It’s common to hear about bicycle thefts and even sometimes motorbike thefts, but car robberies are a big issue in Spain too. Find out if you live in an area where this happens the most.
According to data from the Interior Ministry’s Crime Report, 15,596 thefts were recorded in Spain in the first six months of 2025.
Stolen vehicle recovery firm LoJack, who have analysed all the data, have revealed that provinces of Madrid and Barcelona are the main hotspots for vehicle theft, accounting for 40 percent of all thefts in the entire country.
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There were a total of 3,328 cars stolen in Madrid and 3,335 in Barcelona during the first half of 2025.
This means those living in these areas are more likely to have their cars stolen than those in other cities and provinces in Spain. It’s unsurprising, however, given the fact that Spain’s two biggest cities have higher crime rates in general with more home robberies and other thefts too.
In third place was Seville with 998 vehicle thefts in the first half of 2025, followed by Málaga with 917 and then Valencia with 843.
In sixth place is Alicante with 685 stolen vehicles, then the Balearic Islands with 650, followed by Cádiz with 422. Completing the top ten spots were Murcia with 409 robberies and Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 402.
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The good news, however, is that in general across the country, car thefts have dropped by four percent compared to the first half of 2024.
For example, car robberies fell by 7.3 percent in Madrid compared to last year.
In some areas though they have in fact increased and have become more of an issue in places that didn’t have this problem before.
The province of Álava in the Basque Country registered the largest percentage increase, with a 96 percent rise in thefts, from 25 to 49 stolen vehicles.
Significant increases were also seen in Cáceres in Extremadura, up 44.4 percent; Burgos in Castilla y León, up 40 percent; and La Rioja, up 36.4 percent.
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There have also been very significant increases in cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, such as Dos Hermanas in Seville, which goes from 23 to 83 vehicles (+260.9 percent); Algemesí in Valencia, from 3 to 31 (+933.3 percent); and in Talavera de la Reina in Toledo, from 8 to 35 (+337.5 percent).
José Ignacio Rubio, CEO of LoJack Iberia, says that the total number of thefts in Spain is “very alarming”.
“We’re talking about more than 15,000 units stolen from their rightful owners, a trend that could lead us to exceed 30,000 again by the end of the year,” he stated.
Spain is one of the European countries with the highest rates of car theft, with breaking windows or forcing locks being the most common methods used.
There is no EU study focused just on vehicle theft, but automotive news sites such as Motor1 place Spain in fourth position on the continent, albeit considerably behind Italy, France and the UK.
In 2024, 33,061 vehicles were stolen, according to data from Spain’s Ministry of the Interior. That’s an average of 90 cars a day.
