Foreign buyers in Málaga bought 3,474 homes between April and June 2026, 20.79% more than in the same quarter last year, and they now account for 37.01% of every home registered in the province. The Colegio de Registradores put the national foreign share at 15.98% for the same quarter, the highest it has ever recorded, so Málaga is running at more than twice a national figure that is itself a record.
The figures for foreign buyers in Málaga come from completed purchases entered at the Land Registry, not from reservations or asking prices, which is why we weight them above anything a portal publishes. The provincial totals sit in our Málaga property market Q2 2026 report. The Registradores also publish who is buying, and that breakdown says more about Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís than the headline share does.
Foreign buyers in Málaga at 37.01% of the market
The share taken by foreign buyers in Málaga rose 2.71 percentage points in three months and 3.72 points in a year. Only Alicante, at 46.43%, sits higher among Spain’s provinces, and the nearest comparisons after that are whole island regions, with the Balearics at 32.27% and the Canaries at 29.33%. Andalucía as a region records 15.95%, fractionally below the national average, which shows how completely the coast west of Málaga city carries the region’s international demand.
Growth of 20.79% came in a quarter when total sales in Spain fell. A rising share can come from domestic buyers dropping away while foreign numbers stand still, and Málaga did not do that. Foreign buyers in Málaga bought more homes in absolute terms than a year earlier, while the national market shrank around them.
The province also averaged €3,347 per square metre in the quarter against €2,090 for Andalucía as a whole. Foreign buyers in Málaga pay for the coast, the airport and three hundred days of sun, and the gap between those two figures is roughly what that combination is worth to them.
The Spanish market the Registradores measured
Spain as a whole had a softer quarter. The Registradores recorded 167,934 home sales between April and June, down 5.7% on the first quarter and 2.3% on a year earlier, the second quarterly fall in a row. New build sales dropped 11.5% in three months to 34,919, and resales fell 4% to 133,015.
Prices went the other way. The repeated sales index, which compares the same homes selling twice and so strips out changes in the mix, rose 3.14% in the quarter and 16.7% in the year, leaving it 39.31% above the quarterly peak of 2007. The average price reached a record €2,487 per square metre, with resale at €2,448 and new build at €2,636.
Fewer sales at higher prices is what a market looks like when domestic buyers reach the limit of what the banks will lend them and supply stays tight. Spanish buyers financing a first home feel every change in mortgage rates and deposit rules directly. Most of the international buyers we work with buy from equity or savings rather than a Spanish mortgage, and that is why foreign buyers in Málaga kept growing through a quarter that slowed the rest of the country.
Eight nationalities and no single dominant one
British buyers led the national table at 6.99% of foreign purchases, a whisker ahead of the Dutch at 6.94% and the Germans at 6.11%. Moroccan, Romanian, Italian, French and Polish buyers follow, each between 4% and 7%. Buyers from inside the European Union made up 57.39% of the total, and a further 16.75% came from the rest of Europe, the United Kingdom among them.
When one nationality carries a resort market, a weak currency or a new tax at home is enough to empty the viewing diary for a season, and other Mediterranean resorts have learned that the hard way. Eight nationalities each holding between four and seven per cent is a far steadier base. No single shock in one country can take out more than a small slice of the demand from foreign buyers in Málaga, and that is the simplest argument for its resilience.
Brexit is the proof. British buyers lost free movement and the right to stay beyond ninety days in any hundred and eighty, and they still lead the national table. Those who want to live here rather than visit now plan residency from the start, which is why residency is part of the first conversation we have with a British buyer and why we wrote a guide to Spanish visas for exactly that client.
The British buyer on the Costa del Sol
The national table understates how British the demand from foreign buyers in Málaga still is. Reservation figures published in September by one of the larger new build developers on the Costa del Sol showed British buyers taking 21% of its reservations for 2025 and 2026, the largest group among 29 nationalities, at an average price of €560,000. That scheme sits on a golf resort in Mijas, so it is one pipeline rather than a census, but three times the national British share is not a rounding error.
The buyer profile it described will be familiar to anyone who sells here. Married couples between 55 and 60 made up most of the demand, and what they asked for was golf, a quiet setting, wellness facilities and flexible space that works as a home office or a guest room. Those are people choosing where to spend the next twenty years, with the children visiting and the working week shrinking, rather than investors chasing a yield.
We meet the same couple regularly, often with a house in the United Kingdom still to sell and a clearer idea of the life they want than of the town they want it in. Most of them already know the coast from years of holidays, so the conversation is about which town rather than whether Spain. Our job is to turn that into two or three towns and a shortlist. The Marbella buyers guide sets out how the purchase itself runs once they choose, from the reservation to the notary.
JUST Real Estate has tracked sold data across Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís over many years and has compiled the JUST Intelligence Database™, which holds data no other agency has. We can set any home against the sales around it and the buyers actually active in that street, so our market analysis gives you a clear advantage whichever side of the deal you are on.
Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís inside the provincial figure
The 37.01% share for foreign buyers in Málaga averages the whole province, including inland towns where a foreign buyer is a rare event. The coastal municipalities west of the city carry most of that demand, with Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís at its centre. Municipal counts run about two quarters behind the provincial release, so the 2026 town figures are not yet published, and we will add them to our reports the quarter they appear.
Marbella spans every profile among foreign buyers in Málaga. Puerto Banús and the Golden Mile draw the international prime buyer who could buy anywhere in Europe, while Nueva Andalucía and San Pedro sell to the same relocating couples who fill the new build reservation lists. It is also the one town on this coast that almost every buyer has heard of before they land. No single nationality or budget sets the price in Marbella, and the Marbella market report tracks the result quarter by quarter.
Benahavís is the purest version of the golf and wellness buyer. The municipality is mostly gated communities, golf valleys and hillside villas above a white village of a few streets, and our August Benahavís price index sets out what that profile costs today. A couple in their late fifties who want a course, a spa and a quiet road home are describing Benahavís almost exactly, and the Benahavís market report records what buyers like them actually paid.
Estepona sells at a lower entry price than Marbella and reaches a broad spread of nationalities, including the Dutch and German buyers who sit just behind the British nationally. Its coastal new build pipeline and the restored old town give those buyers a modern apartment in a town with a year round life. For foreign buyers in Málaga working to a budget, Estepona is very often the first town on the list. The Estepona market report follows how quickly its new stock is absorbed.
Prices while foreign buyers in Málaga keep growing
The national 16.7% annual rise covers all of Spain, and Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís each move on their own curve. What the Registradores data establishes is the direction. National prices are at a record, national volumes are falling, and foreign buyers in Málaga are taking a growing share of a smaller pool of sales.
On this coast that points to firm prices even if the number of sales softens. Foreign buyers in Málaga do most of the buying here and are the least exposed to Spanish mortgage conditions, and resale stock in the best addresses is already the constraint every buyer meets first. Put plainly, the people who set prices on the Costa del Sol are arriving in greater numbers, and fewer of them depend on a Spanish bank than the national figures would suggest.
For an owner, the useful number is the one for their own home rather than the national headline. Our valuation calculator gives a first figure in minutes, and we will set it against the closed sales we hold for the street, which tells you far more than any asking price on a portal. Owners in Benahavís and Estepona get the same exercise against their own municipal figures.
How foreign buyers in Málaga differ from the 2007 cycle
Spain has had strong foreign demand before, most memorably in the years before 2008. That boom ran on easy credit and speculation, much of it in new build blocks bought to sell on before completion, and a good deal of that stock sat empty for years once the credit stopped. The national repeated sales index took many years to climb back to its 2007 peak, and it now sits 39.31% above it.
Today’s foreign buyers in Málaga behave differently. Spanish lending standards are far tighter than they were, the reservation data describes couples buying to live in rather than to sell on, and the share is up on both the previous quarter and the previous year. A market where buyers choose a town for its golf, its schools or its flights home holds its footing through a domestic slowdown far better than one built on buyers waiting for the next price rise. Every one of those reasons outlasts a bad quarter.
Off plan is still a large part of what international buyers purchase here, and it is a much better product than it was. Bank guarantees on deposits, staged payments and licensed projects are the norm on the schemes we sell, and our off plan guide sets out how each of them protects a buyer.
We read the Registradores release every quarter and the municipal counts as they follow, and we put the two together for every buyer and seller we advise. Tell us what you are looking for and we will show you where the demand from foreign buyers in Málaga is actually landing on this coast.
Questions about foreign buyers in Málaga
How many homes did foreign buyers purchase in Málaga in 2026?
Foreign buyers in Málaga bought 3,474 homes in the second quarter of 2026, 20.79% more than a year earlier, according to the Colegio de Registradores. That is 37.01% of every home registered in the province, the second highest share in Spain after Alicante.
What percentage of home buyers in Spain are foreign?
Foreign buyers made up 15.98% of Spanish home purchases in the second quarter of 2026, the highest share the Land Registry has recorded, with a little over 26,800 purchases. Málaga province runs at more than twice that level.
Which nationality buys the most property in Spain?
British buyers led in the second quarter of 2026 with 6.99% of foreign purchases, just ahead of Dutch buyers at 6.94% and German buyers at 6.11%. On the Costa del Sol the British share runs higher, and one developer’s 2025 and 2026 reservations put it at 21%.
Where do foreign buyers buy on the Costa del Sol?
Most foreign buyers in Málaga buy on the coast west of the city, with Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís at its centre. Ask us and we will show you which towns and streets fit your budget and the life you want there.
Are property prices on the Costa del Sol still rising in 2026?
National prices rose 16.7% in the year to the second quarter of 2026 and reached a record €2,487 per square metre. Each coastal town moves on its own curve, and our quarterly reports for Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís track them with achieved prices.
The Costa del Sol property market continues to evolve, but informed decisions begin with reliable data. Download the JUST Q1 2026 Marbella Property Market Report today and gain exclusive insight into one of Europe’s most resilient and internationally driven residential markets.
DOWNLOAD OUR Q1 2026 MARKET REPORT NOW
Research enquiries:
James Evans — Managing Partner
📞 +34 643 390 376 | ✉️ james@justrealestate.es
Sales enquiries:
Alina Nouaimeh — Partner
📞 +34 600 689 749 | ✉️ alina@justrealestate.es
FAQ
Is the JUST Market Report free to download?
Yes. The report is available as a complimentary download and provides professional analysis of the Marbella, Estepona and Benahávis property markets.
Who is the report designed for?
The report is written for buyers, sellers, investors, developers, relocation clients, family offices and anyone seeking accurate, data-led insight into the Costa del Sol property market.
Where does the data come from?
Our analysis uses official information from Registradores de España, INE, Notariado, Tinsa, Banco de España and other recognised industry sources, combined with our own market observations and research.
How often is the report updated?
JUST Real Estate publishes a comprehensive market report every quarter, ensuring readers have access to the latest available market intelligence.
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