The number of foreign affiliates in Spain exceeds 3 million for the first time.

After approaching 2.9 million foreign employees in 2024, with 2,880,818 immigrants registered with Social Security, the fifth month of 2025 closed, for the first time, with more than three million foreign employees. Specifically, May ended with a new all-time high of 3,070,831 foreign employees , according to a report from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration on Monday.

Adjusting for seasonality and calendar effects, the number of contributors is close to three million, despite a 0.28% decrease compared to the original series. Seasonally adjusted foreign affiliation decreased by 11,375 to 2,972,086.

The number of foreign workers has shown strong growth since 2018, currently representing 14.1% of total affiliation in our country by May 2025. In this regard, the Minister of Inclusion, Elma Saiz, emphasized that the affiliation of foreigners is one of the examples that, she says, can be seen in the labor market as a whole, asserting that temporary employment has fallen to "historic lows" and that sectors are diversifying, such as those with high added value, she asserts.

In Spain, a large portion of the new jobs created in 2024 were held by people of foreign origin, specifically, 42% of the total. Of the 21,784,375 registered workers (on average), a new record for employment data after adding 195,736 compared to April, Social Security added an average of 73,524 foreign registered workers in May, 2.4% more than the previous month.

For its part, the Ministry has highlighted that 41% of jobs created in the last three years correspond to workers of foreign origin and that there are now 1.4 million more foreign workers than ten years ago , representing an increase of 84.6%, and 118% in the case of people from non-EU countries. Meanwhile, among EU citizens, the increase has been 56.5%.

The incipient increase in the number of non-EU contributors is reflected in the overall figures. Of the total number of foreign contributors at the end of May, 31% were from EU countries, while 69% were from third countries. In other words, of the more than three million foreign contributors, 953,509 were from EU countries and 2,117,322 were from non-EU countries .

Among the largest groups of foreign workers, workers from Morocco lead the way, with 383,377; ahead of Romania, with 350,487; Colombia, with 236,442; Italy, with 210,041; and Venezuela, with 190,320.