2024 will go down in history as the year that Spain truly started to consider the impact its international popularity was having on the lives of its own people.
It was a year of records: more tourists than ever before, the most expensive rents and property prices, the highest number of Airbnb-style lets, the priciest grocery shopping.
Overtourism, coupled with a housing crisis that's priced out residents from their lifelong neighbourhoods, spurred numerous protests across some of Spain's main cities and holiday hotspots.
The zeitgeist is one of 'How much more can we take?' (be it tourism, rent rises, holiday lets etc) as Spaniards questioned why they should become second-class citizens in their own country as better-off foreigners enjoyed their city centres and bought the Spanish homes they could not afford.
And it was in this context that in April 2024 Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that his government would scrap the golden visa scheme for wealthy foreigners (due to come into force in April 2025) as a means of addressing the housing crisis.
Nine months later, the Spanish Premier zeroed in on third-country property purchasers again, by proposing first a supertax on non-EU non-resident home buyers, and then a total ban on them buying in Spain if they have no links to the country.
Both the golden visa cancellation and the property tax/ban have been applauded by some and criticised by others. Are such moves fair and aimed at helping Spaniards in their own country? Or are they discriminatory, populist and ineffective in practice?
READ ALSO:
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Wherever you stand vis-à-vis these measures, we've broken down eight key stats to help you better understand why the Spanish government is taking the action on foreign property buyers.
1. Property purchases by non-resident foreigners have quadrupled since 2009
Foreigners have long owned property in Spain, but the problem has become much worse since the financial crisis, quadrupling in that time.
According to data from Spain's Housing Ministry, in 2023 a total of 638,000 property transactions were carried out in Spain, of which almost 55,000 (8 percent) were purchases by foreigners not residing in Spain (EU and non-EU nationals). In 2009, there were just 14,000.
2. Non-resident foreigners have bought mainly in coastal cities and towns
As is probably to be expected, these foreign property buyers tend to be congregating on the Spanish coast.
That percentage figure of property transactions from above (8 percent overall) was far higher in some coastal areas of Spain: in Alicante it reached 36 percent, and in Málaga, the Balearic Islands and Santa Cruz de Tenerife it exceeded 20 percent.
READ ALSO: The towns in Spain where foreigners outnumber Spaniards
3. Non-resident foreigners have bought over half a million Spanish homes in 15 years
A number commonly referenced in the Spanish media as a shorthand for Spain's housing crisis is 600,000 -- in other words, that Spain lacks 600,000 social properties. Foreign property buyers may have had something to do with that, according to the numbers, but building projects by the Spanish government have all but died off in recent years.
Still, the foreign footprint is clear: El País reports that since 2009 non-residents have bought 570,000 properties, 450,000 of which in the last decade alone.
4. The British are the biggest buyers
A stat now that, even despite Brexit, will shock almost nobody. Of the more than 400,000 transactions recorded between 2016 and the first half of 2024, almost a fifth (18 percent) were made by UK nationals.
They are followed by Germans, French and Belgians with around 10 percent of the homes bought in that period.
5. Non-EU non-residents spend more than double on property than Spaniards
These non-resident foreigners buying property in Spain also pay much more for them too on average.
While Spaniards paid €1,659 per m2 in the first half of 2024, non-resident non-EU buyers paid €3,379 - 103.7 percent more.
6. Millions of foreign tourists holiday in their own second homes
As a result of this trend, millions of foreign tourists who come to Spain can now spend the summer (or holidays, at least) in their own property.
Between January and November 2024, more than 88 million foreign tourists visited Spain. Most stayed in hotels or apartments, but 4.6 million (5 percent of the total number) spent their holidays in their own homes, according to data from the Tourist Movement at Borders Survey (FRONTUR) produced by Spain's national stats body, INE.
7. Golden visa property owners have played a small part
Many of these non-EU buyers have become Spanish residents through the golden visa scheme by acquiring Spanish real estate worth more than €500,000.
During the decade that the scheme was in force, 22,430 procedures were carried out: 12,507 initial authorisation grants, 8,494 renewals and 1,429 modifications. Up to 42 percent of the visas granted in 2023 were for non-EU Europeans (Brits, Russians, Turks) the vast majority using the property option to get the golden visa.
8. Non-EU non-resident foreigners are hugely outnumbered by EU foreigners
According to data from the Spanish Notaries’ Association, non-EU citizens (resident and non-resident) only represented 14 percent of the total number of foreigners who bought property in Spain in 2023.
In fact, the 18,648 homes bought by non-EU non-residents in 2023 only accounted for 3 percent of the grand total of properties purchased in 2023 year in Spain (623,000).
They are the ones being targeted by Sánchez's proposed property supertax or ban, but 86 percent of foreign buyers are EU nationals. Of the more than 600,000 homes bought in Spain in 2023, 80 percent were purchased by residents.
*Some stats from Spain's Housing Ministry and the Spanish Notaries’ Association for property purchases in 2023 are different.
READ ALSO: Is there a solution to Spain's housing crisis? Here's what the experts say
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