Spain's College of Registrars publishes the numbers that actually record what changed hands, taken from the property register rather than from asking prices. Its second-quarter figures for 2026 contain something worth pausing on.
The number
Foreign buyers completed more than 26,800 purchases in Q2 2026, which is 15.98% of all registered transactions. That is the highest share in the history of the series.
The share matters more than the count, because it rose while the overall market got smaller. Domestic transactions fell. Foreign ones did not. When one group holds steady in a shrinking market, its weight goes up, and the composition of who you are bidding against changes with it.
Who is buying
The first half of 2026 nearly produced a change at the top of the table.
- British buyers: about 3,567 purchases, down roughly 10% year on year.
- Dutch buyers: about 3,489 purchases, up about 12%.
British buyers stayed the largest foreign group, but only just. A gap of under a hundred transactions over six months is close enough that a single quarter could reverse it.
For a Dutch buyer this is the more interesting half of the statistic. You are not an outlier in the Spanish market any more. You are part of the second-largest foreign cohort in it, and it is growing while the largest one contracts.
