The Balearics was the only autonomous community in Spain to lose population in the final quarter of last year. The decline was minimal, barely 0.07% in the last three months, but the data is significant because it represents a change in trend compared to years of uninterrupted growth. The largest increases were in the Valencian Community (0.34%), Castile-La Mancha (0.27%) and the Community of Madrid (0.24%).
However, the population continued to grow throughout the year and the Balearics had 1,259,545 inhabitants on 1 January this year. The islands gained 9,701 residents in one year, an increase of 0.7%. Most of this growth corresponds to people who have arrived on the islands from other territories, as the region has hardly had any natural population growth.
All the islands lost population in the last quarter of the year, although they continue to increase in the overall calculation for 2025. Mallorca had 978,465 inhabitants on 1 January this year (it had 971,068 a year ago); Menorca reached 103,117 (102,281 a year ago); Ibiza reached 166,020 inhabitants (164,265 at that time) and Formentera had a population of 11,943 residents compared to 11,690 in 2025.
Overall, this increase of 9,701 residents in the Balearics in one year represents a slowdown compared to much higher double-digit increases in previous years. Looking at the bigger picture, the resident population in Spain increased by 81,520 people in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching 49,570,725 inhabitants on 1 January 2026, which is the highest figure in the historical series, due to the increase in foreign-born residents, which exceeded 10 million for the first time.
This is according to the Continuous Population Statistics (ECP) published on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which indicates that the estimated population growth was 442,428 people in annual terms. The increase in Spain’s population was due to the increase in people born abroad, as the number of people born in Spain decreased. The foreign-born population stood at a total of 10,004,581 people and was higher than that of foreign nationality, due to the processes of acquiring Spanish nationality.
The number of foreigners increased by 56,431 during the last quarter of 2025, reaching a total of 7,243,561. Thus, the percentage of foreigners in Spain as of 1 January 2026 stood at 14.6%. The Spanish population grew by 25,089. The main nationalities of immigrants during the fourth quarter of 2025 were Colombian (with 36,600 arrivals in Spain), Venezuelan (27,000), Moroccan (22,000), Spanish (18,500), Peruvian (15,800), Italian (8,400), Ukrainian (6,800), Brazilian (6,300), Honduran (6,300) and Algerian (6,200).
In contrast, the most numerous nationalities among emigrants were Moroccan (with 13,000 departures), Colombian (12,500), Spanish (7,900), Peruvian (5,600), Venezuelan (5,400), Romanian (5,000), Chinese (3,100), Ukrainian (3,000), Italian (3,000) and Honduran (2,800). In terms of the number of households, statistics show that there were 19,746,638 on 1 January 2026, an increase of 46,332 during the fourth quarter of 2025, according to provisional data collected by Europa Press.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the population grew in Ceuta and in all autonomous communities except the Balearics (-0.07%). It also fell in Melilla (-0.26%).