How many British expats live in Spain as of 2025?
Executive summary
Official Spanish municipal register (padrón) data counted roughly 266,462 UK nationals resident in Spain on 1 January 2025, which is the most direct official snapshot commonly cited for that date [1]. Independent trackers and expat organisations produce higher counts—often in the 300,000–400,000 range—or argue for much larger estimates up to around a million when unregistered or part‑time residents are included, so the true “community” size depends on the method used [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Official headcount: the padrón’s 2025 figure and what it represents
Spain’s municipal register (padrón) is the standard administrative source for resident totals and the story most reporting relies upon: newspapers quoting the National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported 266,462 UK nationals registered as residents in Spain as of 1 January 2025, a 2.2% fall on the previous year’s figure and a concrete, dated official tally [1]. Researchers warn that the padrón is not a perfect census—de‑registration is voluntary and earlier clean‑ups and administrative changes produced swings in older series—but since 2016 the register’s coverage is regarded as substantially more reliable, which supports using the INE‑based number as the best available official estimate for 2025 [6] [1].
2. Why other sources give larger numbers: unregistered residents, methodological gaps
Several private sites, relocation services and expat groups cite materially higher totals—some saying “well over 350,000,” others more than 400,000 registered Britons, and a few claiming as many as 800,000–1,000,000 when unregistered and seasonal residents are counted [7] [4] [3] [5]. These higher figures generally include people who split time between the UK and Spain, holders of non‑resident property, temporary workers, or long‑stay visitors who don’t appear on the padrón, and they rely on aggregated estimates rather than the padrón’s municipal registrations [5] [3].
3. The academic and statistical context: trends, retiree dynamics and Brexit effects
Longer‑run datasets show Britain has been one of the largest foreign‑born groups in Spain—peaking around the early 2010s and then fluctuating after the financial crisis and Brexit—so different snapshots can legitimately give different impressions: Statista/INE series reported British resident counts in the 280k–316k range for earlier years and region‑level breakdowns showing concentrations in Andalusia and Valencia [8] [2]. Academic work flags that the padrón captures “the vast majority” of British nationals but that some migrants remain unregistered or delay de‑registration when leaving Spain, which complicates year‑to‑year comparisons and can make official totals appear lower than people’s lived impressions of sizeable British communities on the costas [6].
4. Practical bottom line and calibrated range
For a short, precise answer anchored to official data: the INE‑based padrón count for 1 January 2025 is approximately 266,462 UK nationals registered as residents in Spain [1]. For a more inclusive estimate that captures non‑registered, part‑year and privately‑estimated residents, commonly cited ranges run from the low‑to‑mid 300,000s up to “over 400,000” and, in more speculative estimates, several hundred thousand more—sometimes approaching a million—depending on assumptions about who counts as “living” in Spain [2] [3] [4] [5]. Reporting and policy discussions should therefore be clear which definition is used: registered resident on the padrón, versus broader communities that include part‑timers and unregistered expats [6] [1].