La Seguridad Social supera los 3.210.000 afiliados extranjeros descontando el efecto del calendario y suma más de 235.000 en el último año

March has set a new record for foreign affiliates both in seasonally adjusted terms and in average affiliation. Specifically, discounting the effect of the calendar, Social Security already has 3,210,759 foreign affiliates, after adding 234,685 in the last 12 months. In terms of average affiliation, the registry marks 3,151,563 employed, 230,358 more than in the same month of 2025.

“The affiliation of foreigners continues to show extraordinary behavior that affects the whole, not in vain workers from other countries represent a significant 14.4% of the contributors. Their contribution to our labor market is key. It supports sectors such as the Hospitality Industry, where one in three workers is from another country, and promotes entrepreneurship, since the number of foreign self-employed already exceeds half a million,” explains Minister Elma Saiz.

Overall, the number of foreign affiliates has added more than 852,000 employed since March 2022. In fact, 42.9% of the employment created since the implementation of the labor reform corresponds to foreign workers.

The year-on-year variation of this group is 7.9% when the effect of the calendar is discounted, well above 2.5% of the general affiliation.

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The Social Security has registered 3,151,563 participants on average in March, which means 74,722 more occupied than the previous month. The presence of working women from other countries is increasing overall and represents 43% of the total number of foreign workers. About 30% of foreign affiliates come from European Union countries. Morocco continues to be the country with the most Social Security affiliates, with 387,584 contributors, followed by Romania (343,003), Colombia (264,236), Venezuela (218,337), Italy (208,174), China (126,998), Peru (105,223) and Ukraine (80,256). In Hospitality, they represent 29.1% of the members; in Agriculture, 26.9%; in Construction, they represent 24.3%; in Transport, 17.6%; and in Administrative Activities, 17.5%. In addition, in the Special Household System, they account for 42.3% and in the Agrarian System, 39.4%.

In addition, it is necessary to highlight the high percentage of foreign workers with indefinite contracts, 88.6% of the total, which is even higher than that of domestic workers (88.4%). If we compare it with the average percentage of the period 2017-2021, prior to the labor reform (58.9%) the data is even more striking.

In parallel, the rate of temporality of this group of workers falls to historical lows, as the percentage of foreign affiliates with temporary contract falls to 11.4%, also below that of nationals (11.6%). This percentage contrasts with the average for the period 2017-2021, which reached 41.1% of the total.

Entrepreneurship in highly qualified sectors

There are already more than half a million self-employed workers with non-Spanish nationality, specifically 506,067. Its growth in the last 12 months is especially significant, since it stands at 6.3%, when the number of members of the Autonomous System rises by 1.2%.
It should be noted the growing presence of foreign workers who undertake in highly qualified sectors such as Telecommunications and Computer Programming, where they already represent 31.7% of the employed registered in this section of activity, that is, they are already one of every three entrepreneurs.