Squatters in Spain: how real is the risk, and what can you do about it?

01The risk in numbers

Spain's Ministry of the Interior publishes the figures in its Crime Statistics Portal. In 2025, 14,875 cases of breaking into an occupied home and unlawful occupation of property were recorded across Spain. That is 9.4% fewer than the 16,426 cases in 2024.

Set against a national housing stock of more than 26 million homes, that works out at roughly one case per 1,800 homes per year. For comparison: around 8% of Spanish homes sit inside a flood risk zone. Squatting is considerably rarer than the feeling around it suggests.

Two caveats keep this honest. First, these figures count reported cases only. Situations resolved outside the courts do not appear. Second, and more importantly: tenants who stop paying and stay put are not included here. That is legally not squatting but non-payment, and in practice it is the far bigger problem. More on that in the next section.

One further figure is reassuring. Data from the Spanish public prosecutor showed that only a fraction of these cases involved breaking into a home that was genuinely in use as someone's dwelling. The overwhelming majority concerned empty properties, often bank-owned or long-vacant blocks. The scenario everyone fears, your furnished holiday home being taken over, is statistically the exception within the exception.

02Squatter, intruder or tenant: three situations that get confused

Almost all the confusion around this subject comes from the fact that okupa covers three entirely different situations in Spain, each with its own legal route. The Ministry points this out itself: okupa does not exist as a legal category.

Allanamiento de morada, article 202 of the Criminal Code. Someone enters a property that qualifies as a morada, meaning a dwelling genuinely in use as a home. This is the most serious version and at the same time the one where your position is strongest. If the police find the occupants in the act and they can show no right to be there, eviction can follow without a court order.

For non-resident owners, this is the single most important detail in this article. A second home that is furnished and used regularly can also qualify as a morada under Spanish case law. You do not need to live there permanently. Whether it applies in a specific case depends on the circumstances, but whether or not your property counts as a morada determines whether you get it back in days or in months.

Usurpación, article 245 of the Criminal Code. Taking possession of an empty property without violence. This is the most common form and legally the most awkward. Here the police generally cannot evict on their own initiative; a court decision is needed.

The inquiokupa. Someone who entered under a valid tenancy agreement and then stopped paying or refused to leave. Legally this is not squatting, because access was lawful. You are in a civil eviction procedure with its own, considerably longer timescales. Anyone who lets their property carries this risk; anyone who does not, does not.

What the 2025 law did and did not change

On 3 April 2025, Ley Orgánica 1/2025 came into force, generally referred to in the press as the anti-squatting law. That name is not quite right: it is not a standalone law but part of a broader act on the efficiency of the justice system. Its article 20 added both offences to the list that can be handled through the fast-track procedure, aiming at a ruling within roughly fifteen days rather than months.

There is a catch that almost no English-language article mentions. In Circular 1/2025 of 26 June 2025, the Spanish public prosecutor clarified that the minor form of usurpación, precisely the peaceful occupation of an empty home that is most common, remains a delito leve, a minor offence. And minor offences follow their own, slower procedure that falls outside the fast track.

In practice: the fast-track route helps you mainly if your property qualifies as a morada. If your property stands empty and is peacefully occupied, less has changed about the speed than the headlines suggested. A judge of Spain's Supreme Court has publicly called the reform ineffective on this point.

03How to check the figures for a municipality yourself

As with flood risk, you do not have to rely on gut feeling. The Ministry of the Interior publishes the figures openly and free of charge, down to municipal level for larger municipalities.

Here is how:

• Open the Ministry of the Interior's Crime Statistics Portal.
• Choose the geographic level: national, autonomous region, province or municipality. Select the province or municipality you want to look at.
• Find the category covering breaking into an occupied home and unlawful occupation of property. There is no okupas category; these are the two headings it falls under.
• Compare. Do not look only at the absolute number but at several consecutive years, and set it against a municipality you know. A rising line over three years tells you more than one peak year.

Then check the property itself. That matters just as much, because within a single municipality the difference between two developments can be enormous.

• How many homes in the development are permanently occupied? A block that stands three-quarters empty in winter has a different profile from one with year-round residents.
• Who owns it according to the land registry? Request the nota simple. If a bank or a property fund appears as owner, you are buying in a segment where squatting is more common.
• Is there access control? A gate, a concierge or a locked entrance hall changes the risk materially.
• Is the community of owners active? Ask the administrator whether there have been previous incidents in the development. It is a normal question and you will usually get a straight answer.
• Is the property empty right now? It sounds obvious, but properties in Spain are also sold with occupants inside, sometimes at a substantial discount. That discount has a reason.

04The risk region by region

National figures tell you little, because the spread across Spain is extreme. The figures below come from the Crime Statistics Portal.

Catalonia (Costa Brava, Costa Dorada). By far the most affected region: 5,913 cases in 2025, close to four in ten of the national total, in a region holding around one in six of Spain's population. The centre of gravity is metropolitan Barcelona. Girona and Tarragona also score high for their size. Catalonia did fall by 15.6% in 2025, faster than the national average. If you are buying here, the municipal check is worth the ten minutes.

Valencia region (Valencia, Costa Blanca). 1,805 cases in 2025. Notably, this was the only large region showing a slight increase, of around 2%. In the 2024 provincial figures, Valencia recorded 876 cases and Alicante 687. The concentration is in the cities and the densely built coastal centres, not in the hillside developments.

Andalusia (Costa del Sol). 1,909 cases in 2025, down around 13%. In 2024, Seville recorded 506 cases, Málaga 451 and Cádiz 400. Málaga is therefore comparatively low for a province of that size and property market. Within the province it concentrates in the city of Málaga and in older housing blocks, not in the developments around Marbella, Estepona or Benahavís.

Murcia (Costa Cálida). 479 cases in 2024, comparable to Alicante relative to its size.

The common thread. Squatting is an urban phenomenon targeting empty properties with an absent owner, frequently in bank ownership. A gated development with an active community of owners, neighbours present all year and a manager who holds the keys is a difficult target. That is not theory. It is exactly what the distribution of the figures shows.

05Prevention, and what your insurance does

Unlike flooding, there is no public compensation fund for squatting. You are entirely in the private sphere here, which makes both the policy and the precautions more important.

What your insurance does and does not do

Many Spanish buildings policies offer optional cover for unlawful occupation. It typically covers the legal costs of the eviction procedure, sometimes the cost of a specialist firm, and in some policies the damage caused by the occupants and lost rental income.

Watch three things:

• The damage itself often sits outside standard cover. Vandalism by unlawful occupants is excluded in many base policies.
• There is nearly always a waiting period, plus a requirement to report to the police within a short window.
• Vacancy clauses apply. If your property stands unoccupied for more than a set number of consecutive days, your cover may be restricted. For a second home this is the point to settle before you sign.

What actually works

The aim is simple: your property must not look as though nobody ever comes. The measures that deliver most in practice:

• A monitored alarm. Not just a siren, but a system that triggers an alert and a response the moment someone enters. The first hours matter most legally, and this is the only measure that genuinely uses them.
• Someone who comes inside regularly. Key holding with scheduled inspection visits is the most underrated measure there is. A property someone enters every fortnight sits in a different category, legally and factually, from one that stays shut for eight months.
• Visible signs of life. Post that does not pile up, a maintained garden, shutters that are not closed for months, lighting on a timer.
• Proper doors and locks. A reinforced front door and a good cylinder lock are the difference between thirty seconds and giving up.
• Your neighbours and your community of owners. Neighbours who know you are away and know who to call are more effective than any technical measure.
• If you let: screening. The biggest risk for landlords is not the squatter but the tenant who stops paying. A proper contract, a deposit and an advance check belong in the process as standard.

06What to do if it happens anyway

Three things determine how this ends, and all three play out in the first hours.

Report it immediately. Call the police, have a formal report drawn up, and make sure it states that the property is in use by you and how you can show that. Bills, photographs, evidence of recent stays, a statement from your property manager. The sooner and the better evidenced, the greater the chance it is treated as allanamiento rather than minor usurpación.

Call your lawyer the same day. The route you take in the first days, criminal or civil, determines your timeline. That is not a decision to make yourself on the basis of a forum post.

And above all: do not take it into your own hands. Cutting off water or power, changing the locks, putting belongings outside or hiring people to remove occupants by force is a criminal offence in Spain, known as coacción. You turn yourself from injured party into suspect, and you lose a case you were winning. This is the mistake that costs owners most.

Want to know how a property you have in mind scores on this point? Book a no-obligation conversation and we will go through the municipal figures, the development and the community of owners with you.