The Golden Visa Is Gone.
Why International Buyers
Are Still Here.

On 3 April 2025, Spain's property-based golden visa officially ended. Under Organic Law 1/2025 (BOE-A-2025-76), non-EU nationals could no longer acquire residency by purchasing Spanish property above €500,000. Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez framed the decision as a matter of social equity - addressing "price tensions and a lack of residential supply" in specific urban areas.

For observers of the Costa del Sol market, the question was immediate: would this trigger a retreat of the international buyers who have underpinned the market's extraordinary decade of growth?

Twelve months later, the answer is a clear and data-backed no.

The Numbers That Did Not Collapse

In 2025, foreigners purchased 97,500 homes across Spain - a 13.82 per cent share of all transactions, the highest on record. In the first half of 2025 alone, international buyers completed 71,155 purchases - 19.3 per cent of all sales, and the first time since late 2022 that the six-month figure exceeded 70,000.

In Málaga province, where the Costa del Sol sits, foreign buyers accounted for 42.5 per cent of all 35,780 residential transactions in 2025 - exactly 15,242 sales. That figure is more than double both the regional and national foreign market share averages. In Marbella specifically, foreign buyers represented approximately 62 per cent of 4,322 total sales. In Estepona, 70.8 per cent. In Benahavís - where the property market is essentially an international luxury market that happens to be governed by a Spanish municipality - the foreign buyer share reached an extraordinary 84.3 per cent.

Why the Golden Visa Was Always a Side Story

The data, once examined, reveals that the golden visa was never the structural driver of Costa del Sol demand. Between 2013 and 2025, approximately 16,000 total golden visas were issued across all of Spain. Of these, 14,576 were property-linked over the 2013–2023 period - peaking at 3,270 in 2023. Foreign property purchases above the €500,000 threshold represented just 9.71 per cent of all foreign buys in 2023, or roughly 8,500 units nationally. In Marbella, golden-visa-linked purchases accounted for an estimated 7.1 per cent of transactions.

The remaining 92.9 per cent were buying for other reasons entirely: lifestyle, climate, cultural quality, education access, safety, long-term capital preservation and - increasingly - the recognition that Marbella offers a standard of living that simply cannot be replicated at comparable price points anywhere on the Mediterranean.

Who Is Buying Now

The buyer profile in 2025–2026 is both broader and wealthier than at any previous point in the market's recorded history. American buyers, Italian buyers, Moroccan buyers, Dutch buyers and Portuguese buyers all reached record transaction levels in 2025. British buyers - long the dominant foreign force on the Costa del Sol - remain the single largest national group, absorbing post-Brexit complexity with characteristic pragmatism.

The American Arrival

Perhaps the most significant structural shift is the emergence of American buyers as a meaningful market force. Historically a rare presence in European residential markets outside Paris and Tuscany, US buyers discovered Marbella during the post-pandemic period and have not left. The combination of dollar strength relative to the euro, Marbella's improving international school infrastructure, and the lifestyle proposition has created a genuinely new demand cohort that operates entirely independently of any visa framework.

Middle Eastern Capital

Gulf-region buyers - predominantly from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar - have increasingly identified Marbella as a European lifestyle complement to their primary residences. The Puente Romano, the Marbella Club and the Golden Mile's ultra-prime villas have long accommodated this clientele, but the profile is expanding, with younger, family-oriented buyers now looking beyond the Golden Mile toward Benahavís and the east coast corridor.

Tourism as a Leading Indicator

The Costa del Sol welcomed 14.65 million visitors in 2025, generating €21.8 billion in tourism revenue - both all-time records. Málaga–Costa del Sol airport processed 26.8 million passengers, up 7.4 per cent year-on-year. Marbella's hotel average daily rate hit €395 in August 2025, the highest of any Spanish destination. Hotel investment in Málaga province reached €309 million.

Luxury tourism is the canary in the coal mine of luxury residential demand. The two consistently move together, with a lag of roughly eighteen to thirty-six months as visitors-turned-buyers progress from discovery through contemplation to transaction. By that metric, the record tourism figures of 2025 suggest that residential transaction volumes are set to remain elevated through at least 2027.