Spain from within

The rise has not been the same everywhere. In Madrid prices have practically doubled since 2015 and in the Balearic Islands they have risen 95%. At the other end are Castile-La Mancha (43%) and Extremadura (40%).

Policy file: rent caps in Catalonia

1. What it is. A cap on the rent of new long-term residential leases in areas declared «stressed residential markets», based on the Housing Ministry's reference index. It is allowed by Law 12/2023 on the right to housing.
2. Who and when. Each region applies for the declaration. Catalonia has been applying it the longest and covers the most municipalities: 140 since 16 March 2024 and 131 more since 10 October 2024. The Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia and Asturias have since started applying it in some municipalities. Before that, a 2020 Catalan law capped rents until the Constitutional Court struck it down in March 2022.
3. What should happen. Rents on new leases should rise less. The risk its critics point to is that fewer homes are offered for long-term rent.
4. What we compare it with. With Catalan municipalities without a cap, using the same source: the rental deposits lodged with the Catalan government.

Before 2024, rents on new leases rose at the same pace in the municipalities that would later have a cap and in the rest. Since it has applied, they have diverged: in the last year, the average rent in municipalities capped since March 2024 was 4% above 2023, and in municipalities without a cap, 12%.

At the same time, fewer contracts are being signed: 20% fewer than in 2023 in capped municipalities, against 2% fewer in those without a cap. It may mean there are fewer homes for long-term rent (because they move to seasonal lets or are sold), but also that tenants move less so as not to lose their rent. This data cannot tell the two apart.

What research says about the 2020 Catalan law, which worked in a similar way: two studies using deposit data agree that it lowered rents, by between 5% and 6%. They disagree on supply. Monràs and García-Montalvo (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) find fewer homes for rent and attribute half of the price fall to a change in the type of flat being rented. Jofre-Monseny, Martínez-Mazza and Segú (Universitat de Barcelona) find no fall in contracts. There are still few independent evaluations of the 2024 caps.

In short: the data for these two years is consistent with what the studies of the 2020 law found. The caps hold down rents on new leases, and at the same time there are fewer new leases. Why there are fewer, and whether it is worth it, is the question that will divide the campaign debate, and public data does not yet fully answer it.

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In the last year (from the third quarter of 2025 to the second of 2026), Spain's average unemployment rate was 10.3%, against 12.2% in 2023. It has fallen in all 17 regions, and most where it was highest: by 4 points in Extremadura; 3.5 in Andalusia and the Canary Islands; and 3.2 in Asturias. Least in the Basque Country (0.3) and Aragon (0.4), which already started from low rates.

So the regions have converged. In 2023, there were 10.5 points between the region with the most unemployment (Andalusia, 18.2%) and the one with the least (the Basque Country, 7.7%). In the last year, there are 7.5 between Andalusia (14.8%) and Cantabria (7.3%). The gap is still large: Andalusia has twice Cantabria's unemployment.

Are jobs being created only because there are more people? Spain had an average of 22.5 million people in work in the last year, 1.3 million more than in 2023 (6.1%). Part of that rise is because the population is growing. To strip that out, the employment rate measures what share of the population works. Among people aged 25 to 54, the ages at which most people work, the rate has gone from 78.0% to 80.0%.

It has risen in 15 of the 17 regions. The largest rise is in Asturias (5.8 points). In the Basque Country it has fallen half a point and in Aragon it has barely changed, both with high rates (83.2%). The highest is Madrid's (84.9%) and the lowest Andalusia's (75.0%). The EPA (Labour Force Survey) is a survey: in the less populated regions it has a larger margin of error and small differences are not significant.

See also: Jobs: the labour reform, three years on

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In the private sector, the share of employees on temporary contracts has fallen in all 17 regions between 2021 and the last year (from the third quarter of 2025 to the second of 2026). The largest falls are, in general, where temporary employment was highest: Andalusia (from 35.3% to 18.1%), Extremadura (15.4 points lower), Murcia (15.1) and the Canary Islands (14.1). The smallest, in Navarre (6.4 points) and the Basque Country (6.8).

The differences have narrowed, but they are still there. Andalusia (18.1%), Extremadura (17.2%) and Murcia (15.2%) have the highest shares; Madrid (9.3%), Catalonia (10.2%) and Galicia (10.3%), the lowest.

The other persistent problem is long-term unemployment. In the last year, 35.4% of the unemployed had been looking for work for a year or more, against 47.8% in 2021, when pandemic lay-offs still weighed heavily. The Canary Islands (45.2%) and Castile-La Mancha (40.6%) have the highest shares. The Balearic Islands, at 19.3%, have the lowest, and also the largest fall since 2021 (24.7 points).

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In 2023 the PP won the most votes in 40 of the 52 provinces. The PSOE won in 10: the four Catalan provinces, Badajoz, Cáceres, Seville, Las Palmas, Navarre and Álava. The PNV won in Bizkaia and EH Bildu in Gipuzkoa.

By municipality the map changes: the PSOE won in more municipalities than the PP in Andalusia, Extremadura, Catalonia and Asturias, and EH Bildu came first in more municipalities than anyone else in the Basque Country and Navarre. Switch to the municipality view to see the detail.

A general election does not choose regional governments, but how power is spread across the regions shapes the campaign: whoever governs each region decides much of the healthcare, education and housing that voters have in mind.

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On 1 January 2025 there were 31.7 people aged 65 or over in Spain for every 100 aged 16 to 64. The figure ranges from 46.5 in Asturias, 44.7 in Castile and León and 43.7 in Galicia to 24.5 in the Balearic Islands, 25.7 in Murcia and 26.1 in the Canary Islands. In 1975, Asturias had 17.2, less than the Balearic Islands (19.5): since then it has added 29.3 points, the largest rise of the 17 regions, and the Balearic Islands 5.0, the smallest. Fertility, life expectancy and migration all play a part in that difference, both young people leaving and new residents arriving.

That ratio is demographic: it compares ages, not who works. Counting people in work of all ages for every person aged 65 or over, Spain had 2.19 in the last year, against 2.79 in 2008. The figure has fallen in all 17 regions. Since 2008 the number of people in work has grown 9.8% and the number over 64, 39.6%.

The regional differences remain: in the Balearic Islands there are 2.98 people in work for every person over 64 and in Asturias, 1.50. Pensions are paid by the common Social Security system, so these differences do not mean different pensions by region, but they do show where ageing weighs most on the services the regions run, such as healthcare and long-term care.

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On 1 January 2026, 10.0 million people born in another country lived in Spain, according to INE's provisional figure. Four regions are home to almost two in three (66%): Catalonia (2.1 million), Madrid (1.8), the Valencian Community (1.4) and Andalusia (1.2). As a share, after the Balearic Islands (29.3%), Catalonia (26.1%), Madrid (25.7%) and the Valencian Community (25.5%) come the Canary Islands (24.1%). In the north and west the shares are much lower: Asturias (12.6%), Castile and León (12.9%) and Galicia (13.2%).

In the last year with data, unemployment among people of foreign nationality was 15.3%, against 9.2% among Spanish nationals. Where they differ least is in the Canary Islands (13.1% against 12.4%), a region with high unemployment for everyone. Where they differ most, leaving aside Ceuta and Melilla, is in Navarre (20.0% against 5.9%), Asturias (17.1% against 8.0%) and the Basque Country (15.3% against 6.3%). In small regions the survey sample is small and these differences have a wide margin of error.

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Four regions owe more than a quarter of their GDP: the Valencian Community, Murcia (30.8%), Castile-La Mancha and Catalonia (28.1% each). Madrid (12.3%) and Asturias (12.5%) are among those that owe least. The Basque Country (11.7%) and Navarre (8.4%) have a foral regime: they collect almost all their own taxes and pay central government an amount, the Basque «cupo» and the Navarrese contribution, for the services it still provides. That is why they are not part of the common system or of the funding comparisons that follow.

The common-regime regions are funded mainly by ceded taxes: half of income tax and VAT, 58% of manufacturing excise duties and taxes such as wealth, inheritance and property transfer tax. Since what is collected depends on each territory's income, the system redistributes it. 75% goes into a Guarantee Fund, together with a central government contribution, which is shared out according to adjusted population; other funds are then added. In 2024, according to Fedea's calculations on the Finance Ministry settlement, the system gave the lower-income regions 24,647 million euros more than they collected: central government put in 13,238 million and Madrid, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands 11,409 million, as the only regions that paid in more than they received. Madrid contributed 8,681 million, 26% of what it collects.

The redistribution does not leave every region at the average. Afterwards, funding per adjusted inhabitant ranges from 92.0 in Murcia to 118.6 in Cantabria. Murcia, the Valencian Community, Andalusia and Castile-La Mancha remain below 95; Cantabria, La Rioja (112.2) and Extremadura (110.6) are at the top. According to Fedea, the Guarantee Fund greatly reduces the differences (the standard deviation of the index falls from 22.2 to 6.1 points), but the funds central government adds afterwards raise it to 7.5 and change the order of the regions.

Is it related to debt? Partly. Across the 15 common-regime regions, the relationship between funding and debt is negative (correlation coefficient of -0.57): the two worst funded, Murcia and the Valencian Community, are the two most indebted. But that does not explain everything. Catalonia, with funding slightly above average (102.6), shares third place in debt with Castile-La Mancha, and Andalusia, with the same funding as the latter (94.7), owes considerably less (18.2%). Debt also depends on how much each region spent, on the deficits built up during the crises and on each government's decisions, which this data does not separate.

Policy file: the 2009 funding system

1. What it is. Law 22/2009 sets out how the 15 common-regime regions are funded: what share of national taxes is ceded to them and how it is shared out through the Guarantee Fund for Essential Public Services (75% of their tax revenue plus a central government contribution) and the Sufficiency, Cooperation and Competitiveness funds.
2. Who and when. Parliament passed it in December 2009. It provides for its main elements to be reviewed every five years, but it has not been replaced: the 2024 settlement, paid in 2026, is still calculated under it.
3. What should happen. Every region should have similar resources per unit of need to provide basic services (health, education and social services), whatever it collects.
4. What we compare it with. With what each region raises from its own taxes before redistribution (chart D2), using Fedea's calculations on the official settlement.

What remains pending. In December 2025, the Council of Ministers sent Congress an organic bill for central government to take on 83,252 million euros of the common-regime regions' debt, with estimated interest savings of around 6,700 million, according to the Finance Ministry. That is a little more than two in every ten euros the regions owed in June 2026. In July 2026, the plenary rejected the amendments to the whole bill and it continued through parliament, but it had not completed its passage when Royal Decree 806/2026 dissolved parliament on 5 October. Under the Rules of Congress (article 207), dissolution means all pending business lapses: the next Congress will have to decide whether to take it up again. Neither a new funding system nor the debt write-off has been approved, so their effects cannot be assessed with data.

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On 31 December 2025, 853,740 patients were waiting for non-urgent surgery in the public health system, and they had been on the list for 122 days on average. The differences between regions are large. In Andalusia and Catalonia, one in three patients (32.2% and 32.0%) had been waiting for more than six months; in Madrid, fewer than one in a hundred (0.8%), and in the Basque Country 2.3%. The wait for a first appointment with a specialist follows a different order: the average is 102 days, ranging from 32 in La Rioja to 162 in the Canary Islands, leaving aside Ceuta and Melilla. Madrid, which has the shortest surgical wait, is the region with the most patients per inhabitant waiting for that first appointment (134.7 per 1,000).

Nor do they spend the same. In 2024, the Basque Country and Asturias spent more than 2,300 euros per inhabitant on health; Andalusia, the lowest, and Madrid, the second lowest, less than 1,800. But spending more does not translate into waiting less: across the 17 regions, the relationship between spending per inhabitant and the surgical waiting time is practically zero (correlation coefficient of -0.09). Madrid spends little and has the shortest wait; Andalusia spends the least and has the longest; Cantabria and Extremadura spend more than 2,200 euros and their patients have been waiting more than 130 days. Waits also depend on how many patients join the list, on how operating theatres and specialists are organised, and on how each region counts its own list.

Policy file: guaranteed maximum waiting times

1. What it is. Royal Decree 1039/2011 guarantees every National Health System user a maximum of 180 calendar days, from the moment the doctor prescribes the operation, for five procedures: heart valve surgery, coronary heart surgery, cataracts, hip replacement and knee replacement.
2. Who and when. The Government approved it in July 2011, under Law 16/2003 on the cohesion and quality of the National Health System, and it has been in force since 30 August 2011. The regions set out the guarantee in their own territory and can establish shorter deadlines.
3. What should happen. No patient should wait more than 180 days for those operations. If the deadline cannot be met, the health service must offer alternatives, such as surgery at another hospital. Patients who turn down the alternative lose the guarantee.
4. What we compare it with. With the percentage of patients waiting for those operations who had been on the list for more than six months on 31 December 2025, according to the Ministry of Health report.

The result. Six months are roughly equivalent to the guaranteed 180 days. At the end of 2025, 15.9% of patients waiting for a knee replacement and 13.7% of those waiting for a hip replacement had been on the list for more than six months. For heart valve surgery the figure was 6.9%; for cataracts, 2.6%, and for coronary surgery, 1.6%. These are figures for the whole system: the report does not break them down by region. And they measure the structural list, which patients who turn down surgery at another hospital leave, so they do not say how many patients lost the guarantee.

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