Why Spain’s immigrant figures don’t add up

The population figures don’t add up: neither 10 nor 50 million

The most repeated figure for the number of immigrants in Spain is 10 million. It is repeated so often that it has stopped being questioned. And that is where the problem begins: alternative calculations speak of 14, 15, 17 and even 20 million, with no verifiable breakdown behind them. The underlying debate is no longer how many immigrants there are in Spain, but how many people live in the country without appearing in any statistic.

How many immigrants are there in Spain according to the calculations in circulation?

The most repeated starting point is 10 million. The figure is taken as given in public conversation until someone does the math. Some calculate “around 14 million” and some go straight to 15. Other analyses put the floor at 17 million, and there are those who argue the real figure is around 20. None of these estimates comes with an official breakdown; they are extrapolations from what is seen in classrooms, health centres and on the street. In big cities the same argument comes up again and again: in many classes Spanish pupils are no longer the majority, nor even the second-largest minority.

The calculation starting from 1981: 37,5 million and less than 1%

One of the most cited arguments starts from a baseline: in 1981 Spain had 37,5 million inhabitants and the immigrant population was under 1%. Since then the birth rate has collapsed, but the total population has not fallen. Whoever does that subtraction concludes that the number of immigrants, including children and naturalised citizens, cannot be less than 16 or 18 million. The same exercise is used to question the total: against the 50 million that, according to that version, are recorded by the census and padrón (municipal population register), some estimate a real population of 54 to 56 million. The explanation given is that thousands of people arrive on flights from Latin America with a tourist ticket and simply do not return. It is a version with no official verification, but it circulates as if it had one.

Average age, public services and an electricity grid for 40 million

The other part of the argument is demographic. It is claimed that Spaniards with Spanish parents number around 32 million and that their average age is around 47 years old, with at least ten million over 60. The population that has arrived from abroad would have an average age of 30. From that crossover comes a repeated conclusion: every year there are fewer of the former and more of the latter, and the trend will not reverse on its own. If that is combined with infrastructure designed, it is said, for 40 million people, the result stops being a question of identity. It is housing, it is healthcare, it is the electricity grid. And, according to this argument, it is pressure that the statistics do not capture.

No one has the exact number and probably no one will. The next revision of the padrón will give a figure that some will believe and others will not, and the gap between what the records say and what is counted on the street is not going to close: rather the opposite. With Spain’s demography falling and the sustained arrival of young population, any data published in the coming years will drag the same problem with it. It will be the figure that can be measured, not the one that exists.