Almost a quarter of Alicante province is foreign, and the mix is shifting fast

Anyone living here has known it for years, but now it is on paper: Alicante is the most international province in Spain. Almost a quarter of residents hold a foreign passport, according to figures that circulated this week. More interesting than that single percentage is what sits underneath it, because the make-up of that group is changing quickly. The British are drifting away, South Americans are arriving, and last year the Dutch did something they had never done before.

The figures: 497,387 residents, 24.5 percent

On 1 January 2025, 497,387 people of foreign nationality were registered in Alicante province. Against a population of just over two million that comes to 24.5 percent, which puts Alicante top of the national table: no Spanish province has a higher share. Almería follows at 23.2 percent, Girona at 21.9 percent. In absolute numbers Alicante ranks third, behind only Madrid and Barcelona, which are far larger.

And it is moving fast: 36,867 foreign residents were added in a single year. For regional context, of all foreign nationals in the Valencia region, 47.1 percent live in Alicante province, against 41.6 percent in Valencia and 11.3 percent in Castellón. Demographically this coastal strip is an outlier within an outlier.

The British decline, the Colombians surge

The British remain the largest foreign community at 68,904 residents, 13.9 percent of all foreigners here. But that group has now shrunk for three years running, by nearly two thousand people over the past year. Brexit’s aftermath plays its part: residency has become considerably more complicated for Britons since.

Below that line the movement is far more visible. Colombia climbed to second place with 51,224 residents, up 8,227 in one year, overtaking Morocco (49,749). Then come Ukraine at 32,831, Romania at 24,034 and Algeria at 23,662. Those six nationalities together make up more than half of all foreigners in the province. The classic image of the Costa Blanca as chiefly a northern European retirement belt fits less and less.

Where everyone lives

The spread is far from even. In absolute terms Alicante city leads with 76,685 foreign residents, followed by Torrevieja at 49,699, Elche at 35,421, Orihuela at 30,946 and Benidorm at 26,862.

Look at percentages and the picture tilts towards smaller municipalities, where it becomes striking: in Rojales 68.1 percent of residents hold a foreign passport, in San Fulgencio 66.8 percent. Calp (54.1 percent), Finestrat (50.5 percent) and l’Alfàs del Pi (50.4 percent) also count more foreign than Spanish residents. These are not neighbourhoods, these are entire municipalities.

And the Dutch and Belgians?

Neither the Netherlands nor Belgium appears in the provincial top six; our communities are smaller than the British or Colombian ones. But something notable happened in the property market last year: the Dutch became Spain’s largest group of foreign buyers who do not live here. They bought 6,289 homes as non-residents, ahead of the Germans (6,233) and the British (6,152), a rise of 12.2 percent on the year before. All told the Dutch bought 8,354 homes, roughly three quarters of them as non-residents.

And those buyers come to our side of the coast strikingly often. The most searched municipalities were Jávea, Torrevieja and Dénia, followed by Orihuela, Moraira, Altea and Calp. In the Valencia region, 16.3 percent of all non-resident purchases in the second half of last year were Dutch. On average they paid 3,231 euros per square metre, above the national average but not among the highest payers.

That same foreign presence shows up in the hotel figures, although it is a different crowd there. On the Costa Blanca outside Benidorm, ten per cent of hotel guests are British and 2.6 per cent Dutch; in Benidorm almost a third are British. What that does to the length of the season is in our piece on September as the new high season.

What it means for work and the economy

The labour figures show this stopped being only about pensioners long ago. Social security lists 135,550 foreign workers, 17.8 percent of everyone registered in the province, up by 10,457 in a single year. A decade ago there were 74,354, or 12.5 percent: the group has almost doubled.

In some sectors the work runs largely on foreign hands. In agriculture 54.7 percent of workers are foreign, in domestic services 35.3 percent. Enterprise is growing along with it: 37,601 self-employed people hold a foreign passport, a quarter of all self-employed in the province. Two thirds of those working come from outside the EU and a third from an EU country. That, in short, is why this province keeps growing while much of inland Spain empties out.

Read also: if you live here as a foreign resident, our report on the case near Benidorm also explains how the national 016 line works, free and in 52 languages.

About the authorLeonie

Leonie lives on the Costa Blanca. She writes about daily life on the coast: the markets, the walks and everything you only discover once you actually live here.