SPAIN’S longevity credentials have been burnished after the country’s average lifespan sailed past a historic milestone.
Life expectancy is now above 84 years for the first time – but the good news is tempered by more alarming developments at the other end of the scale.
Fresh figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE) show life expectancy at birth reached 84.01 years in 2024.
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Life expectancy for men rose to 81.38 years, up 0.27 on the previous year. For women it climbed to 86.53, an increase of 0.19. The number of deaths – 436,118 – was almost identical to 2023.
However, it was a shocking year for Spain’s birth rate.
Spain registered just 318,005 newborns last year, down 0.8% on 2023 and the lowest figure since national records began in 1941.
The fertility rate slipped to quasi-apocalyptic 1.1 children per woman – just half of the number needed to maintain the population.
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Women are choosing to delay childbirth until later in life, with births to mothers aged 40 or older continuing to rise – they now represent 10.4% of all deliveries, a 7.3% increase over the past decade.
With deaths holding steady at 436,118, it means that Spain’s population would have dropped – by 116,000 – for the eighth consecutive year of population decline – if it were not for one factor.
Spain more than offset its shrinking population with migration.
The country recorded a net gain of 642,000 people in 2023, the latest from which full figures are available.
The figure is part of a post-pandemic trend in which the immigrant population has been swelling by roughly 600,000 a year, the fastest rate in Europe bar Germany in absolute numbers.
It means that, in total, Spain’s population grew by about 458,000 people last year, once you add everything together – births, deaths and migration.
Adding nearly half a million people each year, Spain’s population may now break the 50 million barrier by the end of next year, standing, as it does, at 49,442,844 as of October 2025.
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Presumably the immigration number includes successful asylum seeker, and not this waiting to be processed.
It is a relatively high number, but would be mitigated if the immigrants bring skills required in Spain. That is another question with the unemployed numbers stuck at 20 per cent levels, suggesting that there just are not the jobs available. Unless something else is going on!
Spain has a record of refusing asylum applications . Only about 18% were successful last year that amounted to less than 6,500 . So its legal immigration that is fuelling the numbers . For the 4 th quarter of 2023 the rough split was 70,000 from South America and 25,000 from Morocco . The largest foreign born groups living legally in Spain are Moroccans , 1M , Romanians 600,000 , Columbians about the same , Venezuelans about 300,000., Peruvians about 200,000 and Hondurans about the same . The British and Italians amount to about 300,000 each but most are unlikely to be economically active .
Spain needs immigration but it should not make the mistake of the UK . It is blessed because its former colonies in South America can supply immigrants who can be absorbed linguistically and culturally immediately . Romanians will also find Spain amenable and vice versa . The links with Morocco are historical and Moroccans have had more exposure to the Christian Mediterranean world than Arabs from the middle east but they are unlikely to be accepted in the same way and indeed they are not in many places . If Spain wants to prosper, bearing in mind its long standing divisions between Left and Right and Centralists and Separatists, it would do well to ensure that a third rift is not created and with a plentiful supply of South American immigrants that should be possible .