Blog · Market data

Are foreign buyers falling or at a record? What the notaries and the registrars each count

§ 1Two headlines, one year

The registrars' report on the second quarter of 2026, dated August 2026, puts the foreign share of registered home purchases at 15.98% and describes it as the highest in their series. On 15 October 2026 the notaries published a news item that reads the other way: 62,327 purchases of free-market homes by foreigners in the first half of the year, 13.0% fewer than a year earlier, and the largest first-half fall since 2020.

Both bodies are official, both count foreign buyers, and both describe the same year. A seller, an agent or a newspaper can pick either one and build a sentence about "the market" from it. The two headlines look like a contradiction. Whether they are one depends on what each series counts, and the sums below are there to show that.

The note on how the foreign-buyer figures fit together already tells you not to set one source against the other. The reasons take longer to show, and they are worth seeing once.

§ 2What the notaries count

The notaries' figures come from the Índice Único Informatizado, which their statistics portal describes as a database holding the data of statistical value taken from each notarial act, broken down and anonymised. The unit in this item is the sale of a free-market home (a vivienda libre, a home outside the official-protection regimes). The period is the first half of 2026, set against the same half of 2025.

The item gives a share as well as a count. Foreigners made up 18.3% of those sales, against 19.2% in 2025. The notaries' message is therefore two statements: fewer foreign purchases, and a smaller slice of the sales they record.

Who counts as a foreigner

The item does not define the word, and the text we read gives no split by residence, nationality, region or price. Press reports of the full release say that it separates foreigners who live in Spain from those who do not, and that non-residents fell faster. We were not able to confirm that. The notaries' report for the first half of 2025 did carry a resident and non-resident split, so the full 2026 report is the table to check yourself.

Fine print matters here. A regional statistics note from the notaries of the Valencian Community, on Castellón province for the first quarter of 2024, counts a home as bought by foreigners if at least one buyer has a foreign nationality recorded, and it counts a home with buyers of different types in each group. That is a regional note for another period, and we do not know that the national report uses the same rule. It shows the kind of rule to look for: a couple where one partner is Spanish and the other is not can land in both columns.

What moment they see

A notary sees a sale when the deed is signed in front of them. That is the first event in the life of a purchase, before the registry hears of it, in the order that the chapter on how a purchase moves from signing to registration follows.

§ 3What the registrars count

The registrars count the next event. Their unit is registered home sales: sales that reached the property registry in the quarter, new or second-hand. The second-quarter report counts 167,934 of them, 2.3% fewer than a year before. Within that total, foreigners bought about 26,800, which is 15.98%, against 14.1% in the second quarter of 2025.

Foreign here means by nationality. A Moroccan family that settled in Spain a decade ago, a German retiree who flies in for the winter and a Dutch couple on their first viewing trip sit in the same column. The report does not separate them by where they live.

The report also does not say how long a sale usually waits between the deed and the registry, so we put no figure on that gap.

§ 4The two series side by side

Doing the sums

Take the notaries first. A fall of 13.0% to 62,327 puts the first half of 2025 at about 71,600 foreign purchases, so about 9,300 fewer. The share lets you size the whole market: 62,327 at 18.3% implies about 340,000 sales of free-market homes in the half year.

Now the registrars. A total of 167,934, 2.3% below the year before, puts the second quarter of 2025 at about 171,900 sales. At 14.1%, foreigners bought about 24,200 of them then, against about 26,800 this year: about 2,600 more, a rise of about 11%. Everyone else went from about 147,700 sales to about 141,100, a fall of about 4%. The registrars' record share therefore comes from foreign purchases rising while the total fell.

These sums use rounded shares and the registrars' approximate count of foreign purchases. They are good enough for a feel and not for a footnote. If you publish a number built this way, say that you derived it.

A base that moves

The notaries' own report for the first half of 2025, dated in October 2025, gave 71,155 foreign purchases and a share of 19.3%. A fall of 13.0% to 62,327 implies a base of about 71,600, a little above that, and this year's item quotes 19.2% for the same half. That points to a base restated since last year. The notaries' item does not say why, so do not hold last year's release up against this year's and expect the numbers to match.

§ 5Why both can be true

None of the following is a finding. Each is a difference between the two series that could produce opposite headlines, and the texts we read do not give the numbers that would test them.

Different moments

A deed signed in one quarter can reach the registry in a later one. The registrars' second-quarter count therefore includes sales signed earlier, while the notaries' half-year counts the signings made within it. If foreign signings slowed while registrations of earlier deeds kept coming through, the registrars could show a rise while the notaries show a fall. Testing that needs the lag, which the registrars' report does not give, and the notaries' signings by quarter, which the item does not give either.

Different periods

The registrars' unit is one quarter and the notaries' is the half-year. A half-year figure can hide a weak first quarter followed by a recovery, or the reverse. The notaries' item gives no quarterly split, so we cannot say which quarter carried the fall.

Different definitions and bases

The registrars classify by nationality. The notaries' item does not say how it classifies, and its unit is free-market homes, while the registrars' report speaks of registered home sales without that qualifier in the text we read. The notaries' share of 18.3% also sits above the registrars' 15.98%, a gap that points to differences in what each counts. The texts do not say which ones. The two shares are not the same ratio taken on different dates.

§ 6What neither tells you about a town

A national count over a quarter or a half-year says little about the street you are looking at. Foreign shares differ widely from one province to another in the registrars' report, and the national figure hides that. The note on which statistics series publish what, and when explains where to find the next level down. Rankings by nationality also differ between the two sources, which the note on how the nationality rankings differ between sources sets out.

§ 7How to quote either

Quote the one that matches the sentence you need. "The notaries recorded 62,327 purchases of free-market homes by foreigners in the first half of 2026, 13.0% fewer than a year earlier." Or: "The registrars report that foreigners accounted for 15.98% of the home sales registered in the second quarter of 2026." Each names the unit, the period and the source. Neither says that foreign buying is booming or collapsing, and a sentence that does has left something out.

§ 8Questions to put to whoever quotes a figure

If an agent, a seller or an article uses a number about foreign demand to push you towards an offer, ask:

• Which body published it, and what date does its page show?
• Does it count deeds signed or sales registered?
• Which period does it cover, and which period does it compare with?
• How does it decide who is foreign: nationality, residence or both?
• Is the figure for Spain, a region, a province or your town?

A lawyer who acts for you, and not for the seller or the agent, can say which of these figures matter for the home you are looking at. The chapter on choosing a lawyer who acts for you alone explains how to find one.

Dotted underline marks an illustrative figure. It shows how a calculation works and is not a quote, a rate or a forecast.

General information only. This is not legal, tax or financial advice. Check your own situation with a qualified adviser.