The number of Romanians in Spain has decreased by over 30% in recent years, and the Spanish press notes that the phenomenon is beginning to be seen in the economy, especially in the labor market.
More and more Romanian workers are leaving Spain. PHOTO. ABC
The press in Spain is talking more and more often about the fact that, in recent years, the Romanian community is in accelerated decline, and this is no longer just about statistics, it is starting to be visible on the labor market.
El País writes, based on the data of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), that the number of Romanian citizens living and working in Spain decreased between 2012 and 2025 by approximately 32%, at a much faster pace recently, reaching from approximately 897,000 Romanians in 2012, to approximately 600,000 in 2025.
“The Romanian community in Spain is about to be exhausted”, headline the Spanish journalists, pointing out that among the factors that contributed to this reverse exodus, the most important were the housing crisis and the high cost of rentthe long-term effects of the pandemic and the economic crisis, the increase in wages and living standards in Romania, plus the return of families who want to be closer to their relatives and children.
The Spaniards express their concern all the more since recent data show that this trend continues, pointing out that between the beginning of 2025 and the month of April, almost 30,000 Romanians left Spain.
However, Romanians still remain the second largest community of foreigners in the country, according to the same source.
Some of the Romanians return to Romania, while others choose to go further, to Germany, the Nordic countries or other labor markets in Europe, considered more stable or better paid.
Data from Romania confirm this reverse exodus phenomenon, as those in the field call it. In 2024, more than 47,000 people returned from Spain, and in the previous year there were more than 51,000. We’re not just talking about departures, but about a constant rotation between countries, where Spain is no longer the fixed destination it used to be.
In this context, another theme appears in the Spanish press: the effect on the economy, because Spain has benefited for years from the labor force coming from Romania, both in agriculture, construction and services. Some of these fields still depend on foreign workers, and the gradual reduction in their number raises concerns in some areas of the labor market.
Economists and sociologists quoted by the Spanish press say that there is no single reason for the departure of Romanians.
“The economic decline in Spain due to the pandemic has accentuated a trend of reimmigration among some Romanians”, explains the sociologist Dumitru Sandu, who adds that the increase in income from Romania also played a role in the decision of many to return.
Furthermore, housing problems in Spain’s big cities and rising living costs have made the difference between “staying” and “leaving” less clear-cut than before.
A report from April 2026 emphasizes the personal experiences of those who returned to Romania. Many say they came to Spain for the incomparably higher wages, but now the economic gap has narrowed enough to make returning attractive.
