In one out of every three homes in Barcelona lives a single person

BarcelonaBarcelona is slowing down the sustained population growth it had been experiencing since 2023. The report on population results in the city in 2026 – based on the city's census data as of January 1st of that year – records 1,729,963 registered inhabitants in the city. Although slightly lower than those registered a year earlier (1,732,066 inhabitants), the figure is the second highest in the historical series. This scenario is explained by immigration, which, despite reducing its arrival rate compared to previous years, continues to offset a meager birth rate and an ever-increasing emigration process from Barcelona to other cities in its surroundings.

The report, one of the most detailed offered by the prolific Municipal Data Office (OMD) of the City Council, provides many other data points. It helps, for example, to analyze the reality of households in the city. Today, in almost a third of the 648,077 homes in the Catalan capital – the apartments where someone is registered – a single person lives. This proportion has not stopped growing since 2010, when they became the most abundant type of household in the city, surpassing apartments where two people live.

Behind this phenomenon –which has a direct impact on housing– the report identifies several factors, including the aging of the population and the emergence of new household patterns as a result of "the delay in cohabitation in couples, the increase in separations or divorces, the lengthening of the widowhood life stage, or simply, the preference for living alone". The OMD's radiography goes further and even allows determining the profile of these people who live alone. The majority (70,498) are women over 65 years old, but there are also many women and men between 18 and 65 years old who live alone (61,792 and 61,729, respectively). On the other hand, men over 65 years old who live alone are only 24,203.

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Regarding the distribution of these single-person households, the case of Ciutat Vella stands out, with three neighborhoods –La Barceloneta (43.5%); Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera (41.8%) and El Gòtic (38.5%)– among those with the highest proportion of vacant apartments out of the total number of households. Outside this district, the case of Vila de Gràcia also stands out, where in 38.4% of households only one person lives. All four neighborhoods are well above the city average, which stands at 31.5%. On the other hand, the neighborhoods with the fewest homes with a single registered person are Torre Baró (22.7%) and Ciutat Meridiana (24%).

New record of centenarians

In contrast to this data, households with minors continue to fall, and on January 1, 2026, they represented only 21.4% of households. This figure is consistent with another reality that this report shows year after year: the low birth rate in the city. Once again, 2025 is the year with the fewest births since 1900 – with the exception of 1939 due to the Civil War – with only 11,012 newborns, 1.3% less than in 2024. On the other hand, the number of centenarians also breaks records, with 1,196 residents in the city who are over a century old – the vast majority women.

All this causes the average age of Barcelona residents to rise to 44.6 years. If it does not climb higher, it is, again, due to the weight of the population born abroad, who are younger than those born in the State. Thus, if the average age of Barcelona residents born abroad is 39.5 years, that of those born in the city itself is 41.9, while that of those born in the rest of Catalonia is 50.5. Finally, the average age of those born in the rest of Spain is the highest and stands at 66.2 years.

Fewer arrivals of people

The OMD report also shows a decrease in the arrival of people in the Catalan capital. In total, during 2025, 124,036 new residents arrived in the city, a figure that, despite being the fourth highest of the century, represents a decrease of almost 5,000 people compared to 2024. This flow, however, continues to have a decisive impact on the configuration of Barcelona's citizenry. If between 2000 and 2019 a little more than half of the population was born in the capital, currently this group continues to decline and only represents 44.6% of those registered.

Foreign-born residents, on the other hand, already represent 36.2% of Barcelona's population. Of these 626,924 people, 460,409 maintain foreign nationality. Of these, Italian nationality continues to be the main one – driven by the large presence of Argentinians with this nationality –, followed by Colombian, Pakistani, Chinese, Peruvian, and French. Behind them are Barcelona residents with Moroccan, Venezuelan, Honduran, Russian, Argentinian, Indian, and Filipino nationality.

The report also detects that the countries that have contributed the most new residents to Barcelona this year are not among the main ones in the ranking. This is the case of Bangladesh (with 2,095 new registered residents); Nepal (1,644) or Algeria (850). In total, there are 181 different nationalities in the Catalan capital.

The Barcelona diaspora

The report also consolidates other demographic dynamics that have been repeating for years. For example, that of Barcelonians leaving the city, mainly for other municipalities in the surrounding area. The right to stay in the city, constantly defended by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, is still far away, according to OMD figures. Last year, 68,979 people left the city, 2.4% more than the previous year. The figures point to a continuous diaspora of families who – according to the same report, in many cases driven by housing prices – end up packing their bags outside the Catalan capital. This is demonstrated by the fact that more than half of emigrants are between 25 and 44 years old, with the 30 to 34 age group being the largest (11,765 people), followed by the 25 to 29 age group (9,857 people). Furthermore, 6,767 children between 0 and 14 years old also emigrated during 2025.

Regarding the destinations of people leaving Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat is the preferred destination municipality, with 7,332 Barcelonians who moved there to live during 2025. Following it are other metropolitan municipalities – Badalona (3,091), Santa Coloma de Gramenet (1,754), Sabadell (1581), Terrassa (1,540), Sant Cugat del Vallès (1,405), Cornellà de Llobregat (1,158), Sant Adrià del Besòs (965), and Esplugues de Llobregat (861) – and also Madrid, which was the destination for 2,498 Barcelonians. 5,478 people emigrated abroad.