Spain to grow through immigration while Portugal stagnates

Spain's population will keep growing through immigration until 2028

Spain has a date with 50 million inhabitants. The question is no longer whether it will get there, but when and at what cost. The data on the table point to demographic growth that depends almost entirely on immigration, while Portugal, with a different tax policy, isn't even growing.

What the official forecasts say

Up to 2023, closed figures. From 2024, scenarios. The AIREF (Spain's independent fiscal authority) and the INE (the national statistics institute) agree on the essentials: any population increase in Spain is driven by net migration. The statistics institute, in its 2020-2070 series, maintains a scenario of sustained growth; the fiscal authority forecasts that Spain will keep adding inhabitants while Portugal stagnates. The difference between the two countries is not their starting size, but their reception policy and taxation.

Portugal, the awkward mirror

The debate doesn't stop at the numbers. Some analysts argue that the neighbouring country attracts a different migrant profile: skilled professionals and tax nomads drawn by a flat 20% rate and by tax exemptions on foreign-source income. The example that circulates is that of an engineer on a €80,000 gross salary: in Portugal they take home €3,700 a month; in Spain, €2,600. For some, the conclusion is straightforward: Spain imports volume, Portugal imports talent.

The rebuttal is not long in coming. Those who look at GDP per capita point out that Portuguese wages are up to 40% lower than Spanish ones and that more than a quarter of Portugal's workforce has had to emigrate. Bringing in tax nomads without an industry to sustain them is not a model either, they argue.

The price of growing

Meanwhile, in Spain the political debate has shifted towards housing and the population model: grow through low-skilled labour, or shrink into an expensive, stable Nordic-style country. The range of dates for reaching 50 million – 2026 according to the most cited estimate, already surpassed according to the most pessimistic – serves as a thermometer of that tension. Pressure on housing, social uprootedness and the sustainability of public services are the costs cited as the flip side.

The forecast to 2028 is clear: more population, more housing demand, more social tension. But if the comparison with Portugal teaches anything, it is that immigration is not neutral. It can swell the census and drain the welfare state at the same time. Or it can fund pensions for those still paying in. The data doesn't decide; the design of the model does.