The Spanish INE (statistics agency) says there are some 356,000 Britons living in Spain (i.e. on the padrón). Giles Tremlett, the Guardian journalist in Madrid, put the figure (in 2007) at 761,000 and the Foreign Office is said to claim one million Brits living in Spain.
I tend to go with 750,000 as a round number - and depending, of course, on what you mean by 'living here'.
But, lets put this in context, based on the official numbers.
There are 188,000 Spaniards living in the city of Almería, so, even using the INE figures, we are, when all squeezed into the same room, twice the size of that city.

...and, if you can believe this, again from the INE, there are 2,354,000 people from the EU living in Spain - the equivalent of shoving together the three cities of Almería, Málaga and... Barcelona!

Still think we shouldn't vote?

You got my vote on that one Lenox, and I suspect your number for Brits is conservative (no pun intended).

Which shows that over half of Brits living in Spain are living ILLEGALLY i.e. they are not registered on the padron.

Bl**dy illegal immigrants

Sorry to disagree, but it does not show anything, other than someone THINKS there are more. I think it too but it does not prove I am right.

I know people who have apartments here which they use for a few weeks a year but they are registered on the Padron so that they get a discount on local taxes. I don't suspect they are isolated cases either so what weight can we give to the figures, any figures!

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

Well,what the people you know are doing is illegal too.

I think it is important to highlight this especially considering the previous thread which complained about illegal immigrants in the UK.

If the British foreign office believes there to be 1 million Brits resident in Spain, but only 365,000 are registered with the Spanish authorities. Then what on earth are these 635,000 Brits who are illegally living in Spain doing!? Maybe they have something to do with all that black money flying about?

The local authority encourage people to sign on the padron as they get extra funding from central gov. They are often not concerned how long a person stays here.

Re the FO guess at how any people are here. Maybe the guess is wrong. Maybe it just a guess !

I guessed the numbers for the lottery last week but I was wrong again too, do you think the FO would help me next week with my guessing .. .......

I wonder how many of those could be bothered to vote tho!

Jo x

I wonder what the mathematical formula is for the number who vote compared with the number who don't vote but who complain about what the elected body does or does not do ?

Its just a rhetorical question.

That'll be me LOL. Never vote and moan like hell about whoever gets in!!


If a party ever came along who I could believe in I might make the effort - in the UK tho, not allowed to vote here!

Jo xxx

I can see how some might not bother if they'd tried a couple of times and been sent away for the lack of some piece of paper that they'd previously not required, particularly if they're on the list of foreign residents anyway.

Does Lenox's original statistic really refer to the padrón or to the national list of foreigners?

Is it truly ILLEGAL not be on the padron?

What? As opposed to bl**dy legal immigrants?

But don't forget that this includes all their children - who can't vote. So at a guess (guesses piled on guesses!) the number of voters should be halved.

On a similar note, I recall an item on the local TV news ('twas the BBC, so it must be true that when you just look at the number of french nationals living there, London is the 7th most populated french city. How about if the french elected the Mayor of London?

In practice, I probably know a few hundred people in the UK. From all of them I know of 2 british families who live full time in Spain - maybe 6 people out of around 300-400. That's about 0.5%. If my sample was representative that would be around 300,000 - 400,000 brits living in Spain.

On 'voting' - I suppose that most Brits who do live here don't vote. Certainly the majority of us are over 18. The average age of the Brits in Spain - according to some quite old study I had back in about 1995 - was/is 57 which contrasted with the Spanish average age of 37. What to vote for? The Brits wanted theatres and rest homes and libraries... the Spanish wanted sports facilities, amusement parks and discos.
As far as how many vote, base figures from 1999 showed, as I remember, that only 0.5% of the foreigners who could vote in (the hopefully typical town of) Mijas bothered to do so (which, in a broader sense, was why the Parties don't take any notice of us). Here in my town, we had a massive 14% in the last local election (374 Brits voted out of 2585 Brits on the padrón).
Somebody talks about 'In England the foreigners do this-or-that which...'. Doesn't mean that Spain should be the same (it isn't, anyway).
So, how many are we..? The Spanish, usually so exact with their numbers, clearly don't know. In fact, from this summer, it will become law to register on the padrón if you live with Spain as a primary residence, so figures will eventually be tightened up.

Ok, so if you register for an NIE then they know you're here. Surely the padrón only tells them where exactly you are?

Am I missing something here?