Spain’s housing market keeps growing at a pace it has never seen before. Average home prices are up 26% compared with 2007, while the number of transactions has risen 19.9% year over year. It is a steady climb that is pushing Spanish home values close to the levels of the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland.

Barcelona stands out even within that already buoyant picture. According to the Colegio de Registradores — the professional body that manages Spain’s property, commercial and movable-asset registries — average home prices in the Catalan capital reached €4,538 per square meter in the first quarter of 2026, the third-highest figure in the country, and €4,719 per square meter in the most recent quarter on record.

One of the main reasons behind this seemingly unstoppable growth is capital coming from abroad.

The neighborhoods foreign buyers want

Foreign demand for homes in Barcelona is not spread evenly across the city. The most sought-after districts are Eixample, Diagonal Mar, Ciutat Vella and the upper city at the foot of the Collserola hills.

Each one attracts a different buyer profile: Eixample appeals to those looking for period properties, while Diagonal Mar is the preferred area for buyers who want a high-end home a short walk from the sea.

Tighter rules have not stopped the buying

Barcelona’s real estate boom is all the more striking when you consider the restrictive measures the central government has taken to try to give domestic demand more room.

In April 2025, Organic Law 1/2025 definitively abolished Spain’s golden visa scheme, which for twelve years had allowed non-EU citizens to «acquire» Spanish residency by buying a property worth more than €500,000 (roughly $540,000).

In May of this year the government brought a new housing bill before Parliament proposing a levy of up to 100% of a property’s value on non-resident buyers from outside the European Union. The justification cited for the proposal was the 27,000 properties bought by non-European citizens in 2023.

Were it to take effect, it would be decidedly bad news for British citizens, who are the largest group of foreign buyers of Spanish property. The measure has not been approved: it has stalled in Congress, where the government has struggled to line up the votes, and constitutional and EU-law specialists have questioned whether it could survive judicial review in its current form.

Despite these two extremely severe measures, foreign buyers in Catalonia have not been scared off. Transactions rose 15.6% in the first quarter of 2026, and 15.1% in the most recent quarter on record.

The second measure, still unapproved, may in fact have had the opposite effect: pushing hesitant buyers to close a deal before the rule enters into force.

The most interesting takeaway from the sales trend, though, is a different one. Demand for homes in Barcelona is barely influenced by political decisions at all. With regulatory risk that is both real and pressing, foreign buyers have gone right on buying and driving prices through the roof.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Andrea Fabbri on August 22, 2026 as «Il mercato immobiliare sta rendendo ricchissima Barcellona. Buona parte degli investimenti arriva dall’estero». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.