Spain’s British inhabitants retains rising although Brexit made it significantly tougher for them to maneuver right here on a whim. New Eurostat knowledge exhibits that Spain clearly outweighs all different EU nations on the subject of first-time residency permits issued to Brits.
New Eurostat determine present that some 43,600 British residents obtained a primary residence allow within the EU in 2024, just like the earlier years.
UK residents had been within the prime 5 nationalities acquiring a primary residence allow in Norway (1,270) and Switzerland (3,068).
However Spain was – maybe unsurprisingly – the nation that issued the biggest variety of new permits to British residents – 12,653.
That implies that Spain granted 29 % of the full of EU residence permits issued to Brits final yr. France (8,073), Germany (3,753), and the Netherlands (3,445) adopted.
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In 2023, Spain issued 10,166 residency authorisations to UK nationals, in 2022 it was 10,249 and in 2021 – the primary yr there’s knowledge following Brexit coming into drive – it was 17,662.
This knowledge doesn’t embody Britons coated by the Withdrawal Settlement as a result of they had been dwelling in Spain previous to Brexit, during which case they don’t want to use for a visa to stay in Spain and maintain a lot of the identical rights that they had in Spain as EU nationals.
Eurostat doesn’t specify what sort of preliminary permits Brits in Spain have obtained, be it the non-lucrative visa, the digital nomad visa or different.
In line with Spain’s Immigration Observatory, as of June thirtieth 2025, there are 23,319 UK nationals with these residency authorisations that require a visa. These are Brits who moved to Spain post-Brexit.
When evaluating this quantity with the Eurostat knowledge from 2021 to 2024, it displays that many hundreds of British first-time allow holders have additionally left Spain throughout this era.
Information from Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion additionally exhibits that there’s a far increased variety of UK nationals residing in Spain since earlier than Brexit, who’re both holding onto their very own inexperienced certificates meant for EU nationals (188,893 folks) or who’re in possession of a WA TIE residency card (213,558).
Over the previous years, the UK Embassy has repeatedly urged these inexperienced certificates holders to trade their paper residency paperwork for the newer Withdrawal Settlement TIE playing cards, particularly now given the launch of the EU’s EES system in October.
READ MORE: UK Embassy insists Brits in Spain get TIEs or risk being ‘treated as overstayers’
Based mostly on Spain’s newest immigration knowledge, on June thirtieth 2025 there have been 425,770 UK nationals who had been formally residing in Spain.
This represents a rise in Spain’s British inhabitants of 6,704 in comparison the identical date a yr earlier.
Brexit could have made it significantly tougher for Britons to maneuver to Spain and spend as a lot time within the nation as they see match, however España clearly nonetheless stays the favorite vacation spot for UK nationals who wish to stay within the EU, whatever the bureaucratic limitations.
READ ALSO: The best work visas and tips for Brits moving to Spain post-Brexit
