Spain was the number one destination in the EU for Americans who moved to Europe in 2024, new data shows, with more first-time residency permits granted by Spain to US nationals than any other year.
New Eurostat data has shed light on just how popular Europe, and in particular Spain, is becoming with Americans moving overseas.
Just over 80,000 US citizens were issued a first residence permit in EU countries in 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
The largest number was granted in Spain (15,638), followed by France (13,062), the Netherlands (6,732), Germany (8,507) and Denmark (5,183).
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This is the highest number of Americans becoming residents in Spain in one year. In 2023, 12,809 Americans got their first Spanish residency permit, in 2022 it was 11,060, in 2021 it was 10,572, in 2020 it was 6,145 and in 2019 it was 9,603.
That means that, with the exception of 2020 and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on applications, the number of US nationals applying for residency in Spain has been increasing year on year.
The biggest rise was in 2024, when there were 2,829 more residency permits granted to estadounidenses (US nationals in Spanish) than the previous year.
Eurostat data shows that the number of Americans who got Spanish residency in 2024 was more than double that of nine years ago in 2015 (7,383 first-time permits).
According to data from Spain’s Immigration Observatory, as of June 30th 2025, there were 48,713 US nationals residing in Spain.
Of these, there were 31,321 Americans with residency authorisations, documents granting them residency in Spain as non-EU nationals, often obtained through visas such as the non-lucrative visa or the digital nomad visa.
There were also 16,637 US nationals with the green residency certificate, granted to residents with EU citizenship (in this case American dual nationals).
And last but not least, there were 755 Americans with a Withdrawal Agreement Brexit TIE residency card, which in most cases will be US nationals who are the family of Brits who were residing in Spain before the UK left the EU.
READ ALSO: Why life in Spain is better than in the US, according to Americans
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Another official public body, Spain’s National Statistics body, has a slightly higher number of Americans residing in Spain in 2024 – 50,623 residents.
However, they use different data to count the number of foreigners (padrón or town hall registrations rather than immigration data) and they haven’t updated their stats for 2025.
What both official institutions agree on is that the number of Americans moving to Spain is on the up.
READ ALSO: Trump, safety and quality of life – Why so many Americans are moving to Spain
Earlier this year, we reported on INE stats that showed that the number of Americans living in Spain soared by 10,000 from 2022 to 2024, an increase of 25 percent in just two years.
In February, a report by Spain’s College of Registrars showed that the rate of Spanish properties bought by Americans (together with Mexicans) has increased by a staggering 255 percent since 2019.
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election may well have spurred more Americans to start a new life in Spain, although his return to the White House was only confirmed in November 2024, and much of the above data applies to earlier periods.
What is likely to have influenced the faster rate in American nationals moving to Spain is the introduction of the Spanish Digital Nomad Visa, which has made it easier for non-EU professionals of a working age to apply for a residency permit to live in Spain and work from here.
READ ALSO: How Americans can move to Spain
