{"id":689927,"date":"2026-01-12T00:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/689927\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T00:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:03:15","slug":"brits-abandoning-uk-for-european-country-citizenship-up-840-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/689927\/","title":{"rendered":"Brits abandoning UK for European country – \u2018citizenship up 840%\u2019 | World | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK-born expats are one of the fastest-growing populations in Spain<\/a>, with new figures showing a major spike in applications for citizenship. While the number of British nationals<\/a> fleeing the country has remained relatively stable in recent years, with departures totalling 252,000 in the year to June 2025 and 257,000 in 2024, a growing number appear to be choosing Spain as their new home.<\/p>\n

Figures from the country’s National Statistics Institute (INE) show a spike in the number of approved applications over the last decade of 842.86%. While small in absolute terms, marking a rise from seven people in 2014 to 66 in 2024, the trend reflects a wider global demand for residence in Spain, despite a number of hostile protests across the Iberian Peninsula<\/a> linked to overtourism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The overall number of foreigners granted citizenship in Spain rose to 9,366 in 2024, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin<\/a>, an increase of nearly 300% from 2017, when only 2,349 arrivals were allowed to settle.<\/p>\n

Julian Claramunt, political scientist and member of the analyst group Passes Perdudes, said the high proportion of UK expats could be linked to Brexit<\/a> as well as Spain’s in-demand jobs market, especially on the Balearic archipelago.<\/p>\n

“Our economic system demands far more labour than the islands themselves can supply,” he told the Daily Bulletin.<\/p>\n

“People come from abroad to fill these jobs and, after years of work, acquire citizenship.”<\/p>\n

Anti-tourism sentiment reached its peak across the country in summer 2025, with coordinated protests calling for foreigners to “go home” and blaming second homeowners for driving house prices up.<\/p>\n

While the number of Brits permanently settled in hotspots including Majorca appears to still be on the rise, tourist footfall shrunk last year, seemingly in response to the local backlash.<\/p>\n

July saw an overall 0.8% drop in visitor numbers to the biggest Balearic island, with the number of British tourists falling by 2.2%.<\/p>\n

Regional governments are also taking action to discourage non-locals from scooping up desirable properties and disadvantaging residents, with the centre-right El Pi party campaigning for limitations on home purchases by foreign individuals and companies.<\/p>\n

New data also revealed at the end of last year that the total number of Majorcan properties held by non-Spanish citizens had risen to 92,030, accounting for just over 16% of the island’s total housing stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK-born expats are one of the fastest-growing populations in Spain, with new figures showing a major spike in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[21080,34169,72816,2000,299,20291,2838,2863,2579,104,208394,208393],"class_list":{"0":"post-689927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-anti-tourism-protests","9":"tag-balearic-islands","10":"tag-brexit-impact","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-expats","14":"tag-majorca","15":"tag-overtourism","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-spain-citizenship","19":"tag-uk-expats"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115879202181273852","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}