With immigration a hot topic in Spain following the government’s mass regularisation process, much of the debate overlooks the contribution that migrant communities make to the Spanish coffers.
As of April 2026, one in seven workers in the Spanish labour market is a foreign national — 14.4 percent of the total workforce.
That’s a record, and the social security contributions made by foreign workers are crucial for maintaining Spain’s pension system and the sustainability of public services in the future.
With over 3.1 million non-Spaniards registered, foreign workers not only underpin strategic sectors but also account for a large proportion of the jobs created since the recent labour reform.
Spain’s Immigration Minister, Elma Saiz, said of the latest figures: “The contribution of foreign workers to our labour market is crucial. It underpins sectors such as the hospitality industry, where one in three workers is from another country, and it drives entrepreneurship, as the number of foreign self-employed workers now exceeds half a million.”
READ ALSO: 86 percent applying for Spain’s migrant amnesty are Latino, data shows
But this comes at a time when immigration is a point of fierce debate not only in Spain but across the continent.
Spain’s leftist government is currently processing the mass regularisation of over 500,000 undocumented migrants, a measure that has generated a lot of misinformation.
Read The Local’s myth-buster here, but one of the main misconceptions is that the measure will mainly benefit illegal migrants from Africa, especially Morocco. In reality, however, data shows that 86 percent of migrants applying for the amnesty are Latin American.
Critics of the measure suggest that the Spanish government is giving residency to migrants who will take from the State.
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New employment data, however, shows just how many foreigners are paying into the state coffers and contributing to Spanish society.
The breakdown of foreign social security contributions in Spain shows a mix of European proximity and a growing Latin American influence.
The five nationalities that are the highest social security contributors in Spain are Moroccans, with 387,584 contributors, followed by Romanians (343,003), Colombians (264,236), Venezuelans (218,337) and Italians (208,174).
Other nationalities make up a significant number of foreign contributors, such as the Chinese (126,998), Peruvians (105,223) and Ukrainians (80,256).
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The growth rate among Latin American workers is particularly noteworthy. Over the past year, the number of Venezuelan members has risen by more than 20 percent, followed by Peruvians (18.7 percent) and Colombians (17.7 percent).
In terms of the sectors in which Spain’s foreigners work, in hospitality almost 30 percent of workers are foreign nationals.
In agriculture it’s 26.9 percent of the workforce, and in construction 24.3 percent.
There are also now more than half a million foreign self-employed workers (506,067) in Spain.
This is particularly true in highly skilled sectors, such as telecommunications and computer programming, where almost one in three professionals (31.7 percent) is a foreign national.
IN STATS: What jobs do foreigners in Spain do?
In conclusion, foreigners contribute far more to Spain’s public coffers than they take out, with plenty of official data to silence those who claim that they live off benefits and drain the welfare system.
Although the average salary of foreigners is usually lower than that of Spaniards, their high employment rate – especially among the nationalities mentioned above – makes their proportional contribution to the Spanish social security system noteworthy and fundamental.
