A staggering 2,207,700 new migrants have arrived to Spain since 2021 as the European nation’s migrant population surpasses 10 million, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported.
El Mundo, citing data published on February by the National Statistics Institute (INE), highlighted that, out of the 49.57 million people living in Spain by the end of 2025, over ten million were foreign-born, with Cataluña, Madrid, and Valencia as the three regions with the most amount of foreigners.
Héctor Cebolla, researcher at the Institute of Economics, Geography, and Demography, pointed out to El Mundo the migratory flow in Spain is of an economic nature, which leads to migrants settling in areas with more job opportunities.
“Our immigration is basically economic and is concentrated in areas with more dynamic labor markets,” Cebolla said. “The idea that migrants are going to repopulate Soria or Zamora is never going to happen: they concentrate in places where there is more work.”
El Mundo, explained that INE did not release its data in disaggregated form, and detailed that migrants in Spain represented 9.45 million of the entire population as of the start of 2025, experiencing a roughly half a million surge throughout that year and leading to over ten million by the end of that 2025.
According to the newspaper, of the total migrant population in Spain, 50.4 percent hail from the Americas, with Colombia and Venezuela as the first main two countries of origin. European migrants represent 25.5 percent, with most coming from Romania and the United Kingdom. Although African migrants represent 17.4 percent of the total, El Mundo pointed out that Morocco stands as the topmost country of origin for migrants, above Colombia and Venezuela.
“The trend is clear: migration to Spain remains strong. Since 2021, 2,207,700 new foreign-born residents have arrived,” El Mundo wrote.
“China has traditionally had a very small demographic presence in Spain. Our country has not maintained close relations with East Asia; the strongest ties have been with North Africa and Latin America,” Cebolla explained to the newspaper.
The researched detailed that in addition to economic migration, ther is another “profile, mainly European” that sees European migrants in Spain drawn to the Mediterranean coastal climate “especially among retirees who choose provinces such as Alicante or Malaga.”
“The Mediterranean arc is also one of the major areas of attraction, because it combines agriculture along much of the coastline with business hubs such as Valencia and Alicante,” Cebolla noted.
At a per-country migrant population growth level, researcher Jordy Bayona explained to El Mundo that Ukraine stands as the country whose migrant population in Spain has experienced the largest growth as a result of Russia’s ongoing war, with the majority being Ukrainian women and children. The rank continues with Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Last month, socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced an unprecedented and widely-criticized plan to give amnesty to half a million illegal migrants presently living in Spain if the migrants can prove they have been in the country before December 31, 2025 among other lax criteria.
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