Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE) has reminded EU citizens residing in Spain that they are able to vote in the municipal elections of May 23rd 2027, provided they formally express their wish to do so beforehand.
The deadline for submitting this declaration is December 30th 2026.
Local elections in Spain determine the composition of local town councils and indirectly the mayors of over 8,000 municipalities across the country.
Crucially, they're the only Spanish elections foreigners can vote in, as they don't have the right to suffrage in Spain's general and regional elections.
To vote in local elections, EU nationals aged 18 or over must have previously stated their intention to exercise this right, a process that has been available at Spanish town halls since 2006, and online through the INE's website since 2020.
Those already registered on the electoral roll from earlier elections retain their status automatically, unless they requested their removal or stopped being residents in Spain.
According to Spain's Electoral Census Office (OCE), 345,312 EU nationals are currently registered for next year's municipal elections.
To encourage further registration, OCE is sending letters to more than 515,000 EU citizens who have not previously stated their intention to vote, including a code enabling them to register online via the INE's online portal.
Recipients must complete and sign the formal declaration included in the letter and return it to their provincial delegation, or alternatively submit it online using the code provided. Here is the INE page where you can complete the process.
Those not yet registered on their local padrón must first do so at their town hall before completing the same declaration.
READ ALSO: Padrón - How to register at your town hall in Spain
By province, Madrid has the highest number of registered EU electors (52,408), followed by Barcelona (34,244), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (28,538), Alicante (28,020) and Málaga (20,183).
By nationality, Romanian citizens make up the largest EU group of registered voters in Spain (103,529), followed by Italians (68,671), Germans (38,431), French (33,178) and Portuguese (20,544) nationals.
Italian nationals have received the highest volume of letters urging them to register (135,741), ahead of Romania, France, Germany and Portugal.
As for non-EU nationals who reside in Spain and their rights to vote in the 2027 local elections, this is dependant on bilateral agreements between their countries and Spanish authorities.
If there is a reciprocal agreement that allows them to vote and they haven't registered to vote previously, the timeframe for them to communicate this intention is between December 1st 2026 and January 15th 2027 for the next municipal elections.
British citizens were the last non-EU nationals to gain the right to vote in local elections in Spain. Spain also has bilateral agreements for this with Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, South Korea, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago.
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