SPAIN'S headcount has risen to its highest figure in history – for the first time ever, the population has broken the 48 million barrier.
Spain's population has seen a resurge in growth in the 2020s, following consistent decline in the preceding decade (photo: Freepik)
If the trend of the 2020s continues, the country could easily surpass the 50-million mark before the end of the decade, based upon an average of between a half and three-quarters of a million new residents every year.
As has been the case for many years now, the swelling headcount is almost entirely due to immigration, not to childbirth, since natality rates have been falling consistently since the end of the last century and average ages for first-time motherhood have continued to rise.
Headcount rises in all regions and number of household units soars
According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), as at January 1 this year, the exact number of inhabitants in Spain was 48,592,909, having gone up by 507,548 since January 1, 2023.
These official figures do not include foreign-born residents without permits, or who have not signed on their local town hall population census, known as the padrón, meaning the total is likely to be higher and may well already be above 50 million.
The east-coast region of the Comunidad Valenciana has seen the third-highest population growth in the last quarter. The picture (by regional tourism board Comunitatvalenciana.com) shows the central city hall square in the capital, Valencia
The overwhelming majority of the annual increase is through non-Spanish-born citizens moving to the country, with foreigners currently totally around 6.5 million, or approximately 13%.
Population increases were seen in all regions in Spain, although the most notable expansions were found in the city-province of Melilla on the northern African coasr, with its headcount of roughly 90,000 rising by 0.64%, followed by the Greater Madrid region (0.44%) and the Comunidad Valenciana along the east coast (0.41%).
Along with the population rise, the number of households in Spain has multiplied – in some cases linked to the rising resident figures, and in others, due to couples separating or young people moving out of their parental homes.
Spain's 48.6 million residents live in 19,346,386 household units – an increase of 45,560 over the last three months of 2023.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com