After the economic crisis the number of foreign nationals fell from 5.4 million in 2010 to 4.4 million in 2017; since then it has been rising, above all with Latin Americans, who have gone from 2.0 % to 4.9 % of the population.

Who arrives and who leaves

Net migration = people arriving from abroad minus those leaving for abroad, during the year. The INE's Migration and Change of Residence Statistics start in 2021 with their current method; 2021 was still affected by the pandemic. Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco are the nationalities that contribute the most.

Irregular arrivals

People arriving by sea on the coasts of the mainland and the Balearic Islands or in the Canary Islands, and by land in Ceuta and Melilla outside border crossings, according to the Ministry of the Interior (compiled by UNHCR). The latest year is incomplete. The Canary Islands route hit a record in 2024 and fell to less than half that in 2025. These arrivals are a small part of immigration: the vast majority of those who come to live in Spain do so through airports and by regular means (for example, on a student or tourist visa and regularising their status later).

Asylum

First-time applications for international protection registered in Spain (Eurostat). Applying for asylum does not mean obtaining it: a significant share are rejected. Venezuelans and Colombians submit most of the applications.

Naturalisations

Acquisitions of Spanish nationality by residence, option or naturalisation letter (carta de naturaleza). Latin Americans can apply after two years of legal residence (compared with ten as a general rule), which is why they are the majority.

Integration: Spain in Europe

Eurostat compares nationals and foreign nationals on employment, poverty, education and housing in all European countries. In Spain, in 2025, 67 % of foreign nationals aged 20 to 64 were in work, compared with 74 % of Spanish nationals. The gap is much wider in living conditions: 48 % of foreign adults were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (20 % of Spanish nationals), and 31 % of young foreign nationals left school early (10 % of Spanish nationals). Each year about 3.9 in every 100 resident foreign nationals become Spanish citizens, and from then on they count as Spanish in all statistics.

"Spain's rank": position among the European countries with data, from the smallest gap between foreign nationals and nationals (1) to the largest; for naturalisations, from the highest rate to the lowest. Eurostat, latest year with data for Spain.

Eurostat integration indicators by nationality (each country's Labour Force Survey and Survey on Income and Living Conditions). They compare nationality, not country of birth: immigrants who have already become citizens count as nationals, and that weighs more in the countries where more people are naturalised. Eurostat's statistics only separate foreign nationals from the EU and from outside it; crime by origin is in Crime.

Sources and notes

• INE – Continuous Population Statistics (table 56942): population by nationality at 1 January.
• INE – Migration and Change of Residence Statistics (tables 69687, 69702, 69758 and 69762): immigration, emigration and net migration since 2021.
• Ministry of the Interior, fortnightly report on irregular immigration, via the UNHCR data portal.
• Eurostat – migr_asyappctzm and migr_asyappctza: first-time asylum applications.
• INE – Acquisitions of Spanish nationality by residents (table 70012).
• Eurostat – Migrant integration: employment (lfsa_ergan), unemployment (lfsa_urgan), risk of poverty or social exclusion (ilc_peps05n), early school leaving (edat_lfse_01), overqualification (lfsa_eoqgan) and overcrowding (ilc_lvho15) by nationality, and acquisitions of citizenship (migr_acq) among the foreign population (migr_pop1ctz).
• Crime data by nationality can be found in Crime, with context.

Data updated 7 minutes ago