Non-resident foreign buyers paid 3,242 €/m² for Spanish homes in the second half of 2025, resident foreign buyers 1,963 €/m² and Spanish buyers 1,839 €/m² — a 76% gap between the top and the bottom line (Consejo General del Notariado, published 9 April 2026). The gap is composition, not overcharging: different buyers buy different property in different places.
What each category of buyer actually paid
The notaries record every completed sale in Spain, including the deed price and the residence status of the purchaser. The price paid by each category of buyer is therefore measured rather than estimated.
Average price paid per square metre for homes in Spain, by buyer category, second half of 2025. Source: Consejo General del Notariado, semi-annual report on home purchases by foreigners, published 9 April 2026. The final column is calculated from the two figures to its left.
| Buyer category | Average price paid (€/m²) | Difference against Spanish buyer (%, calculated) |
|---|---|---|
| Non-resident foreign buyer | 3,242 | +76% |
| Resident foreign buyer | 1,963 | +6.7% |
| Spanish buyer | 1,839 | Baseline |
The first thing that table settles is that nationality is not the variable. A foreign buyer who lives in Spain paid 1,963 €/m² — within 7% of a Spanish buyer. If foreignness itself carried a premium, that line would sit close to the non-resident line. It does not. The variable is residence, and residence is a proxy for where and what people buy.
For scale: foreigners bought 66,629 Spanish homes in the second half of 2025, down 4.4% year-on-year, and accounted for 18.4% of all home sales, against 19.5% a year earlier and 20.9% in 2023 (same Notariado report). The foreign share has fallen across three consecutive readings.
Four reasons the gap exists, and how much of each we can evidence
I want to be exact about which of the following is measured and which is reasoning.
Geography — measured, and it does most of the work. Non-resident buyers concentrate on the coast and the islands; the Spanish market as a whole is overwhelmingly inland and urban. Foreign buyers were 31.1% of purchases in Málaga province, third-highest in Spain, against 13.5% nationally and 12.5% for Andalucía (Colegio de Registradores, ERI Q4 2025 — a different source and period from the notary figures above). In Marbella itself, 60.9% of buyers were foreign (Portal Estadístico del Notariado, 12 months to May 2026). Coastal municipalities are also the expensive ones, as the next table shows. A large part of the 76% is simply a map.
Property type — measured, and it works against the obvious story. The convenient explanation is that foreigners buy villas and villas cost more. Per square metre, they do not. In May 2026 the national average for flats was 2,455 €/m², for houses 1,445 €/m² (Consejo General del Notariado, May 2026 data released 30 July 2026). Houses are cheaper per square metre than flats nationally, because land is cheaper where houses get built. So “foreigners buy houses” cannot on its own explain a higher price per square metre — if anything it should push the other way. What raises the figure is the coastal location, not the building type.
Size — measured for total price, inferred for price per square metre. The average home sold in Marbella over the 12 months to May 2026 had a surface of 169 m² against 120 m² for Málaga province, and the average transaction value was €788,970 against €368,679 (Portal Estadístico del Notariado). Note what that proves: it explains why non-resident buyers write much bigger cheques. It does not by itself explain a higher price per square metre, because square metres are the denominator. Where size does feed through is that the larger coastal home sits on a more expensive plot — which returns us to geography.
Newness and outlook — reasoning, not measurement. The intuition is that non-resident buyers skew towards newer stock, sea views and resort-standard specification, all of which carry a premium per square metre. I think that is right. But I cannot evidence it from the notary release, which publishes no build-year or view attribute by buyer category. The nearest indication is that new-build was 43% of Málaga transactions in January 2026 against roughly 21% of Spanish transactions in March 2026 (INE) — different months, so directional rather than like-for-like. Anyone presenting the newness effect as a quantified share of the 76% is presenting an opinion in numerical clothing.
The honest summary: geography carries most of the gap, property type carries less than people assume and in a less intuitive direction, and specification carries an amount nobody can size from public data.
How far the Spanish average sits from any price you will actually meet
Average transaction price per square metre by municipality, western Málaga province, with the Spanish average for comparison. Rolling 12 months to 1 August 2026. Source: Consejo General del Notariado — deed prices, not asking prices.
| Municipality | Average transaction price (€/m²) |
|---|---|
| Marbella | 4,665 |
| Benahavís | 4,529 |
| Fuengirola | 3,852 |
| Estepona | 3,437 |
| Ojén | 3,223 |
| Benalmádena | 3,134 |
| Mijas | 2,948 |
| Gaucín | 2,374 |
| Alhaurín de la Torre | 2,133 |
| Alhaurín el Grande | 1,591 |
| Spain, average | 1,973 |
Every municipality on that list except one is above the Spanish average, and Marbella is 2.4 times it. An international buyer who has read that Spanish homes average 1,973 €/m² and then looks at a Marbella property is not looking at an overpriced version of the national market. They are looking at a different market that happens to share a country. The national number is not wrong; it is answering a question they did not ask.
The ladder is also steep within the province: Alhaurín el Grande at 1,591 €/m² and Marbella at 4,665 €/m² are a short drive apart. This is why I treat municipality data as the minimum useful resolution and sub-area data as the working one. Our Marbella area guide and the comparison of the Golden Mile against Nueva Andalucía work at the level below this table, where differences inside one municipality outweigh the difference between two of them.
The second layer: asking price is not transaction price
A second definitional problem sits on top of the first, and it moves in the opposite direction. The prices an international buyer sees first are portal asking prices; the notaries publish deed prices. Different measurements, and the distance between them is consistent.
Asking prices (Idealista, April 2026 for Marbella, June 2026 for Estepona and Mijas) against average transaction prices (Consejo General del Notariado, rolling 12 months to 1 August 2026), three Costa del Sol municipalities.
| Municipality | Asking price, Idealista (€/m²) | Transaction price, Notariado (€/m²) | Transaction against asking (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marbella | 5,596 | 4,665 | −17% |
| Estepona | 4,329 | 3,437 | −21% |
| Mijas | 3,773 | 2,948 | −22% |
This compounds with the first problem, and it compounds in the awkward way. A buyer who anchors on the Spanish average of 1,973 €/m² and then reads a Marbella asking price of 5,596 €/m² has been wrong twice in opposite directions: the national figure understated the coast, and the asking figure overstates what the coast transacts at. The distance between those two figures is 184%; between the national average and Marbella’s actual transacted 4,665 €/m², 136%. Neither is a small error, and they do not cancel.
That gap is not a negotiating rule. It is a municipality-wide average that mixes properties which sold quickly at close to asking with properties that sat for a year and eventually corrected. It tells you the two datasets measure different things; it does not tell you a specific asking price has 17% in it. How to read the figure for one property is covered in Marbella’s price per square metre, explained.
Four questions to ask about any price per square metre you are quoted
These four resolve almost every apparent contradiction between two property figures.
- What source? Notary deed data, land registry data, portal asking data and agency estimates are four different things. Only the first two record completed transactions.
- What period? Even within the notary data, the Spanish average was 2,049 €/m² for May 2026 alone and 1,973 €/m² on a rolling 12-month basis to 1 August 2026. Both are correct. A single month and a rolling year are different questions.
- What geography? Spain, autonomous community, province, municipality or sub-area. Marbella at 4,665 €/m² and Málaga province at 3,061 €/m² (Portal Estadístico del Notariado, 12 months to May 2026) are both accurate — of different places.
- Asking or transacted? On this coast the difference has been 17% to 22% by municipality, as the table above shows.
The notaries’ statistics centre now updates monthly, including at municipality level, so a Marbella or Estepona figure can be refreshed from one authoritative source rather than reconstructed from older publications. A quoted figure with no period attached is now a choice, not a limitation.
If you want the underlying numbers for a specific municipality or sub-area before forming a view on a price, get in touch. If you are still narrowing down, start with the best areas to buy in Marbella; and the reason Marbella behaves differently from the national foreign-buyer trend is set out in foreign buyers in Spain 2026 and the Marbella exception.
Common questions
Are foreign buyers overcharged for property in Spain?
The notary data does not show that. It shows non-resident foreign buyers paid 3,242 €/m² and Spanish buyers 1,839 €/m² in the second half of 2025, but foreign buyers who live in Spain paid 1,963 €/m² — within 7% of Spanish buyers. If nationality carried a premium, resident foreigners would pay it too. The gap tracks where and what people buy.
What is the average price per square metre in Spain in 2026?
Two correct answers, depending on the period. The Consejo General del Notariado recorded 2,049 €/m² for May 2026, up 8.8% year-on-year, and 1,973 €/m² on a rolling 12-month basis to 1 August 2026. Neither describes the Costa del Sol, where Marbella transacted at 4,665 €/m² over the same rolling year.
Why do resident foreign buyers pay so much less than non-residents?
Because the split is by residence, not passport, and residence changes what someone buys. A foreigner living and working in Spain buys where they live, on the same terms as a Spanish household. A non-resident is usually buying a second home in a coastal or island location — the expensive part of the map. Same nationality, different product.
Should I budget from asking prices or transaction prices?
Budget from transaction prices and use asking prices to see what sellers are hoping for. Set against Idealista asking prices (April 2026 for Marbella, June 2026 for Estepona and Mijas), Notariado transacted prices for the 12 months to 1 August 2026 were 17% lower in Marbella, 21% lower in Estepona and 22% lower in Mijas. That is a municipal average, not a discount to assume on a given property.
Is the gap between non-resident and Spanish buyers widening?
I cannot answer that from the published data. The Notariado semi-annual report of 9 April 2026 gives the price by buyer category for the second half of 2025 but not a comparable series by category over time, so any statement about the trend in the gap would be inference rather than measurement. What the same report does show is that the foreign share of purchases fell, from 20.9% in 2023 to 19.5% in H2 2024 to 18.4% in H2 2025.
Sources
- Consejo General del Notariado, statistics centre (Centro de Información Estadística del Notariado) — semi-annual report on home purchases by foreigners, data for the second half of 2025, published 9 April 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Consejo General del Notariado, statistics centre — monthly housing indicators, May 2026 data, released 30 July 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Portal Estadístico del Notariado — municipality and provincial transaction prices, surface areas and buyer nationality; 12 months to May 2026 and rolling 12 months to 1 August 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Colegio de Registradores, Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria, Q4 2025 — foreign-buyer share by province. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Instituto Nacional de Estadística — housing transaction counts, Málaga January 2026 and Spain March 2026. Retrieved 1 August 2026.
- Idealista — municipal asking prices, April 2026 (Marbella) and June 2026 (Estepona, Mijas). Cited as data; no commercial link. Retrieved 1 August 2026.