Instituto Nacional de Estadística
Spain had a positive net external migration (the difference between immigration and emigration abroad), standing at 642,296 people in 2023. This is the second net figure of the last 10 years, after the figure recorded in 2022.
(*) Until 2020, data from Migration Statistics
The net external migrations of foreigners rose to 616,234 people in 2023. By nationality, the highest figures are for Colombians (141,492), followed by Venezuelans (74,029) and Moroccans (70,818).
The net external migration of Spanish citizens was also positive, in contrast to 2022. Specifically, there were 26,062 net entries from abroad.
When the geographic scope considers the autonomous community, the net external migration has two component, external (abroad) and internal (with other regions).
All autonomous communities had a positive net external migration in 2023. The highest figures were in Comunidad de Madrid (150,469), Cataluña (126,804) and Comunitat Valenciana (102,302).
Conversely, the autonomous communities with the least net external migrations were La Rioja (2,780), Cantabria (5,009) and Extremadura (5,735).
As for the net migration between autonomous communities, the most positive figures were in Comunitat Valenciana (10,827), Principado de Asturias (2,814) and Castilla-Mancha (2,689). In contrast, Comunidad de Madrid (-16,390), Cataluña (-5,171) and Andalucía (-2,570) recorded the most negative migration figures.
In 2023, there were 1,719,908 inter-municipal migrations (or changes in municipality), 0.3% less than in 2022. Of these, 685,695 changed provinces, and 533,398 changed Autonomous Community or City.
If we limit ourselves to those who resided in Spain throughout 2023, most (96.8%) did so in the same municipality. 1.9% changed municipalities within the same province, 0.3% came from another province within the same Autonomous Community, and 0.9% from another Autonomous Community.
If we look at the main cities, all of them had positive migration flows in 2023, with the exception of El Ejido, Lorca, Cádiz and San Fernando.
Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia obtained the highest net migration, thanks to the net incoming population from abroad, despite recording negative internal net migrations (with other municipalities).
As for Dos Hermanas, Getafe and Sabadell, they were the cities which reflected the highest net internal migration figures (1,067, 968 and 955, respectively).
The net external migration in 2023 consist of a total of 1,250,991 people coming from abroad who established their residence in our country (0.6% fewer than in 2022) and 608,695 people who left Spain for a foreign country (up by 14.4%).
Of the total number of immigrants from abroad, 1,098,028 were foreign nationals (87.8%), while 152,963 were Spanish (12.2%).
As for emigration, there were 481,794 departures of foreigners (79.2%) and 126,901 of Spaniards (20.8%). Of the latter, 81,805 people were born in Spain.
The main nationalities of foreign immigrants were Colombians (with 170,722 arrivals in Spain), Moroccans (123,468) and Venezuelans (88,361).
On the other hand, the most numerous nationalities of emigrants were Romanians (with 55,411 departures), Moroccans (52,650) and Colombians (29,230).
Of the 74,810 Spaniards who immigrated to Spain, 11,571 were born in Cuba, 7,752 in Argentina and 7,523 in Ecuador.
On the other hand, of the 45,096 people who emigrated from Spain, 6,249 were born in Morocco, 4,990 in Ecuador, and 4,130 in Colombia.
The data published today are final. All results of this operation are available on INEbase.
The purpose of the Statistics on Migrations and Changes of Residence is to measure the migrations that take place between Spain and the rest of the world and between different Spanish regions, according to sex, age, year of birth, nationality and country of birth of the migrant, as well as place of migration origin and destination.
Its classification variables will be including those which entail a greater temporal disaggregation, as well as others gathered from population censuses which may be related, such as education or employment data.
The SMCR was created to provide a coherent measurement of migrations between every two consecutive population censuses: it is based on the people who were in both censuses and only in one of the two, and their migratory history is constructed according to data from the Municipal Register.
Given that the Population Censuses are definitively published in December of each year, in reference to 1 January of that same year, the migrations correspond to the previous full year. As described in the SMCR methodology, the net migrations may be considered as comparable with the previous series, although the external migrations are higher in the SMCR.
For more information, you can access the methodology and the standardised methodological report.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
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