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SPAIN AND THE UK

MAP: Where do Spain’s British residents live in 2023?

According to the latest data, the number of UK nationals residing in Spain is on the up. But which areas of the country do Brits tend to live in?

Published: 7 March 2023 16:52 CET
where do brits live in spain 2023
Levante beach in Benidorm. Alicante is the Spanish province with the highest number of British residents in 2023. (Photo by JOSE JORDAN / STR / AFP)

Despite Brexit making it considerably harder for many UK nationals to move to España as non-EU nationals, Spain’s British population continues to grow.

That’s according to new data from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE), which shows that the number of Brits residing in Spain has actually increased by 11,047 over the past year.

At the start of 2023, there were 293,171 UK nationals who were residents in Spain, according to padrón census records from town halls across the country.

It’s no surprise that Spain is the European country with the biggest British diaspora, as it’s long been popular with Brits who come here to retire, to work, and look for a better quality of life in the sun. 

With the exception of Romanians (627,000 residing in Spain), UK nationals represent Spain’s biggest European foreign population group, with more Britons than Italians (275,000), Germans (116,000) and French (115,000) residents in Spain.

Twenty-five years ago, in 1998, there were 75,000 Britons registered as Spanish residents. And over the past two decades, there have been times when the number of Brits on record was even higher than in 2023, such as in 2010, when there were 387,000 Brits in Spain.

So which areas of Spain do Britons tend to live in nowadays?

Most popular Spanish regions for Brits to live in

It might not come as a surprise to discover that in early 2023 the biggest number of Brits in Spain lived in the southern region of Andalusia, with a total of 92,180.

This was followed closely by the Valencia region with a total of 87,699, and then the Canary Islands with 29,631. 

Other autonomous communities with a sizeable British population are Catalonia with 24,689, the Balearic Islands with 19,569, Murcia with 17,562 and the Spanish capital of Madrid with 11,831.

The number of UK nationals living in other Spanish regions in 2023 is as follows:

Galicia: 2,373

The Basque Country: 1,648

Asturias: 1,060

Aragón: 1,055

Castilla y León: 1,033

Castilla-La Mancha: 968

Cantabria: 640

Extremadura: 507

Navarra: 421

La Rioja: 214 

We’ve created a map to showcase how Brits tend to prefer to live in coastal regions in the south and the east of the country, particularly along the Mediterranean, where the weather is generally warmer and sunnier than the northern regions along the Cantabrian Sea and the Atlantic. 

Most popular Spanish provinces for Brits to live in

Meanwhile, the latest data from the Padrón register also shows where the majority of Brits live on a provincial level. And unsurprisingly the provinces housing the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol are the most popular.

Of Spain's 50 provinces, Alicante in the Valencia region comes top once again with 76,739 Brits.

This coastal province is of course home to popular spots among Brits such as Benidorm, Torrevieja and Jávea, where those from Blighty represent anywhere between 10 and 30 percent of the total population.

But there are small villages dotted across the province where Brits make up half or even more of the total. 

READ MORE: The places in Spain where Brits outnumber locals

The Spanish province with the second biggest British population in 2023 is Málaga province with 56,019. Similarly, places like Benahavís, Marbella or Estepona have a sizeable British representation. 

In third place are the Balearic Islands, which isn't classified as a province but rather a region made up of four main islands, with Mallorca housing the bulk of the 20,000 Brits who live in the archipelago. 

Murcia, which is also not a province but a region, has its British population living mainly along the coast and in particular in the municipality of Mazarrón, where a 8,000-strong British population make up a third of residents.

Other worthy mentions are Barcelona province, which of course includes the Catalan capital and is home to 17,272 Brits, Almería province in eastern Andalusia which has 14,180 Brits, and the Canary Islands' two provinces: Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 15,804 Brits and Las Palmas with 14,447. 

Differences in the data

According to the latest figures from Spain's Ministry of Migrations, there are a total of 409,763 Brits living in Spain. This is over 115,000 more than the figure stated by Spain's stats body INE. 

The massive disparity can partly be explained by the fact that the data from Spain's Ministry of Migration is based on the number of UK nationals who have the newer TIE residency cards or who hold the old green residency certificates, rather than using padrón census records. 

According to the ministry, approximately 47 percent of Brits in Spain have a TIE card, while the other 53 percent are still using their EU green residency certificates instead. 

READ ALSO: How much money do Britons need to move to Spain in 2023?

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GIBRALTAR

Why has Gibraltar still not reached a Brexit deal with Spain?

With yet another round of Spain-UK negotiations set to begin more than eight years since the Brexit referendum, Gibraltar is still without a deal and a November deadline looms over any treaty. Why has it proven so hard to break the deadlock?

Published: 17 September 2024 13:38 CEST
Why has Gibraltar still not reached a Brexit deal with Spain?

On Thursday September 19th, Spain and the UK resume talks on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status, and has been the case since 2016, uncertainty is still the prevailing feeling.

The British Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently received his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares in London. Both did their diplomatic duties and talked up the prospects of a deal, with Lammy stating he hoped for an agreement that would ensure greater “prosperity and security for the people of Gibraltar.”

Albares, for his part, understandably centred any hypothetical deal on a “shared prosperity between Gibraltar and the 300,000 Andalusians connected every day in their normal lives”.

READ ALSO: Gibraltar demands Spain return stolen concrete block in new diplomatic spat

Though Lammy and Albares discussed the Rock, no formal negotiations or deal can be struck without EU oversight, so the meeting also included discussion of bilateral issues and international concerns such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The meeting between the two Ministers was therefore a preamble to yet more formal treaty negotiations in Brussels on Thursday. Since Brexit came into effect at the end of 2020, Gibraltar has essentially existed in legal limbo with no formal treaty.

Border controls have been fudged ever since, leaving locals and Spaniards across the border faced with inconsistent rules and forcing travellers to find creative ways to bypass rules and get over ‘La Línea’. 

Why hasn’t a deal been reached?

So why all the meetings and pre-meetings and endless rounds of negotiations? How is it possible that Gibraltar is still without a Brexit deal all these years later?

A recent piece in El País by Rafa de Miguel, the daily’s UK and Ireland correspondent, perhaps put it best: “The amount of warm words in any political statement is inversely proportional to the progress in the negotiations.”

The reality is that, however many handshakes and photo opportunities and positive attitudes expressed between Spain and the UK on a bilateral level, these are ultimately irrelevant as nothing can be signed without the EU’s approval. 

This is further complicated by the fact that this makes any deal dependent on four way negotiations between Spain, the UK, the EU, and Gibraltar.

Each of these parties has their own individual set of needs, preferences and motivations. The EU won’t want to be seen to give Gibraltar, and by extension the UK, any special treatment for fear of emboldening other member states who desire bespoke arrangements when it comes to border controls and customs checks.

In light of Germany recently reimplementing land border checks, something some say is a direct violation of Schengen rules, this will be especially sensitive in these latest rounds of negotiations. 

Spain has long made territorial claims on Gibraltar dating back to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, when the overseas territory was first ceded to the UK, and will want to come out of negotiations with something that can be perceived as a political victory, likely an increased Spanish role in border patrols.

Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, has ruled this out definitively over the last few years, citing concerns about British sovereignty.

The UK government in London will also have worries about British sovereignty, but will balance this with the knowledge that Gibraltar negotiations are also an opportunity to reset relations with Europe more widely, something the new Starmer government has repeatedly stated since coming into power.

READ ALSO: ‘It’s time to reset Britain’s relations with Europe’, says UK foreign secretary

Some reports, however, suggest that despite the positive musings coming from London, negotiations have stalled and that Lammy has no intention of signing anything that would deviate from Gibraltar’s needs and concerns.

Political tensions were increased recently when Gibraltar demanded Spanish far-right party Vox return a concrete block stolen from British waters, and the Euro 2024 winning Spanish football team made international headlines when it celebrating by singing ‘Gibraltar es Español’ (Gibraltar is Spanish).

READ ALSO: ‘Gibraltar is Spanish!’: How Spain celebrated Euro 2024 heroes

Despite wanting to improve relations with the EU, Lammy is expected to reiterate the Labour government’s unwavering commitment to the “double lock” on sovereignty, sources told El País.

Perhaps most pressingly, however, is the fact that these new negotiations now have a deadline: the enforcement of new Schengen Area border rules come into force on November 10th and a treaty must be finalised before then. 

READ MORE: Hard border? What we know so far about new Gibraltar-Spain checks

Schengen Zone rules mean that there are two major outstanding points in treaty negotiations: firstly, the sore point of Spanish border guards on British soil, something Gibraltar rejects outright, and also the question of who would run Gibraltar’s airport, which is located on the isthmus between Spain and the British territory, an area Madrid claims was never included in Treaty of Utrecht.

The most contested aspect of negotiations is Madrid’s demand that Spanish agents should be allowed to carry out checks on passengers arriving at Gibraltar airport and that they should be armed and in uniform.

For many Llanitos (Gibraltar locals) this is an intolerable idea and one Picardo rejects outright: “There will be no Spanish boots on the ground,” he has said repeatedly.

On the other hand, Spain argues that no specific protocol can be designed for Gibraltar and that if it wants to join the border-free European area, it must accept Schengen rules.

Spanish boots on British soil is a particularly visceral point for many Gibraltarians of a certain age. In June 1969, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco closed the border gate between Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, cutting the tiny overseas territory off from the world, separating Spanish-British families and forcing Gibraltar to source food from elsewhere on the planet. 

It was eventually reopened in December in 1982 but those 13 years have taken deep root in Gibraltar’s historical memory and is now embedded into the Llanito collective imagination and identity.

For many on ‘The Rock’, the idea of Spanish border guards on British soil, whether it be in the airport or elsewhere, is simply unacceptable under any circumstances. 

Tax could also prove to be a sticking point. Gibraltar has no VAT, but Madrid has argued that if it wants to benefit from fluid border movement, its tax rules must be brought into line with EU rules.

Of course, there’s also both the domestic and international geopolitical contexts to consider here too. All parties – Spain, the UK, Gibraltar and the EU – have been distracted by other events in recent years.

Spain has been preoccupied by political tension, snap elections and the Catalan amnesty, while Britain suffered the almost cartoonish political instability of the outgoing Conservative government and treaty talks were postponed after the general election in July.

Added to this is the fact that the mediating party, the EU, has had its hands full with the war in Ukraine and surging far-right parties across member states, a trend that interestingly both the UK and Spain buck as the only major European states with centre-left governments.

Talks resume on Thursday September 19th, over 8 years since the Brexit referendum.

In British politics, the UK’s exit from the EU now seems strangely absent from debate, as though the issue is over and the country has finally begun to move on — but for Gibraltarians and the thousands of Spaniards who cross the border and work there everyday, Brexit is still an open-ended question.

READ ALSO: ‘Starting now’: New UK govt wastes no time in Gibraltar post-Brexit talks with Spain

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