Foreign buyers paid an average of €2,479 per square metre for housing in Spain in 2025, against €1,839 per square metre paid by national buyers — a 35% premium — according to data from Spain’s Colegio de Registradores (College of Property Registrars). The average price paid by a foreign buyer was €204,365. The premium has persisted into 2026: registrars’ data for the second quarter of the year put the average price paid by foreign buyers at €2,487 per square metre.
The Colegio de Registradores cautions that the 35% figure is a blended average that masks two very different buyer profiles. Non-resident foreign buyers pay 76% more per square metre than Spanish buyers and are concentrated in higher-priced coastal and island markets, while foreign buyers who already live in Spain are priced much closer to the national market. “The 35%… correctly describes the average,” the registrars’ analysis notes, but “does not necessarily mean that a foreigner pays 35% more than a Spaniard for the same home.”
Foreign buyers’ share of the market keeps rising. In the second quarter of 2026, foreign citizens accounted for just over 26,800 of Spain’s 167,934 home purchases — 15.98% of the total. The demand is geographically concentrated: in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, foreign buyers accounted for 31.03% and 32.27% of local purchases respectively, and Alicante province led all of Spain with 46.43% of its second-quarter 2026 sales going to foreign buyers — regions the registrars’ analysis links to the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and parts of Catalonia. Separately, mortgage lender UCI’s data show the UK remains among the most active foreign buyer nationalities, accounting for 6.99% of foreign purchases, while Swedish, American, German and Swiss buyers pay the highest prices per square metre. UCI also found that foreign buyers already resident in Spain now make up 11.6% of the total residential market, a sign that a growing share of international buying is for primary residence rather than pure investment.
Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) puts the wider demographic context at 7,437,543 foreign-national residents as of 1 July 2026 — 15% of Spain’s resident population — rising to 10,291,807 if counted by place of birth rather than nationality.
