Spain is planning to levy a 100 percent tax on homes purchased by non-European Union residents, the government announced on Jan. 13.
He went on to say that property prices had increased by 48 percent in the past decade in Europe, almost double the rate that household incomes had grown.
Spanish real estate platform Fotocasa told Reuters that although the measure may discourage foreign investment, its effectiveness is questionable because only 2 percent of Spanish homes are purchased by non-EU residents.
Resolving Spain’s housing crisis has become a major issue for Sánchez, as the country suffers from a serious shortage of affordable homes and ever-increasing rents.
In order to bring in his proposed 100 percent levy on foreign buyers, he will need to get approval from a divided parliament and rely on Spain’s regional governments to implement it.
However, opposition to the plan erupted just a day after it was announced, with the People’s Party labeling the idea “xenophobic” and stating that the party would not apply the tax in the regions it governs.
“The problem is not that people want to live in Spain, the problem is that there is a lack of housing,” Luis de la Matta, the party’s director of communications.
“We are not going to facilitate a xenophobic measure.”
The People’s Party governs most of the regions popular with British and Latin American buyers of second homes, including Andalusia and Valencia on the mainland, as well as the Canary and Balearic islands.
In response to the opposition’s interjection, Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez challenged it to nix a plan that she says will boost the supply of homes.
The Catalonia Tenants’ Union stated that most of the foreign buyers in the region were from the EU and described the measure as “grandiloquent but irrelevant.”
New figures reveal that an estimated record number of foreign tourists visited Spain last year.
Spanish Tourism Minister Jordi Hereu said on Jan. 15 that tourism numbers were expected to keep growing in 2025, helping propel Spain’s economic growth amid a wider European slowdown.
Foreign tourists spent 126 billion euros (about $130 billion) during their stays in 2024, up by 16 percent from 108.7 billion euros (about $112 billion) the previous year, the minister said, predicting that tourists would spend 36 billion euros in the first four months of 2025, also a 16 percent increase over the same period in 2024.
Spain ranks as the second most popular destination globally, after France, on the U.N. World Tourism Barometer, and tourism accounts for 12.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
