What foreign buyers want in Spain

In 2025 foreign buyers completed about 97,480 home purchases in Spain, 13.82% of the total, according to the Spanish Land Registrars’ yearbook. They do not buy one product. By number of deals the typical purchase is a resale apartment of modest size. The villa matters where the budget rises: Dutch, British and American buyers, and the coastal luxury market. Age is not a single number either. The foreign buyer who takes a mortgage is about 45. In Alicante, the province where foreign buyers weigh the most, people over 60 buy a larger share than in Spain as a whole.

This study crosses 2025 registered sales, notarial deeds, CaixaBank Research’s split between residents and non-residents, and idealista’s luxury-demand data. The closing section says which figure comes from which source, and which part is a cross-reading. No public dataset publishes the exact table “age × apartment or villa × nationality”.

There are two foreign buyers, not one

Mixing them is what distorts portals, headlines and listings. CaixaBank Research, using Ministry of Housing transactions through the first quarter of 2025, separates the two profiles:

• Resident foreigners. 56.2% of purchases made by foreign nationals. They buy a main home for work, family or study. They pay a price close to Spanish buyers (1,795 €/m² in the second half of 2024, against 1,713 €/m² for Spaniards) and they often use a mortgage. Morocco, Romania, Italy and, in Madrid, China dominate this group.
• Non-resident foreigners. The rest. They buy a second home or an investment on the coast. In the second half of 2024 they paid 3,063 €/m², 38% more than in 2019. The United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the Nordic countries and the United States dominate this group.

The same split, on deeds from the first half of 2024, comes from the Spanish notaries’ statistical centre: 58.2% of foreign purchases were by residents and 41.8% by non-residents. Non-residents paid 2,895 €/m², residents 1,734 €/m² and Spanish nationals 1,659 €/m².

Why they choose Spain

It is not one reason. The sources support six that reinforce each other.

1. They already know the country from holidays

In 2024 Spain received 93.8 million international tourists, a record in the INE Frontur series. The top three countries of residence of those tourists are also among the top home buyers: the United Kingdom (18.4 million tourists), France (13.0 million) and Germany (11.9 million). Behind them come the Nordic countries (5.1 million), the Netherlands (4.8 million) and the United States (4.3 million). The purchase usually follows several winters or summers on the same stretch of coast.

2. The climate makes the house usable for many months

A second home only pays off if it can be used outside summer. AEMET’s climate normals on the Mediterranean coast and on both archipelagos show mild winters and a long warm season. That is why Alicante, Málaga, the Balearics and the two Canary provinces lead the foreign share of purchases, and why inland Spain barely appears.

3. Prices are still below the buyer’s home country in the range they want

Spain’s average home price closed 2025 at 2,284 €/m² and 214,581 € per home, both records in the land-registry series, with a 9.5% annual rise in euros per square metre. CaixaBank notes that, even after that rise, the gap versus the home countries of the main buyers remains favourable, especially if a coastal villa is compared with an equivalent home in southern England, the Netherlands, Bavaria or Stockholm. Luxury buyers are no longer hunting a bargain: 12.22% of foreign purchases in 2025 were at or above 500,000 €, a series high.

4. Direct flights and a community that already speaks their language

Alicante, Málaga, Palma and the airports in southern Tenerife and Gran Canaria concentrate routes to the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Where that network has run for decades, the buyer finds a notary, a property manager, a doctor and neighbours from home. Orihuela Costa is the extreme case: in the first quarter of 2025, in Orihuela alone, notaries authorised 1,051 home sales to foreigners, led by British, Belgian, Irish, Polish, Dutch and Swedish buyers.

5. Life expectancy and healthcare matter to people who retire

Life expectancy at birth in Spain was 84.0 years in 2024 (INE and the Ministry of Health): 81.3 for men and 86.6 for women. At 65, 22.0 years remain on average. For a northern European buyer planning to spend the winter here, that figure counts as much as the price per square metre. An EU resident can use the European Health Insurance Card on temporary stays and form S1 if they transfer residence and draw a pension from home.

6. The investor residence visa is no longer the driver

The so-called golden visa, residence in exchange for buying property worth at least 500,000 €, was abolished by Organic Law 1/2025. Since 3 April 2025 no new applications are accepted. The effect on the bulk of the market is limited: EU buyers never needed it, and only 12.22% of foreign purchases in 2025 reached that price. Of that expensive slice, 47% were non-EU nationalities. In absolute numbers, foreign purchases rose from about 93,000 in 2024 to about 97,480 in 2025.

Which provinces and cities they choose

Official statistics publish provinces, not municipalities, except in one-off studies. The share below is the percentage of that province’s purchases made by a foreign buyer, not a share of the national total.

By region, the 2025 order is the Balearics (29.86%), the Valencian Community (27.65%), the Canary Islands (25.65%), Murcia (21.42%), Catalonia (15.57%) and Andalusia (13.34%). Andalusia looks lower than Málaga because Seville, Jaén and Córdoba pull the average down: in Seville foreigners were about 2.5% of purchases. Madrid is at 6.89%. Foreign home buying is, above all, a coastal phenomenon.

The notaries, who count the deed rather than the later registration, show even higher shares in the same places. At the October 2025 launch of their housing portal they put foreigners at 53% of purchases in Alicante (36% non-residents alone), 45% in the Canaries and 42% in the Balearics. The territorial ranking matches the land registry. The percentage changes because they do not measure the same moment or exactly the same set of transactions.

CaixaBank, looking only at non-residents from 2019 to the first quarter of 2025, confirms the podium: Alicante (35% of the province’s sales), Málaga (28.4%), the Balearics, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Murcia. Málaga is the province that has gained the most appeal since the pandemic, because of the airport, tourism and its role as a business and tech centre, with prices below Madrid and Barcelona.

Each nationality has its own map

As a share of all foreign purchases in 2025, the land registrars rank nationalities as follows:

British buyers are still first, but they are losing share (down 0.67 points in a year). Dutch buyers are the big nationality that rose the most (+0.96 points). CaixaBank notes that, among non-residents, the UK fell from about 22% of that segment in 2010–2019 to around 15% in the recent period, largely because of Brexit and sterling, while Poland has moved strongly into new-build.

The first-quarter 2025 municipal map of Alicante shows the split better than any provincial average. In Orihuela the leaders are the United Kingdom (212), Belgium (169), Ireland (98), Poland (84), the Netherlands (68) and Sweden (59). In Alicante city the top nationalities are Algeria, Ukraine, Italy, Russia and France: an urban resident profile, not a holiday home. In Elche the weight sits with Romania, Poland and Morocco.

Are they looking for an apartment or a villa?

Across the whole Spanish market in 2025, 79.35% of sales were apartments and 20.65% were single-family homes. The registrars do not publish that same split for foreigners alone. What they do publish is floor area, and that result contradicts the cliché that “foreigners buy villas”.

Spaniards weigh more heavily in larger homes. Foreigners weigh more heavily in smaller ones, because a large part of their demand is a second home and does not need the floor area of a main residence. The 2025 distribution of foreign purchases by size is:

64% of foreign purchases are 100 m² or less. Combined with a coastal housing stock that is mostly apartments, the most common foreign purchase is an apartment, almost always a resale: only 21.54% of their purchases were new-build, a tenth of a point below Spaniards (21.76%).

Inside that average, some nationalities buy large and others buy apartments:

• Over 100 m²: 50.5% of American purchases, 47.01% of Dutch purchases and 45.23% of British purchases.
• 60 to 80 m²: Ukrainians (29.33%), Moroccans (29.31%) and Hungarians (29.22%).
• Under 40 m²: the French (8.74% of their purchases) and Italians (8.27%), above the rest.

New-build, which on the coast is usually a townhouse or an apartment in a pool community, is chosen above all by Poles (39.84% of their purchases), Belgians (34.49%) and the Dutch (32.91%). At the other end, the French (86.42% resale), Bulgarians (85.34%) and Moroccans (85.28%) buy almost only second-hand homes.

In the luxury segment the ratio flips

idealista measured something else: demand on luxury listings in the fourth quarter of 2024, not completed deeds. In that segment the villa wins. 77% of the portal’s luxury stock was single-family. Foreign interest reached 32.8% of demand for high-priced villas and 20.7% of demand for high-end apartments.

• Balearics. 86% of luxury supply is villas, with an average price around 3 million euros. Almost 52% of demand for those villas comes from abroad. On luxury apartments, foreign interest reaches 47.5%.
• Málaga. 80% of luxury supply is single-family. 49.7% of demand for those villas is foreign, and about 42% of demand for apartments and penthouses is foreign too.
• Alicante. 96% of the portal’s luxury supply is single-family, with average prices above 2.3 million. 49.7% of demand for those villas is foreign. Luxury apartments are scarce (4% of supply) and still 36.3% of their demand comes from abroad.
• Madrid is the exception. In the capital, the foreign luxury buyer wants an apartment, because that is the product that exists and the one that works as an urban investment.

Read the two figures together. Out of ten foreign purchases, most are apartments. Out of ten looks at a villa above a million euros in the Balearics, Málaga or Alicante, about half come from abroad.

How old the foreign buyer is

There is no official average age published only for foreign buyers and split by apartment or villa. There are four pieces, and together they do produce a portrait.

1. The home buyer in Spain, of any nationality, was 47 on average in 2025 (General Council of Notaries). In 2007 the average was 40. Buyers aged 18 to 30 have fallen from 22.53% of transactions to 9.55%.
2. The age band that buys the most, across the whole market, is still 35 to 44 (notarial report on individual buyers through July 2024). People over 50 enter mainly for a second home or a move up the ladder.
3. Alicante makes demand look older because foreigners weigh so much. Using the notaries’ housing portal, buyers over 60 accounted for 23.03% of the province’s purchases, against 17.48% in Spain. Buyers under 40 were 25.33%, about ten points below the country. Buyers over 70 (6.12%) matched buyers under 31 (6.11%). This is not a “foreigners only” statistic, but in a province where between 43% and 53% of purchases are signed by a foreigner, the age skew comes from that demand.
4. The person who takes a mortgage is a different age. UCI, from its own 2024 book, describes the foreigner who borrows as an executive or business owner aged 45. 32.4% are middle managers and 24% are business owners. 84.5% of those mortgages were for a second home. This sample leaves out cash buyers, and cash buyers tend to be older.

Mortgages reveal that age gap better than any survey. In 2025 the nationalities with the greatest weight in foreign home mortgages were Romanians (8.42%), Italians (7.41%) and Chinese buyers (5.29%). The British, first in purchases, fall to 4.33% of mortgages: a large part of their demand does not need credit. The highest average loan amounts are signed by Germans (369,436 €), Americans (353,868 €) and Swedes (329,209 €), consistent with more expensive and larger homes.

Price per square metre in the first half of 2024 tells the same story. Sweden (3,330 €/m²), the United States (3,247 €/m²) and Germany (3,114 €/m²) are at the top. Morocco (738 €/m²) and Romania (1,158 €/m²) are at the bottom. They are not buying the same product, or at the same point in life.

Which ages buy apartments and which buy villas

The table below is a cross-reading of the sources above. It is not a micro-figure published by the land registry or the notaries. It is there so the same listing is not pitched to all four profiles.

The practical nuance: from 55 onwards the apartment does not disappear. The reason for buying it changes. Part of this group wants a garden and a pool. Another part, just as numerous in places such as Torrevieja or Orihuela Costa, wants a small, single-level apartment with a community that can lock the house up for eleven months. The luxury villa is visible and expensive, which makes it look like the norm. On the deeds, it is not.

The United States is the clearest case of a large home that is not, in the main, a retiree purchase: half of American purchases exceed 100 m² and their price per square metre is among the highest. They buy in Madrid, Málaga and the Balearics, often as an investment or a second base, not only as retirement.

What they check before reserving

Crossing house type, age and province, the list of requirements that actually closes a deal is short:

• Distance to the sea and orientation, more than floor area, for a second home.
• Community fees that stay low if the house will be empty. The apartment wins here against the villa.
• A tourist licence, only when the plan is to let. In the Balearics, the Canaries, Barcelona and much of Málaga, new licences are tightly limited. Buying for short lets without checking the licence means buying a problem.
• Connectivity. A direct flight in season, not only in August, decides between Alicante and a cheaper coast with no airport.
• New-build versus resale. Dutch, Belgian and Polish buyers pay for new-build to avoid renovations. The French, and most residents, buy resale.
• A realistic budget for purchase taxes (10% VAT on new-build, or transfer tax on a resale, depending on the region) and for the annual cost of owning in Spain without living there.

The tax duty that starts the day after completion

Buying does not close the file with the Spanish tax agency. A non-resident must file Modelo 210 even if the house is not let: that is imputed income, a percentage of the cadastral value. If it is let, rental income is declared. If it is later sold, the buyer withholds 3% and the seller settles the capital gain, with a possible refund through Modelo 211.

The general rate is 19% for residents of the EU or the European Economic Area and 24% for everyone else. The practical buying guide, from the NIE to completion, is in how to buy property in Spain as a non-resident. The 2026 price context is in the market review for non-residents.

Questions people ask

Do foreigners buy more apartments or villas in Spain?

More apartments. In 2025, 64% of foreign purchases were 100 m² or less, and across the whole market 79.35% of sales were apartments. Villas concentrate foreign demand in the luxury markets of the Balearics, Málaga and Alicante, and among American, Dutch and British buyers, who are the nationalities most likely to buy above 100 m².

How old is the foreign buyer?

It depends on whether they live in Spain. The resident looks like the national buyer, whose most active band is 35 to 44 and whose 2025 average is 47. Someone financing a second home is about 45. The non-resident who pays cash in Alicante, Málaga or the islands is older: in Alicante, buyers over 60 already account for 23% of all purchases.

Which province do they buy in most?

Alicante, where foreigners made 43.29% of purchases in 2025. Then Málaga (32.80%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (30.04%), the Balearics (29.86%) and Girona (25%).

Does the golden visa for buying a home still exist?

Not for new applications. Organic Law 1/2025 abolished it with effect from 3 April 2025. Anyone who already held an authorisation keeps the rules under which it was granted.

Why do the notaries’ figures and the land registry’s figures differ?

Notaries count the deed on the day it is signed. The land registry counts the later registration, and its definition of a “home purchase” is not identical. That is why, for 2025, one source talks about close to 20% of transactions with a foreign buyer and the other about 13.82% of registrations. The provinces at the top are the same.

Where each figure comes from

Purchases, nationalities, provinces, floor area, new-build and the 500,000 € band come from the 2025 Real Estate Registry Statistics Yearbook of the Spanish Land Registrars. The resident / non-resident split and the prices of 3,063, 1,795 and 1,713 €/m² come from CaixaBank Research (second half of 2024 and the year to the first quarter of 2025, using Ministry of Housing data). First-half 2024 prices by nationality, and the 58.2% / 41.8% split, come from the notaries (CIEN). The average age of 47, the 20.3% foreign share and the Alicante, Canary and Balearic weights come from the October 2025 presentation of the notaries’ housing portal. Alicante’s age bands were published by Información from that portal. The age-45 portrait is from UCI and describes only people who sign a mortgage with that lender. Luxury apartments versus villas is idealista listing demand in the fourth quarter of 2024, not completed sales. Tourism and life expectancy are from the INE. The end of the golden visa is Organic Law 1/2025 and the Ministry of Housing note.

The age-by-home-type table is our reading of those sources together. The day the registry publishes a cross of age, nationality and single-family homes, that table can be replaced by a direct figure.