In the last five years, the number of foreign workers in Spain has increased by one million, at a rate of around 200,000 per year, new data reveals.
New data released by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration reveals that one in three jobs created in Spain between 2020 and 2025 was filled by a foreign worker.
A total of 204,659 foreign workers arrived in Spain throughout 2025, bringing the current total number to nearly 3.09 million, the highest figure ever recorded.
Foreigners represents 40 percent of the half a million employees employed in Spain in the last fiscal year.
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The number of Venezuelan workers in Spain increased the most over the last twelve months, followed by those from Colombia and Morocco, according to data published by the Ministry.
There were 40,614 more Venezuelans registered in the Social Security system than in 2024, a 23.2 percent increase, bringing the total number to 215,735. The number of Colombian workers increased by 28,929 and the number of Moroccans by 26,839.
This means that the total number of foreign workers represent 14.1 percent of all social security contributors in Spain.
Almost half of the Social Security affiliates who have joined the labour market in Spain between 2020 and 2025 come from Latin America.
This is partly because of the shared linguistic and cultural ties, and Latin Americans only have to be legally resident here for two years to apply for Spanish citizenship, whereas most other nationalities need to wait 10 years.
Spain also needs a large number of foreign workers in order to keep paying into the social security system and support its ageing population.
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Currently Morocco has the largest number of workers registered with the Social Security System in Spain with 373,436 contributors, followed by Romania with 336,530, Colombia with 250,248, Venezuela with 215,735, Italy with 204,700, China with 128,113, Peru with 101,144, and Ukraine with 78,456 workers.
Around 30 percent of foreign contributors come from European Union countries.
Immigration has been a key factor in sustaining Spain’s current economic success, but it has also been essential to keep certain sectors going.
For example, more than half of the jobs in commerce, construction, and support services in the last five years have been filled by migrant workers.
In the last year, the number of foreign workers has also grown in the transport and storage sector, by 26 percent, followed by water supply and construction.
In general, foreign workers in Spain are mainly employed in the hospitality industry (28.8 percent), agriculture (26 percent), construction (23.2 percent), transport and administrative industries (17.7 percent).
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In the hospitality industry, 48 percent of the 428,000 positions between 2020 and 2025 were filled by workers from abroad, which is 42.1 percent of the total.
The number of self-employed foreigners has also increased by 6.2 percent in the last year, reaching 496,888 in total.
These workers tend to work mainly in information and communications (25.9 percent), energy supply (22 percent), professional, scientific and technical jobs (19.2 percent), and financial and insurance positions (14.2 percent).
The increase in foreign workers has not been the same rate across the country, however,
In Asturias, Extremadura and Galicia, the number of foreign workers is still below the national average.
