For the first time, this statistic operation incorporates information on the educational level, relationship with the activity and occupation of the persons involved in external migration.
As these data depend on the time of publication of the Annual Population Census, these foreign emigration variables from 2023 are included, as are foreign immigration variables from 2022. In the case of foreign emigration in 2024, the year of arrival in Spain is also included if the emigrants had previously immigrated. Information on all these variables is published retrospectively from 2021.
In addition, the SMCR includes information at a sub-municipal level of disaggregation for some of Spain's main cities¿from external migrations to changes of residence between different areas of the same municipality¿which is presented both in tables and in an interactive infograph.
Spain had a positive net external migration (the difference between immigration and emigration abroad), standing at 626,268 people in 2024.
This is the third largest net figure of the last 10 years, after those recorded in 2022 and 2023.
(*) Up tp 2020, data from Migration Statistics
The net external migrations of foreigners rose to 619,652 people in 2024. Colombian (with a positive balance of 122,579 people), Venezuelan (86,033) and Moroccan (78,261) were the most noteworthy nationalities.
As for the net external migration of Spaniards, the figures were also positive. Specifically, there were 6,616 net inflows.
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 2024. The largest migrations occurred in Catalonia (129,030), Comunidad de Madrid (113,964) and Comunitat Valenciana (104,776).
Conversely, the autonomous communities with the least net external migrations were La Rioja (2,998), Cantabria (5,051) and Extremadura (5,096).
As for the net migration between autonomous communities, the most positive occurred in Comunitat Valenciana (10,966), Castilla-La Mancha (3,927) and Principado de Asturias (3,885).
In contrast, Comunidad de Madrid (-12,993), Catalonia (-6,437) and Andalusia (-5,858) recorded the most negative migration figures.
In 2024, there were 1,754,162 intermunicipal migrations (or changes in municipality), 2.0% higher than in 2023. Of these, 700,640 changed provinces, and 546,536 changed Autonomous Community or City.
If this is limited to those who resided in Spain throughout 2024, 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 1.0% from another Autonomous Community.
All major cities had positive migration balances, except Fuenlabrada, Sant Cugat del Vallés, Fuengirola, Talavera de la Reina, Coslada, 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 Terrassa, Valdemoro and Dos Hermanas, they were the cities which reflected the highest net internal migration figures (1,358, 1,299 and 1,233, respectively).
The net external migrations in 2024 was the result of 1,288,562 people coming from abroad who established their residence in our country (3.0% more than in 2023) and 662,294 people who left for a foreign country (8.8% more).
Of the total number of immigrants from abroad, 1,144,227 were foreign nationals (88.8%), while 144,335 were Spanish (11.2%).
As for emigration, there were 524,575 departures of foreigners (79.2%) and 137,719 of Spaniards (20.8%). Of the latter, 88,243 people were born in Spain.
The main nationalities of foreign immigrants were Colombians (with 168,122 arrivals in Spain), Moroccans (133,130) and Venezuelans (103,225).
On the other hand, the most numerous nationalities of emigrants were Moroccans (with 54,869 departures), Romanians (50,220) and Colombians (45,543).
Of the 81,613 foreign-born Spaniards who immigrated to Spain, 15,107 were born in Cuba, 8,076 in Argentina and 7,611 in Ecuador.
On the other hand, of the 49,476 people who emigrated from Spain, 5,998 were born in Morocco, 5,181 in Ecuador, and 4,533 in Colombia.
One of the indicators published for sub-municipal areas is the balance in the same municipality and different sub-municipal area, which indicates how each sub-district gains or loses population because of people changing residences to other sub-districts in the same city.
In some of the main cities, more centrally-located sub-districts are losing population, while those further away from the centre are gaining population.
For example, in 2024 in Madrid, the sub-districts in the south-eastern periphery had the highest balance. And in Barcelona and Valencia, the southern sub-districts gained the most population.
87.4% of people born in Spain who emigrated abroad in 2024 had always resided in Spain. In the case of foreign-born persons, 50.1% had arrived in Spain during the previous two years and 15.4% had done so between 2001 and 2010.
In 2022, among the main foreign immigrant nationals, those with the lowest level of education completed were from Morocco (59.0% of education up to primary school), Romania (38.2%) and the United Kingdom (38.1%). The most highly educated were from France (52.1% with higher education), Spain (38.4%) and Cuba (38.3%).
Among Spanish emigrants abroad in 2023, the most frequent occupations were Catering, personal services, security and sales (23.3% of the total) and Scientific and intellectual technicians and professionals (18.3%).
For foreign migrants the percentages in these two occupations were 22.9% and 7.4%, respectively.
Among foreign nationals who emigrated from Spain, they were most frequently employed in Elementary occupations (31.2% of the total). For Spaniards, this occupation accounted for 13.0% of the total.
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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