Last year there were Spain 1.7 million intermunicipal migrations, that is, neighbors who moved from one municipality to another, according to the Statistics of Migrations and Changes of Residence (EMCR) corresponding to last year and published this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
This is a number similar to 2022 (0.3% less). Of all these migrations, 685,695 changed provinces, and 533,398 changed their autonomous community or city.
If only people who resided in Spain throughout 2023 are taken into account, the majority of changes of residence (96.8%) are within the same municipality. While, 1.9% moved to another municipality within the same province0.3% changed provinces within the same community and 0.9% changed autonomous communities.
On this map you can see the changes of residence between Spanish municipalities.
The map reflects internal migration balances, those referring to changes of residence between Spanish municipalities. So much Madrid as Barcelona and Valencia they had negative balances: that is, there were more neighbors who moved to other Spanish municipalities than those who arrived.
Meanwhile, Two Sisters (Seville), Getafe (Madrid) and Sabadell (Barcelona) were the cities that presented higher internal balancesthat is, those that grow the most at the expense of neighbors who move to them from other Spanish towns and cities: 1,067, 968 and 955, respectively.
Growing municipalities
Other municipalities that They grow due to the arrival of new neighbors from other Spanish municipalities are Villalbilla (Madrid), Zaragoza, Valladolid, Valdemoro (Madrid), Colmenar Viejo (Madrid), Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona), Oviedo (Asturias), Tres Cantos (Madrid), Arrecife (Las Palmas), Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz) and León.
On the opposite side there would be municipalities such as Madrid (Madrid), Barcelona, Valencia, Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), Seville, Málaga, Alicante, Alcobendas (Madrid), Parla (Madrid) Palma (Balearic Islands), Fuenlabrada (Madrid), Lorca (Murcia), Vigo (Pontevedra), Marbella (Málaga), Ejido, El (Almería), Badalona (Barcelona), Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Barcelona), Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona), Granada or Donostia/San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa).
This does not mean that these cities are not growing, in many of these cases, as is the case in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante or Palma. The migration balance is positive and, therefore, they are growing, but they do it thanks to neighbors who come from abroad and not from other Spanish municipalities.
In fact, if we consider the main cities, all of them had positive migration balances in 2023, except El Ejido, Lorca, Cádiz and San Fernando. Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia reached the highest migration balances, thanks to net inflows from abroad.
Community of Madrid, the one that grows the most
By autonomous community, all of them presented a positive migratory balance abroad in 2023. The largest occurred in Community of Madrid (150,469), Catalonia (126,804) and Valencian Community (102.302). On the contrary, the communities with the lowest migratory balance abroad were Rioja (2,780), Cantabria (5.009) and Estremadura (5,735).
Regarding the migratory balances between communities, the most positive occurred andn Valencian Community (10,827)Principality of Asturias (2,814) and Castilla-La Mancha (2,689). For their part, Community of Madrid (-16,390), Catalonia (-5,171) and Andalusia (-2,570) presented the most negative internal balances.