The impact of foreign property buyers in Spain

The percentage of Spanish properties bought by foreigners is at an all-time high. The buyers come in the form of resident and non-resident status, buying every imaginable type of real estate from cottages to mansions, for holiday use, as investments or indeed to have as a primary residence.

Foreign homebuyers have had a marked presence in the Spanish property market for many decades now, thanks originally to popular second home markets such as the Balearic Islands, the Costa Brava, Costa Blanca, Canary Islands, Costa de la Luz, Costa Dorada and of course the Costa del Sol. In more recent times, the ever-expanding market of Spanish ‘Costas’ and their immediate interior hinterlands has been added to by the country’s major cities. The likes of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Granada and Valencia have long been in favour with foreign romantics, but over the past 20 years they and other centres such as Málaga and San Sebastian have also become increasingly popular second home, relocation and investment options for buyers from across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and especially North America.

Design and quality impact

A picture then evolved in which Americans and Asians have focused on the bigger cities while British, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian, French, German and also Italian, Eastern European, Russian and Middle Eastern buyers focused on coastal holiday homes. Those moving there to live fulltime have largely gone from retirees to independent remote workers and entrepreneurs, adding greatly not just to the regions they own homes in but also transforming the property market in every way – from architectural design and construction standards to the technology, decoration and materials used. Here, each nation has left a legacy of its own, with wealthy Gulf Arabs introducing luxury ostentation in the 1970s, British home styles and gardening practices leaving their mark, as well as German technical demands raising build qualities, Russian oligarchs commissioning super mansions and most recently Scandinavian buyers introducing their famous modern-natural style of interior home design, which has done so much to revolutionise homes along the Costas both inside and out.

Many of the Northern buyers have a particular love for modern properties featuring the latest design, technology and comforts, as a result of which they help to drive the strong growth in newbuild villas and apartments. With almost a third of all their property purchases in Spain involving off-plan or newly finished homes, the Dutch (29,78%), Poles (30,86%) and Belgians (32,39%) are the nations with the greatest hunger for modern homes (Source: Registradores 2024 report), where French, British and German buyers tend to dominate the resale market. Foreign buyers are also heavily represented in the upper end of the market, collectively representing a sum of €11,7 billion worth of Spanish real estate in 2024, 0,4% up on 2023. (Source: Idealista)

Adding dynamism to the market

This was given an extra spurt in 2024, the last year of the Golden Visa arrangement in Spain, yet even without this enticement foreign nationals are better represented the higher the price tag, with American buyers paying an average of €3.309/m2, followed by the Swedish at €3.295/m2, British at €3.224/m2 and the Norwegians, Dutch, Swiss, Poles and Russians also above €3000/m2 (Source: Idealista). Together, they give the Spanish property market a very significant boost – a situation that is not distributed evenly over the country but finds itself concentrated mostly in coastal and major city areas – and have through their demand helped to drive up prices as well as standards.

Evolving new markets

In purely quantitative terms, some 360.000 properties were sold in Spain in the first half of the 2025, 20% up on H1 2024, and foreign buyers having been a vital part of this growth, with their share of the market now reaching an all-time high (Source: El País). In the first half of 2025, this meant a total of 33.134 Spanish properties purchased by international buyers, 50% above the long-term average. While Spanish domestic demand was also buoyant, up 18% on the decade average, it is the foreign appetite for Spanish real estate that stands out, making the first half of 2025 the best on record in that regard (Source: KF Q1 Market Info).

In 2024 foreign homebuyers represented 14% of purchases on a national level, 14% also within Andalucía, and 32% in Málaga province – growing to a new record of 34,75% in Q1 2025 (according to Registradores). Across the country, the British still represent the largest non-Spanish group of buyers, with 8,6%, followed by Germans (6,7%), Moroccan (5,7%) and French (5,4%) buyers. Russian buyers are down 10,6% and the French, British and Belgians between 1,6-2%, but this is more than made up for by the large growth from North America and in particular The Netherlands (+26%), Ukraine (+26,3%), China (+26,5%) and especially Poland, the new rising star, which has seen property purchases in the region increase by a phenomenal 43,7%. (Source: El País)

Foreign demand is a dynamo of growth

On a national level, Dutch buyers are responsible for an impressive growth spurt, with property sales to buyers from this country growing by 37% in H1 2025 compared with H1 2024. Comparing the same period, there has also been impressive growth in the market share of Polish, Ukrainian and American buyers, with the British Isles levelling off and the Russian market contracting by 24%. (Source: Spain’s Land Registry). Overall, in H1 2025 British buyers still topped the charts, with 3.917 purchases, followed by the Germans (at 3.159), so it becomes clear that foreign homebuyers, tourists and investors contribute greatly to the 2,5% GDP growth expecting in Spain for 2025, close to its robust 2024 figure of 3,2% and well above the expected Eurozone average. (Source: IMF).

In addition to qualitative factors such as overall sales, fiscal contributions and price-rises, foreign buyers therefore also contribute qualitative factors, helping to bring life and vitalism to communities, introducing capital, creating jobs, sharing know-how as well as raising technical and aesthetic standards. Foreigners have been buying in Spain since the 1950s but not only is this now at an all-time high, the make-up of nationalities, ages, socio-economic backgrounds and main motivations for doing so are also continuing to evolve – which helps to keep the market dynamic and alert.

Pia Arrieta, 11 Sep 2025 - News