Spain's foreign-born voters: one in 14 voters, and a vote more evenly split than many assume
7.2% of voters living in Spain were born abroad, and about 645,000 naturalized citizens have joined the rolls since the 2023 general election. In the 2026 surveys of Spain's public pollster, the CIS, naturalized citizens back the Socialists (PSOE) and the hard-right Vox somewhat more than people born in Spain, place themselves slightly further right and split between left and right almost evenly. But origin changes everything: three in four Venezuelan-born voters who state a preference lean toward the conservative People's Party (PP) or Vox.
21 October 2026 · Miguel · Leer en español
About 2.5 million of the voters who live in Spain were born outside the country: 7.2% of the electoral roll, one in 14. They include the children and grandchildren of Spanish emigrants who were born in Venezuela, Argentina, France or Germany and were Spanish from birth, and people who arrived as immigrants and acquired citizenship. Their number is growing fast: 299,732 people became Spanish citizens in 2025, the highest figure since at least 2013, and about 645,000 naturalized voters have joined the roll since the general election of July 2023.
How much do they weigh, where do they live and, above all, how do they vote? There are no election results by country of birth, so we estimated it from what does exist: the electoral roll, the national statistics office’s (INE) naturalization data and the microdata of the CIS’s ten monthly surveys of 2026, in which 1,838 respondents say they acquired Spanish citizenship.
Where they live
Source: altnalysis estimate based on the 2021 Census and the Electoral Census Office (INE). Municipal boundaries: es-atlas (IGN).
The map shows two Spains. The Mediterranean coast, the islands, Madrid and the area around Barcelona, where most naturalized citizens live; and the inland peninsula, especially Andalusia, Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha, where foreign-born voters are under 2% of the electorate. It also has exceptions unrelated to recent immigration: the municipalities with the highest shares are border towns, such as Les, in the Aran Valley, or La Jonquera, where many residents were born in France, and towns of emigration, such as Avión and Beariz, in Ourense, or El Pinar and Frontera, on El Hierro, where the children of those who left for the Americas come back.
| District | Voters born abroad | % of the roll | New naturalized voters since 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melilla | 9,389 | 17% | 2,015 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | 98,799 | 12.8% | 13,653 |
| Madrid | 564,827 | 11.7% | 140,595 |
| Balears (Illes) | 89,757 | 11.3% | 21,328 |
| Ceuta | 6,764 | 11.2% | 740 |
| Barcelona | 400,172 | 9.9% | 120,581 |
| Girona | 49,010 | 9.4% | 17,850 |
| Navarra | 45,306 | 9.2% | 10,498 |
| Palmas (Las) | 77,522 | 9.2% | 14,783 |
| Ourense | 23,028 | 9.1% | 2,236 |
| … | |||
| Ciudad Real | 10,003 | 2.6% | 2,977 |
| Cáceres | 8,175 | 2.5% | 1,725 |
| Córdoba | 11,812 | 1.9% | 2,564 |
| Badajoz | 9,529 | 1.8% | 2,018 |
| Jaén | 7,833 | 1.6% | 2,001 |
Resident voters born abroad in the 2023 general election, according to the Electoral Census Office. New naturalized voters: model estimate based on INE naturalization data since July 2023 (70% adults).
Melilla (17%) and Ceuta (11%), Spain’s North African cities, stand out mainly because of Spaniards born in Morocco; Santa Cruz de Tenerife (12.8%), Madrid (11.7%) and the Balearic Islands (11.3%), because of immigration and return from Latin America and of Europeans. In absolute numbers, Madrid and Barcelona account for almost four in 10 foreign-born voters (565,000 and 400,000).
How they vote
PSOE
PP
Vox
Frente Amplio
Podemos
Others
Among those who say which party they would vote for:
- The PSOE is the top choice of naturalized citizens (40%), five points more than among people born in Spain (35%).
- Vox also does better (22% against 17%). The PP is level (24%).
- Frente Amplio and Podemos do worse, and nationalist and regional parties much worse, because naturalized citizens mostly live where those parties do not run.
- The split between blocs is almost the same: the left wins 50% among naturalized citizens (between 46% and 55% with 95% confidence) and 52.5% among people born in Spain.
That nuances what has been published so far. The most thorough study, by Santiago Pérez-Nievas and Carles Pamies (Funcas, 2025), found with surveys from 2013 to 2023 that first-generation immigrants voted 59% left and 41% right, against 51/49 among natives. In the stated intention of the 2026 surveys that gap has almost disappeared.
Origin changes everything
- Venezuela: three in four who state a preference lean toward the PP or Vox, and only 23% toward the left (16–33%).
- Europe: also further right (39% left).
- Argentina (60%) and Colombia (55%) lean left more than average; Ecuador and the rest of Latin America, around half.
This matches what other analyses of CIS microdata had found, such as one by the daily ABC: Venezuelans and Cubans vote further right than natives, and Moroccans further left. We cannot say anything about the latter with our data: the CIS’s phone surveys reach very few of them.
They vote less and decide later
- Less sure to vote. 69% of naturalized citizens say they are certain to vote, against 74% of those born in Spain. Studies that measure reported turnout in the previous election put the gap at 15–20 points: Pérez-Nievas and Pamies found 67% against 83%.
- More undecided. A quarter (25%) do not yet know whom they will vote for, against 18%.
- Slightly further right on the ideological scale: 5.1 out of 10, against 4.6, with more people who do not place themselves (8% against 5%).
How much do they weigh in the result?
Using the vote destination in our model, the 645,000 new naturalized voters since 2023 contribute about 187,000 votes to the PSOE, 108,000 to the PP, 63,000 to Vox, 45,000 to Frente Amplio and 23,000 to Podemos; a third would abstain. In seats their effect is small: with the forecast’s average shares, without them the PSOE would lose one seat in Barcelona (to the Catalan separatist Junts) and another in Valladolid (to the PP), and the PP would lose one in Gipuzkoa (to the Basque left-wing EH Bildu).
A caveat about our own model: the forecast assumes these new voters split 59/41 between left and right, as the Funcas study found, and we are keeping that assumption. The 2026 surveys point to a more even split, but they measure stated intention, with a quarter undecided, and by phone they barely reach some groups, such as people born in Morocco. The Funcas study pools four waves of the Spanish General Social Survey, from 2013 to 2023. If the real split were the one in the 2026 surveys, the effect of new naturalized voters on seats would be even smaller.
And the second generation?
Children of immigrants born in Spain are overwhelmingly Spanish citizens (97%, according to Funcas) and they vote, but no electoral statistic identifies them: the roll records where each voter was born, not where their parents were born, and the CIS surveys do not ask. The only source is the Spanish General Social Survey, with about 300 cases, analyzed by Pérez-Nievas and Pamies:
- Turnout: 74% voted in the last general election, against 83% of natives and 67% of the first generation.
- Ideology: 4.4 out of 10, the same as natives, with the same share who do not place themselves.
- Vote by bloc: 48% left and 52% right, against 51/49 among natives.
The authors sum it up: the second generation looks more like natives than like their parents. With so few cases, these figures are indicative. Their weight will grow: according to Funcas, almost four in 10 children under five living in Spain are of foreign origin.
What this analysis does not say
- Born abroad is not the same as naturalized. The roll counts everyone born abroad, including the children of Spanish emigrants; the CIS does separate those who acquired citizenship.
- Samples by origin are small. Between 93 and 393 interviews per group, with margins of up to 15 points; that is why we show the intervals.
- This is stated intention, not a vote estimate. It is useful for comparing groups, not for knowing how much each party will win.
- No polling-station data. The vote is secret and polling stations are not organized by origin: the map describes where foreign-born voters live, not how they vote.
How we calculated it
- Vote, turnout and ideology. Microdata of the CIS’s ten monthly surveys of 2026 (studies 3540 to 3582), with each survey’s weights normalized. Naturalized: respondents who say they acquired citizenship after birth. 95% Wilson intervals with Kish’s effective sample size. Blocs: left (PSOE, Frente Amplio, Podemos, ERC, EH Bildu, BNG) and right (PP, Vox, Se Acabó La Fiesta, Junts, PNV, CC, UPN).
- Electoral roll. Resident voters born abroad by province in 2023 (Electoral Census Office, INE) and naturalizations by province from 2013 to 2025 (INE).
- Map. Share of Spanish citizens born abroad by census section (2021 Census), adjusted to each province’s electoral-roll figures and aggregated by municipality using each section’s electorate.
- Seats. D’Hondt allocation with the average shares of the October 21 forecast, with and without the estimated votes of new naturalized voters.
- Code.
articulo_nacionalizados.py, in the altnalysis repository.
External sources. S. Pérez-Nievas and C. Pamies (2025), “El comportamiento político de la población inmigrante en España: una comparación entre la primera y la segunda generación”, Panorama Social 41, Funcas. Funcas, “Casi 4 de cada 10 menores de 5 años en España es de origen extranjero”.