The experimental statistics from the National Statistics Institute (INE) estimate that, as of February 2024, there were 351,389 tourist dwellings in Spain, nearly 70% of which are concentrated in Andalusia, the Valencian Community, Catalonia, and the Canary Islands. This data, first launched in 2020 and updated biannually, is the closest to a national official figure, although there are discrepancies with the data managed by autonomous communities, both above and below the figures from INE.
The government hopes to establish a national register in the coming months that will unify and standardize all this information both numerically and methodologically.
According to the INE, the Mediterranean coast and the islands are the main hubs for tourist housing, which has a considerable relative weight in the real estate market of many small and medium-sized towns. Specifically, in Yaiza, a municipality on the island of Lanzarote with 17,415 registered inhabitants, 22.5% of the dwellings are used for tourism.
Not surprisingly, the autonomous regions with the highest number of tourist dwellings are, in order, Andalusia (82,454), the Valencian Community (59,413), Catalonia (52,598), and the Canary Islands (46,784).
These are followed by the Balearic Islands (25,073), Madrid (19,456), and Galicia (17,883), while at the other end of the spectrum, excluding the autonomous cities, are La Rioja (1,263), Navarre (1,583), and Extremadura (1,759).
The ranking by municipalities is led by three capitals, Madrid (16,100), Barcelona (8,842), and Malaga (7,038), and in the following positions are other large cities such as Valencia (6,769) and Seville (6,171) but, above all, coastal towns in Malaga (Marbella, 6,994; Mijas, 4,229), Alicante (Torrevieja, 4,454; Dénia, 3,608) and the Canary Islands (Arona, 4,013; Adeje, 3,800; La Oliva, 3,678).
In contrast, the provincial capitals with the fewest tourist dwellings are Palencia (41), Guadalajara (46), Lleida (54), Huesca (63), Badajoz (68), Ciudad Real (83), Soria (112), Teruel (130), Segovia (138), Ávila (154), Jaén (176), Vitoria-Gasteiz (177), and Huelva (183).
It should be noted that all these numbers do not necessarily reflect regularized situations. For example, the case of Madrid, which according to the INE has 16,100 tourist flats but has just over 1,000 municipal licenses in force.
As a summary, three tables of data are attached to reflect the distribution of tourist dwellings in Spain.
Here is the number of tourist dwellings by regions in Spain, in alphabetical order:
- Andalusia: 82,454 (Almeria: 6,329, Cádiz: 14,534, Córdoba: 2,521, Granada: 7,187, Huelva: 2,415, Jaén: 953, Malaga: 41,038, Sevilla: 7,477)
- Aragon: 4,594 (Huesca: 2,564, Teruel: 777, Zaragoza: 1,253)
- Asturias: 7,240
- Balearic Islands: 25,073
- Canary Islands: 46,784 (Las Palmas: 25,070, Santa Cruz de Tenerife: 21,714)
- Cantabria: 6,954
- Castile and León: 7,206 (Ávila: 1,126, Burgos: 843, León: 1,330, Palencia: 187, Salamanca: 1,378, Segovia: 833, Soria: 409, Valladolid: 611, Zamora: 489)
- Castilla-La Mancha: 4,603 (Albacete: 955, Ciudad Real: 727, Cuenca: 876, Guadalajara: 590, Toledo: 1,455)
- Catalonia: 52,598 (Barcelona: 16,768, Girona: 20,721, Lleida: 2,827, Tarragona: 12,282)
- Valencian Community: 59,413 (Alicante: 38,007, Castellón: 6,807, Valencia: 14,599)
- Extremadura: 1,759 (Badajoz: 550, Cáceres: 1,209)
- Galicia: 17,883 (A Coruña: 6,660, Lugo: 2,422, Ourense: 1,009, Pontevedra: 7,792)
- Madrid: 19,456
- Murcia: 7,309
- Navarre: 1,583
- Basque Country: 5,140 (Álava: 346, Bizkaia: 2,611, Gipuzkoa: 2,183)
- La Rioja: 1,263
- Ceuta: 39
- Melilla: 38
- Total Spain: 351,389
