Spain saw spike in €500K property purchases before golden visa deadline

The numbers of non-EU foreigners buying high-value properties in Spain soared in order to get golden visas before the scheme was finally scrapped, new data shows.

After the Spanish government finally scrapped the controversial golden visa scheme on April 3rd 2025, data has since emerged that suggests there was a last minute rush from non-EU foreigners to buy luxury property in order to get one before it was too late.

Home purchases by foreigners in Spain grew to nearly 93,000 transactions in 2024, 6.4 percent more than in 2023, according to figures from the Association of Registrars.

What was notable is the 20 percent increase in sales above half a million euros — the threshold to gain access to the golden visa residency scheme through property purchase.

Spanish daily El País reports that the scrapping of the visa scheme “is one of the reasons that has recently driven up high-value purchases by foreign buyers, according to industry experts, although the general rise in prices is also a factor.”

A total of 573 golden visas were issued to non-EU citizens from April 2024 - when Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez first announced he would be scrapping this residency option - until December 2024.

The best option for high-income non-EU nationals now being either the non-lucrative visa or the digital nomad visa.

François Carriere, president of the real estate brokerage firm Coldwell Banker Spain y Andorra, told El País: “We have noticed a slight increase in interest from international buyers for properties worth €500,000 in recent months. Although this increase has not been very significant, it does reflect a market reaction to take advantage of the golden visa scheme.”

He did add, however, that those transactions to obtain a residence visa through property investment only accounted for 5 percent of total purchases by international clients.

It took the Spanish government approximately a year to find the legal pathway to secure the cancellation of the golden visa. This has widely been interpreted as spurring many foreigners into making quick purchases before the scheme was cut off.

“We have had several clients, for example from the United States and Costa Rica, who were in a hurry because the deadline for obtaining the golden visa was running out,” Rubén González, founding partner of Mavericks Inmobiliaria, told El País.

The most popular destinations for foreign clients, he added, are the islands and the coasts in Andalusia, Valencia and Catalonia, locations that attract mainly British, German and northern European citizens. The capital and large cities were the favourite destinations of American buyers.

Looking only at property transactions equal to or greater than €500,000, the stats reach record levels just as the golden scheme was being scrapped: 10.76 percent of all home purchases made by foreigners were equal to or greater than half a million euros, the highest percentage on record. More than half of these transactions, 52.57 percent, corresponded to non-EU nationalities, those that would need a visa to live in Spain.

Spain granted 33,237 golden visas in total (including to family members) and 95 percent of these residency authorisations were granted for the purchase of a €500K home or homes, rather than the other investment options.

Golden visa buyers were very geographically concentrated, with over 90 percent of them in Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Alicante, the Balearic Islands, Girona and Valencia.

The biggest beneficiaries of the scheme were Asian, mainly Chinese buyers, as well as non-EU European citizens such as Russians, Ukrainians and British.

thelocal

Spain saw spike in €500K property purchases before golden visa deadline