A growing number of young Spaniards are swapping the city for the village when it comes to finding a home. According to a Fotocasa Research study carried out in the first half of 2026, 13 percent of people looking for housing in Spain plan to move in the coming months to a municipality with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
The driver behind the shift is purely economic. Purchase prices have risen 14.7 percent year on year over the past twelve months and rents 10.9 percent, while wages for people under 35 have barely grown in real terms. The average rent for a full flat in Spain hit a record 1,176 euros a month in 2025, a figure that eats up nearly 99 percent of the average young person's monthly salary of 1,190 euros.
Those choosing to leave the city are on average 35 years old, earn between 1,000 and 3,000 euros a month, and in many cases still live with their parents at the point of making the move. Most come from Catalonia, which accounts for 22 percent of these new rural residents, followed by Andalusia at 19 percent and Madrid at 18 percent. Notably, most are not coming from the big capitals but from medium sized cities.
The appeal of depopulated villages lies in the fact that buying a home there has not yet become an unattainable luxury, unlike in much of Spain's major cities. On top of that, part of this generation has grown tired of the overcrowding, noise and pollution of big cities, which many now feel are increasingly saturated.
The trend is starting to reshape a Spain that for decades watched its villages empty out in the opposite direction, toward the capitals. Now, for the first time in a long while, it is the big cities that are beginning to lose young people to small municipalities offering something the cities can no longer guarantee: a home at a reasonable price.