As reported by Open4Business, foreign citizens in the
first In the first half of 2026, 51,627 thousand housing units were purchased in Spain, which
is approximately 4% more than in the same period last year, and became the
maximum indicator in the entire history of the relevant statistics of Spanish
registrars.
The second quarter turned out to be the most active: foreigners concluded more than
26,800 deals, and their share in of all registered housing purchases reached
15.98% - a historical maximum, according to data from the Colegio de Registradores de
España.
At the same time, the overall Spanish housing market in the second
quarter, on the contrary, cooled down somewhat. The number of transactions decreased by 5.7% compared to
the previous quarter — to 167,934 thousand, including sales of new buildings fell by
11.5%, to 34,919 thousand. Thus, foreign demand increased against the background of a decrease in
general buyer activity.
The largest group of foreign buyers according to the results of the first
half of the year remained citizens of Great Britain. They purchased 3,567 objects,
however, the number of transactions decreased by approximately 10% year-on-year.
The citizens of the Netherlands came close to them with 3,489
purchases, which is 12% more than in the first half of 2025. The gap between the two
largest groups was only 78 deals. It was in the second quarter that the British
concluded 1,843 deals, and the Dutch - 1,830.
Official statistics for the second quarter show that the British accounted for 6.99% of all foreign deals, Dutch citizens - 6.94%.
The Germans came third with a share of 6.11%.
Germany retained third. place among the largest foreign
markets, although the demand of German buyers decreased somewhat during the half-year - by approximately
2%. At the same time, the number of purchases by citizens of Italy increased by 11%, Poland - also by
11%, France - by 3%, Ireland - by 6%. Belgian demand, on the contrary, decreased
by approximately 16%.
Thus, the structure of foreign demand in Spain is becoming
more and more diversified. Even ten years ago, the British were significantly ahead of
other nationalities, while now the difference between Great Britain, the Netherlands,
Germany and the next group of European buyers has narrowed significantly. In
the first quarter of 2026, for example, the shares of the British and the Dutch were
respectively 6.82% and 6.56% of foreign purchases.
In terms of the number of transactions at the beginning of the year, Ukrainians were inferior to the British, Dutch, Moroccans, Germans, Italians, French, Romanians, Poles and Belgians, but ahead of citizens of China, Sweden, Ireland, the USA and Russia.
For comparison: on Chinese accounted for 2.69% of foreign
purchases, Russians — only 1.44%. Thus, the share of Ukrainians was more than twice as high as that of Russians.
The full official report for the first half of the year for each
nationality has not yet been presented in the short press release of the registrars,
so the exact number of purchases by Ukrainians for six months should be estimated
with caution. If the share remains at the level of about 3%, we may be talking about
about 1.5 thousand transactions for January-June, however, this is an estimated estimate, and not a separately
published official indicator.
The opposite trend is observed among Russian citizens.
In the first half of the year, Russians purchased less than 1 thousand real estate objects, and
the number of transactions decreased by more than 20% in annual terms.
In the second quarter, the share of foreign buyers reached 32.27%
in the Balearic Islands and 31.03% in the Valencian Community. At the same time
the share of foreigners increased in all autonomous communities of the country.
In the first quarter, an increased concentration of foreign demand
was also observed in the Canary Islands — 22.78% of transactions and in the region of Murcia
— 21.73%. In the province of Alicante, foreigners provided about 44.7% of
housing sales, and in Malaga - more than a third.
In general, over the past 12 months, foreign citizens bought about 99,400 housing objects in
Spain, that is, the market came very close to the
mark of 100,000 foreign deals on year.
The growth of international demand occurs at the same time as
a rapid increase in the value of real estate. The average registered price of housing in the
second quarter reached a new historical maximum — 2,487 euros per square meter. m,
increasing by 2.4% for the quarter and by 9.2% in annual terms. The index of repeated
sales showed an even more significant annual growth of 16.7%.
Thus, despite the decrease in the total number of transactions
in Spain, foreign demand continues to strengthen. At the same time, the market is becoming less dependent on traditional British and German buyers: the role of the Netherlands, Poland and a number of other European countries is growing, and Ukrainians retain their place among the most prominent nationalities on the Spanish real estate market.
Citizens of Ukraine, Spanish real estate
