Swedish Home Buying in Spain 2026: 2.55% of Foreign Deals

How large is the foreign — and Swedish — presence in the Spanish housing market in 2026? This report gathers the latest verified figures from the Spanish authorities and registers, complemented by our own current inventory statistics for price levels at the local level. Short answer: Spain sold more homes in 2025 than in any year since 2007, Costa Blanca (Alicante) is by far the foreign buyers' strongest province, and Swedes are a small but stable and highly ranked buyer group.

One thing to understand right away: three different Spanish sources measure "foreign buyers" in three different ways, and they arrive at different shares. We therefore always state the source for each figure and never mix the series. The method is explained further down.

How large is the foreign presence in the Spanish housing market?

First the total: during full-year 2025, 714,237 home purchases were registered in Spain, an increase of 11.5 per cent versus 2024 and the highest level since 2007. Of these, 558,327 were resale homes and 155,910 new-build. In December 2025 there were 54,148 purchases, up 7.9 per cent y/y, while May 2026 came in at 56,462 purchases, down 7.3 per cent y/y. INE's monthly data are preliminary and may be revised.

How much of this do foreign buyers account for? Here one must be precise, because three authorities measure differently:

The difference arises because register data (Registradores) counts registered title deeds, while the notaries capture the transaction at signing and also count resident foreigners in a different way. On a quarterly basis, Registradores shows a slightly declining share: 14.1 per cent in Q1 2025, 13.58 per cent in Q3 and 13.52 per cent in Q4 2025 (versus 14.48 per cent in Q4 2024). That corresponds to roughly 24,200 foreign purchases during Q4 2025, and Q1 2026 came in at 24,791 foreign purchases, down 3.2 per cent y/y. The point: the share has plateaued, but the number of foreign purchases remains at record levels.

Where do foreigners — and Swedes — buy?

This is the core for Swedish buyers. Foreign demand is extremely geographically concentrated. The province of Alicante — the heart of Costa Blanca — had the highest foreign buyer share in all of Spain during full-year 2025.

The picture is stable even at the quarterly level. During Q4 2025, Alicante stood at 42.91 per cent, Baleares 31.47 per cent, Málaga 31.11 per cent, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 26.44 per cent, Girona 24.8 per cent, Murcia 20.74 per cent, Las Palmas 20.31 per cent and Almería 16.69 per cent. By autonomous region in 2024, Baleares topped with 32.6 per cent, followed by Comunidad Valenciana 28.9 per cent, the Canary Islands 27.2 per cent and Murcia 23.6 per cent.

Which nationalities dominate? Among foreign buyers during Q4 2025, the British were the largest at 7.93 per cent, followed by the Dutch 6.77 per cent, Germans 6.65 per cent, Moroccans 5.78 per cent and Romanians 5.45 per cent. Earlier in the year, in Q1 2025, the British stood at 8.2 per cent, Germans 6.4 per cent, Dutch 6.0 per cent, Moroccans 5.9 per cent, French 5.1 per cent, Romanians 4.8 per cent and Italians 4.8 per cent.

For Swedish buyers this means, in practice, that Torrevieja and the rest of southern Costa Blanca is the obvious core market, with Costa del Sol (the Marbella area) and Costa Cálida (Los Alcázares) as the next-largest destinations.

Are Swedes still buying in Spain?

Yes. Swedes are a small but remarkably stable group. During Q4 2025, Swedish buyers accounted for 2.55 per cent of all foreign home purchases in Spain, an increase of 0.11 percentage points over the quarter. That places Sweden at around 12th place among the nationalities — behind China (2.81 per cent) but ahead of Ireland (1.67 per cent).

Behind the percentage lies a clear trend: Swedish purchases rose by about 250 per year during 2020–2024 compared with 2010–2019, even though the percentage share fell slightly as the total market swelled. In other words: Sweden is a stable, highly ranked buyer group where the number of transactions has grown, not shrunk.

What does a home in Spain cost in 2026?

At the national level, the most citable price thermometer is Tinsa's IMIE valuation index. In Q2 2026 the national average stood at 2,071 euros per square metre, an increase of 15.2 per cent y/y and 3.7 per cent versus the previous quarter — the fastest annual pace since 2006.

National averages, however, do not help you understand what a specific town costs. Official town-level prices could not be verified with sufficient certainty for this report. Instead, we report our own current inventory statistics, which fill the local-level gap. The figures below are median asking prices among our ~2,170 current listings (July 2026) — that is, asking prices in our own stock, not the market median or final sale prices.

The difference between towns mirrors exactly the regional price pattern: southern Costa Blanca (Torrevieja, Guardamar) remains the most accessible entry point, while the Costa del Sol towns of Marbella, Fuengirola and Estepona sit in a clearly higher segment.

Sources

• Colegio de Registradores (Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria, ERI Q4 2025 and Anuario 2024): registradores.org
• INE – Estadística de Transmisiones de Derechos de la Propiedad (ETDP): ine.es
• Consejo General del Notariado: notariado.org
• Tinsa – IMIE house price index: tinsa.es
• CaixaBank Research: caixabankresearch.com
• idealista (reproduces Colegio de Registradores): idealista.com

Published 2026-07-15. Provincial data refer to Colegio de Registradores as reproduced by idealista. Foreign buyer shares differ between register, notary and bank sources depending on the measurement method — always check which source a figure comes from before citing it. Our inventory statistics refer to median asking prices in our own stock as of July 2026 and are not the market median or final sale prices.