Figures from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) show that legal tourist flats in Spain have fallen from 381,835 in May 2025 down to 341,001 in May 2026. This still represents an increase from the end of 2025 as increasing pressure on a limited housing stock via tourism lets and immigration prices an entire generation out of home ownership and family creation.
Since 2020, tourist flats in Spain have gone from 321,000 to 341,000 with significant increases in Malaga and Andalucia as a region in general (up 11,000 and 23,000 respectively).
Spain´s Tourist Trap
The reality is that for most people of child bearing age, Spain´s housing market was unaffordable pre pandemic. However, the 2020 crisis did offer a brief chance to course correct away from a model built on landlordism, with any jobs created from the mass tourism model being low paid and seasonal. That the respective Local and National government(s) chose not to take this opportunity to course correct is as unsurprising as it is depressing. Tourist Flats in Spain have become a key bone of contention for Spain´s urban dwellers.
The other issue is many of the areas of high concentration of tourist flats are found in the very centres where people are expected to work and make a life. A tourist flat in the middle of a Galician field clearly does not have the same impact as in Malaga or Valencia, but these are the places where the tourists want to go.
Combined with Spain´s official legal population (from INE) growing from 46 million in 2015 to 49 million in 2025 (sure to breach 50 million once the Sanchez era legalisation is finished). This growth is almost entirely fuelled by immigration in a pyramid scheme to buy off pensioners and in a country where it seems everyone but younger generations of Spaniards is prioritised, it´s little wonder that just over 1 in 5 people age 18-34 are set to vote for Spanish Nationalist Party Vox.
Foto de Mattia Bericchia en Unsplash (free license).