2025 has seen a total of 600,000 immigrants arriving in Spain—more than half a million new residents added to the 571,000 recorded in 2024. This represents a 50% increase over the forecast by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF). The freshest data of demographic statistics raises the question of the role of immigration in Spain’s economic growth.
What some present as good news, with headlines in the Spanish media such as “Spain grows thanks to immigration,” hides a ticking time bomb: the country is expanding in population, but not in prosperity. GDP is rising, yes, but driven more by the number of people than by productivity or per capita income.
The report published this week by AIReF acknowledges that “net migration flows are providing a significant boost to domestic demand,” which explains the increase in GDP to 3%. More population means more consumption, more households, more economic activity. But the institution also admits that “private consumption per capita has barely recovered pre-pandemic levels,” a fact that tempers official enthusiasm. In other words, there are more people but with less purchasing power. As is often the case with statistical trickery, the positive macroeconomic numbers conceal the negative microeconomic ones.
Indeed, AIReF itself calculates that 40% of Spain’s economic growth since 2022 comes directly from foreign or dual-national residents, while Spanish workers have contributed barely 0.8% to GDP growth. In other words, the so-called Spanish “miracle” has both a foreign name and a foreign passport.
This phenomenon, far from being unique to Spain, is part of a much broader European dynamic. From Germany to Italy, and from Belgium to France, millions of immigrants are quietly entering the labor market, filling vacancies and at the same time putting pressure on housing, education, and public service systems. Brussels celebrates this as a sign of “economic vitality,” but in practice it represents a silent transformation that is changing the face of Europe without any genuine democratic debate.
In Spain, immigration undoubtedly has positive effects in certain sectors—hospitality, care work, and agriculture—but it also raises a structural problem of social and economic sustainability. With national birth rates at historic lows and an inverted population pyramid, the massive arrival of foreigners is altering the country’s demographic and cultural balance. Demographic replacement is only a matter of time.
Added to this is a direct impact on the housing market. AIReF recognizes that the high cost of both buying and renting in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia “could act as a brake” on new migration flows, but for now, the result is clear: more population and less affordable housing. Rental prices have risen 12% year-on-year in the main capitals, and demographic pressure is spreading to metropolitan areas that were previously accessible.
The same is happening in the rest of Europe: Germany faces record demand for rental housing, Italy is seeing price increases in its industrial northern regions, and France is struggling to contain imbalances between supply and demand with policies that no longer work. The result is a continent that grows in inhabitants but shrinks in well-being.
According to official projections, migration flows should moderate from 2026 onward to around 300,000 immigrants per year in Spain. But the same institution admits that this forecast is uncertain and could be reversed if the labor market continues to rely on cheap labor. In that case, Spain—and by extension Europe—risks becoming an economy dependent on demographic replacement, where growth is sustained artificially by the continuous arrival of immigrants.
An immigration debate , however, barely exists. While Brussels insists that immigration is “an opportunity” and national governments celebrate its “contribution to economic dynamism,” few dare to ask what kind of society is being built—will prosperity be measured by the number of newcomers or by the quality of life of its citizens?
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