Spain: foreigners bought 13% fewer homes as the market falls for an eighth month

In brief

• In the first half of 2026 foreigners bought 62,327 open-market homes in Spain, against 71,625 a year earlier, down 13.0%.
• Their share of all sales fell to 18.3%, from 19.2% in the first half of 2025 and 20.3% in 2024.
• The steepest fall was among foreigners who do not live in Spain: down 18.0% to 22,940 purchases, the lowest since the first half of 2021.
• The average price paid by foreigners rose 9.4% to EUR 2,644 per square metre. Non-residents paid EUR 3,493/m², Spanish buyers EUR 1,971/m².
• Moroccan (4,960 purchases) and British (4,541) buyers led the market, followed by Italian, Romanian and German buyers.
• In August 2026, 34,599 homes were sold in Spain, 9.8% fewer than a year earlier, while the average price rose 12.8% to EUR 1,959/m².

What the notaries' data show

In Spain almost every home purchase is signed before a notary. The law does not require it when there is no mortgage, but a notarial deed gives legal certainty, and according to the notaries themselves virtually all foreign buyers use one. That is why the statistics of the General Council of Notaries, compiled by its statistical centre, are among the most complete pictures of the market: they cover every signed deed, not a sample.

The report for the first half of 2026 covers open-market housing, meaning flats and houses sold at market prices without public price controls. Foreigners bought 62,327 such homes. A year earlier the figure was 71,625, so the decline was 13.0%. The notaries point out that this is the steepest fall since the first half of 2020, when lockdown halted transactions.

It is not only foreigners who are buying less. In total, 341,283 open-market homes changed hands in Spain over the half-year, 8.4% fewer than a year earlier. Spanish nationals bought 278,956, down 7.3%. But the fall among foreigners is noticeably deeper, so their share of the market shrank again: 18.3%, against 19.2% in the first half of 2025 and 20.3% in 2024. The notaries describe this as a continuation of the downward trend seen since 2024.

The notaries also compare the half-year with the previous one. Purchases by foreigners fell against the second half of 2025 as well, among both residents and non-residents. How house prices compare with local incomes is covered in our news on Spanish house prices and wages.

What this means for you. There are fewer foreigners in the Spanish market, but the market has not collapsed: every group of buyers is buying less, and prices are rising. Buyers today face less competition for a property, but they do not get a discount by default.

Residents and non-residents

The notaries split foreign buyers into two groups. Residents are foreigners who live in Spain, work or study there and buy a home for themselves. Non-residents live in another country and buy a second home, a holiday flat or a property to let in Spain. The gap between the two groups is especially visible in this report.

Residents accounted for 63.2% of all purchases by foreigners: 39,387 deals, 9.7% fewer than a year earlier. The notaries note that this group is moving away from the all-time high it reached in the first half of 2025, but remains at a high level by historical standards.

Non-residents bought 36.8% of the homes: 22,940 deals, down 18.0%. That is the lowest figure since the first half of 2021. The decline in this group is long-running: it peaked in the first half of 2022, when non-residents bought 33,510 homes. Since then their purchases have fallen by roughly a third.

Non-residents buy by the sea. 40.3% of their purchases, 9,250 deals, were in the Valencia region, 25.3% (5,800) in Andalusia, 8.9% in the Canary Islands, 7.8% in Murcia, 7.7% in Catalonia and 6.4% in the Balearic Islands. Only 1.5% of their deals were in the Madrid region. Residents are spread differently: Catalonia leads (8,516 deals, 21.6%), followed by Valencia (8,196, 20.8%), Andalusia (6,007, 15.3%) and Madrid (3,912, 9.9%).

For anyone who wants to move rather than simply buy, status matters: who counts as resident for tax purposes and how long you can stay in the country. We cover this in our articles on tax residency and on renting a home in Spain as a foreigner.

Prices rise despite the slowdown

There are fewer deals, yet prices rose for every group of buyers. The average price per square metre paid by foreigners in the first half of 2026 was EUR 2,644, 9.4% more than a year earlier. Non-residents still pay the most: EUR 3,493/m² on average, up 11.8%. Resident foreigners paid EUR 2,102/m² (up 9.8%) and Spanish nationals EUR 1,971/m² (up 8.7%).

The gap between non-residents and residents widened to a new record: EUR 1,391 per square metre, against EUR 1,210 a year earlier. Non-residents buy more often on the coast and the islands, in resort areas and new developments, so their average spend is higher.

By nationality, the highest average prices were paid by buyers from the United States (EUR 3,948/m²), Sweden (EUR 3,839/m²), Germany (EUR 3,763/m²), Switzerland (EUR 3,760/m²) and Norway (EUR 3,588/m²). The lowest were paid by buyers from Morocco (EUR 801/m²), Romania (EUR 1,439/m²), Ecuador (EUR 1,531/m²) and Colombia (EUR 1,604/m²). These buyers more often live and work in Spain and choose homes for themselves in more affordable areas.

The summer figures show the same combination. In July home sales in Spain fell 11.1% to 65,395, while the price rose 7.7% to EUR 2,112/m². In August sales fell 9.8% to 34,599, and the average price climbed 12.8% to EUR 1,959/m². How rising prices feed into rents is covered in our news on the rent cap in Spain.

What this means for you. If you are waiting for falling sales to bring prices down, the official data do not support that. The price per square metre paid by foreigners rose by almost 10% in a year, and by more than 20% in some regions.

Where purchases fell the most

Purchases by foreigners fell in almost every autonomous community of Spain. Only two regions saw growth: Castilla-La Mancha (up 4.4%) and Extremadura (up 3.3%). The sharpest falls were in Cantabria (down 20.5%), the Canary Islands (down 20.3%) and the Madrid region (down 19.7%). They were followed by the Balearic Islands and the Valencia region (both down 15.4%), the Basque Country (down 14.0%), Galicia (down 12.8%), Andalusia (down 12.7%) and Murcia (down 12.2%).

The decline was milder in Catalonia (down 9.0%), Castile and Leon and Asturias (both down 8.2%) and Navarre (down 5.3%). In La Rioja (down 0.8%) and Aragon (down 0.2%) the number of deals barely changed.

Prices paid by foreigners rose in 15 of the 17 regions, and by more than 10% in ten of them. The biggest increases were in Cantabria (23.0%), Asturias (22.3%), Extremadura (16.4%), Valencia (15.6%), Madrid (15.4%) and Murcia (15.1%), followed by the Basque Country (12.8%), Castile and Leon (12.7%), Castilla-La Mancha (12.5%) and Andalusia (11.5%). Prices fell only in La Rioja (down 5.5%) and Navarre (down 4.8%). The most expensive homes for foreigners are in the Balearic Islands (EUR 5,344/m²) and Madrid (EUR 4,379/m²); the most affordable are in Extremadura (EUR 714/m²).

Extremadura stands out: it is one of only two regions where purchases by foreigners increased, and at the same time the cheapest region by price per square metre. We covered the regional scheme for remote workers there in our news on payments for remote workers in Extremadura.

In August, across the whole housing market, sales fell in 16 of the 17 regions, most sharply in Navarre (down 18.8%), the Balearic Islands (down 17.8%) and Aragon (down 16.0%). Only Cantabria saw growth, of 0.8%. The price per square metre rose most in Asturias and Cantabria, by 23.6% in both.

What this means for you. National averages hide large differences. When deciding whether to buy, look at the data for your region and type of home: the Balearic Islands and Extremadura are effectively different markets.

Who buys homes in Spain

Moroccan nationals came first by number of deals: 4,960 purchases, 8.0% of all deals by foreigners. British nationals were second with 4,541 purchases, 7.3%. They were followed by Italy (4,109, 6.6%), Romania (3,974, 6.4%) and Germany (3,907, 6.3%). These five countries accounted for 34.6% of all purchases by foreigners. Nationals of other non-EU countries, which the notaries group together, made 7,822 purchases, 12.5%.

Among non-residents, buyers from the Netherlands (12.6%), Germany (11.8%), the United Kingdom (10.4%) and Poland (8.1%) lead. Germans account for more than half of non-resident buyers in the Balearic Islands (52.5%), Britons for a quarter in Murcia (25.6%), and Dutch buyers for 17.8% in Murcia and 15.8% in Valencia.

Among residents, Moroccan (12.4%), Italian (9.2%), Romanian (9.0%) and British (5.5%) buyers lead. Moroccans are especially prominent in Murcia (36.1% of resident foreign deals) and Navarre (34.3%), Romanians in Aragon (25.6%) and Castilla-La Mancha (24.5%), and Italians in the Canary Islands (22.3%).

Year on year, purchases rose only among nationals of Venezuela (up 10.2%) and Colombia (up 7.4%). The largest falls were among buyers from Russia (down 26.2%), China (down 26.1%), the United States (down 22.0%), Bulgaria (down 21.6%), Belgium (down 21.3%) and the United Kingdom (down 21.0%). The decline was milder for buyers from Poland (down 6.6%), Portugal (down 5.0%) and Norway (down 1.2%).

Buying a home no longer brings residence

The notaries do not give reasons for the decline in their report, and we do not invent any. But foreign buyers should keep one official change in mind. Spain has abolished its investor golden visa. This was done by Organic Law 1/2025 of 2 January 2025 on efficiency measures for the justice system, published in the official gazette BOE on 3 January 2025.

The law's twenty-first final provision left Articles 63 to 67 of Law 14/2013 on support for entrepreneurs without content. These were the articles that granted residence to foreign investors, including through buying real estate. The provision entered into force three months after publication, on 3 April 2025. Since that date no new applications for investor residence are accepted.

For those who applied in time, the law set transitional rules. Applications filed before the change took effect are decided under the previous rules. Visas and permits already issued remain valid for their full term, and renewal applications are decided under the rules in force on the date of the initial permit. More on the programme and its abolition is in our article on the Spanish golden visa, and on where in Europe such programmes still operate in our analysis of EU golden visas in autumn 2026.

What this means for you. Today a flat or house in Spain does not by itself give you the right to live in the country. If your goal is to move, choose the basis for residence separately and plan the purchase around it.

How to live in Spain without a golden visa

For those who want to live in Spain, the main routes are no longer tied to buying property. If you have income or savings and do not plan to work in Spain, the non-lucrative residence permit fits. A step-by-step application process is in our guide to the non-lucrative visa, and a comparison with a similar Portuguese visa is in our article on the D7 visa versus the Spanish non-lucrative visa.

If you work remotely for a company or clients outside Spain, the digital nomad visa is the route. We explain the status in general terms in our glossary entry on the digital nomad visa, and the application process in our guide to the Spanish digital nomad visa.

Housing still matters for a move. A residence application needs an address, and many people rent first and buy later, once they have chosen a city and area. The notaries' data show why that makes sense: prices are rising at different speeds in different regions, and fewer deals do not mean discounts. What a Spanish passport gives you, should you seek citizenship later, can be seen in the Spain passport index. More on housing markets in different countries is in our real estate section.

What buyers should do now

At the signing, the notary checks the identity and powers of the parties, the description of the property and the cadastral data, encumbrances and debts to the owners' community, requests the certificate of payment of property tax and requires the energy certificate. On the same day the notary sends a copy of the deed to the Land Registry. But the notary does not choose the property for you or judge whether the price is fair. That is the work of our pre-purchase property due diligence and transaction support. For documents from your home country you may need a sworn translation and an apostille.

What the slowdown means for the market in the coming months and how different buyers can act, we examine in our analysis of foreign buyers in Spain. You can discuss your own situation at an online consultation.

How this article was prepared

This article was prepared on 1 November 2026. Sources: the press release of the General Council of Notaries of Spain of 15 October 2026 on home purchases by foreigners in the first half of 2026 and the accompanying analytical report of its statistical centre, with tables on residents, non-residents, regions and nationality; the General Council of Notaries' press release of 29 October 2026 on home sales in August 2026 and its release of 30 September 2026 on sales in July; Organic Law 1/2025 of 2 January 2025 in the consolidated version of the official gazette BOE, its twenty-first final provision and its provision on entry into force. The official sources do not state the reasons for the decline, so we do not give any. This article is not a substitute for advice on your own situation.