Immigration can be a polarising issue across much of Europe, North America, and beyond. To be sure, there is nothing new about that fact, and it has historically been the case across much of the West. Indeed, witnessing how several European Union (EU) Member States now seek to grapple with growing anti-immigration sentiment, amid images of migrants in small boats crossing rough seas in a bid to get to Europe, and images of mass deportations taking place in the United States, underscores how divisive and urgent a topic this is.

As the EU’s population continues to age, it is clear that immigration is required for economies to grow. In this regard, the case of Spain provides an example of the positive effects that immigration can have on a society. It is estimated that immigrants have accounted for between 7.5% and 12% of Spain’s annual GDP growth over the last decade.  

However, these figures coexist with anti-immigration sentiments and, in some cases, racism. According to a 2024 report from the Council for Racial or Ethnic Discrimination of the Ministry of Equality of the Government of Spain, there has been an increase in the number of people who feel discriminated against because of their racial or ethnic origin. Just last summer, there were protests  in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, calling for the closure of a migration centre after a 21-year-old was raped in the vicinity of the centre. As  is the case in many other countries, migration is also politicised in Spain, with parties on the left and right taking usually opposing stances. This is also mirrored in Spain’s media reporting and in certain instances different outlets can present the same event or phenomenon in quite different ways, depending on their political leaning. With all these caveats, however, it is worth exploring what sets Spain apart from other EU Member States when it comes to immigration, and how the case of Spain fits among the experiences of other EU countries.

A Historical Anchor: Spain and Latin America

Spain’s relatively open labour migration model is inextricably linked to its historical, linguistic, and cultural connections to Latin America. While other countries such as Italy or Poland have treated migration as a primarily economic or humanitarian policy issue, from around the year 2000, Spanish policymakers began to think about migration in a different way. Through policy interventions such as the so-called ‘Plan Greco’, the Spanish authorities began to move away from focusing efforts on attempting to control migration flows, and began to focus on the integration of immigrants arriving in Spain. In parallel, authorities have attempted to manage the inflow of immigrants through bilateral agreements with countries in Latin American, such as Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Peru among others. These cooperation agreements enabled legal labour migration channels to develop, facilitating a range of possibilities from seasonal agricultural work to long-term residency. Spain’s integration strategies evolved further with multi-year frameworks such as the Strategic Plans for Citizenship and Integration (2007–2014) with the objective of promoting immigrants’ access to education, employment, healthcare, housing, and social services.

Perhaps most significantly, Spain offers a fast-track to citizenship for many Latin American migrants, requiring as few as two years of legal residency, compared to the standard ten required for most immigrants. This policy reflects not only cultural affinity but also a desire to integrate Latin American migrants into Spanish society. This trend is also reflected in data, as more than half of those that acquired Spanish nationality between 2009 and 2022 were from Latin America.

Migration’s Economic Footprint

The number of migrants entering Spain has been particularly high since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2024, Spain hosts around 7 million foreign nationals with valid residency documents. More than 2.9 million of these foreign nationals are currently registered contributors to Spain’s social security system, accounting for 13.6% of the total number.

Entrepreneurship is another vital area where migrants are making a mark. Migrants make up about 16% of all self-employed workers in Spain, although there are caveats to this figure as it also represents precarious workers . Additionally, where immigrants have tended to take low-skilled positions in the past, there has been significant growth in higher skilled jobs; in the technology and science sector, the number of immigrant workers more than doubled between 2018 and 2023.

These contributions are not abstract. According to Spain’s ministry for social security and migration, foreign workers have filled approximately 45% of new jobs created in the country since 2022, and the influx of migrant labour has helped Spain outperform much of Europe economically. Spain’s GDP per capital grew 2.9% on average annually between 2022 and 2024 and according to the Bank of Spain, the foreign population contributed between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points to this growth.

Why Spain Works

Several factors distinguish Spain’s approach from some of its European neighbours. The most obvious common factor is the shared language and cultural familiarity that Spanish-speaking migrants bring to the country – something that the likes of Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere will be familiar with. This commonality lowers the cultural and administrative barriers to integration and helps explain why Latin American migrants transition relatively quickly into stable employment and/or legal status in Spain.

But language alone is not enough. Spain’s legal and policy environment has also evolved to be more flexible and seeks to accounts for the realities experienced by people on the ground. The ‘Plan Greco’, among other policies introduced in the 2000s, aimed to facilitate the incorporation of foreign workers into the Spanish labour force by making it easier to obtain a work permit and recognise new digital business models. In 2024, the new immigration regulation (Royal Decree 1155/2024) reduced deadlines and simplified the requirements necessary for illegal migrants to obtain valid documentation.

Spain has  taken these steps not only to be benevolent but also out of necessity, as it is one of the fastest-ageing countries in the EU. At the start of 2023, the country had 15.5% fewer children aged 0-10 compared to 2013. On the other hand, there were 1.4 million more people over the age of 65 over the same period. This represented an increase of 17.4% in only a decade. Spain needs hundreds of thousands of new workers per year just to sustain its pension system and social services. Migration, in this context, is not a temporary fix but a structural and necessary solution to maintain the standard of living enjoyed by people living in Spain today.

However, there are of course shortcomings within the current model that should be outlined and considered by policymakers. Increases in the migrant population clearly puts pressure on the existing housing stock and other public services. This can make it challenging for people to find affordable housing in parts of the country. Additionally, the sustainability of the country’s pension system is still in question. Although immigration lowers the dependency ratio, and immigrants’ contributions to social security help create a balance between the active population and retirees, it is only a temporary solution. Many of these workers in turn will retire in Spain and additional measures to fund the welfare state to allow for a dignified retirement will be needed.

A Model for Europe?

Spain’s experience of managing immigration offers important insights for other EU countries. However, every country resides within its own cultural and societal context, and full replication may be difficult, impossible, or undesirable for other EU countries. Few European states share Spain’s historical ties with a large, culturally aligned migrant population. Countries like Germany or Italy may find it harder to establish fast-track nationality pathways or attract migrants with equally strong cultural and linguistic ties.

However, Spain’s emphasis on legal pathways, rapid and organised regularisation, and local-level integration programming could inform broader EU debates on managed migration. Its use of bilateral agreements to manage seasonal and long-term labour migration has created legal and more humane alternatives to irregular routes—an approach that could be scaled across the EU.

Moreover, the political narrative matters. While other European leaders have struggled to go beyond the security and cost challenges that migration can be seen to represent, Spain has shown that public support can be sustained when migration is seen as something that contributes to society, and not merely as a burden or a threat. In that sense, Spain’s migration model is not just about policy—it’s about political will and imagination.