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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Spain

People registered with Spain nationality number 1,339, which is 0.1% of all registered foreigners and ranks 45 in size. Compared with 537 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 149.3%. They live in 141 districts, and the largest counts are Seoul Mapo-gu with 154, Seoul Seodaemun-gu with 126, and Seoul Gwanak-gu with 75. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.538, the isolation index is 0, and interaction with Koreans is 0.962. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Seoul Mapo-gu at 16.5, where this nationality is 0% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is Europe. The largest age group is 20-24 at 22.3%, and men are 46.7%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Spanish at 80.9% and Catalan at 7.2%.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality, registered foreigners by nationality and district, registered foreigners by status of stay), staying foreigners by nationality and age

The index of dissimilarity, the isolation index, and the location quotient are calculated from the open dataset.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index

Year 2025

Indicators	Spain	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
Registered foreigners	1,339	1,604,920	0.1% of the total
Districts of residence	141	250	56.4% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)	0.538	0.280	rank 64 of 107
Isolation index	0.0002	0.045	rank 37 of 107
Interaction with Koreans	0.962	0.955	rank 30 of 107
Continent	Europe	48,565 (3.0% of the total)	2.8% of those from Europe

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality), segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals; 0 means the two distributions match and 1 means complete separation. Isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. In the All registered foreigners column the three indices treat all registered foreigners as one group and use the same formulas. In the Relative to total column, rank 1 is the highest value among nationalities with 100 or more registered foreigners that year; in the continent row that column gives this nationality's share of all registered foreigners from the continent.

Figure 1.Spain nationals among registered foreigners, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Note: The vertical scale resets to the size of the selected nationality.

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Year	Spain	Vietnam
2006	106	52,157
2007	127	67,197
2008	157	79,848
2009	195	86,166
2010	234	98,225
2011	290	110,564
2012	392	114,211
2013	426	113,843
2014	518	122,571
2015	537	128,042
2016	591	137,769
2017	565	151,385
2018	588	170,707
2019	708	187,334
2020	623	181,415
2021	851	178,928
2022	1,101	196,883
2023	1,118	227,930
2024	1,194	261,581
2025	1,339	293,907

Table 2.Spain nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Spain Nationality	Share of local foreigners
1	Seoul Mapo-gu	154	1.3
2	Seoul Seodaemun-gu	126	0.8
3	Seoul Gwanak-gu	75	0.4
4	Seoul Yongsan-gu	75	0.6
5	Seoul Jongno-gu	52	0.4
6	Seoul Dongdaemun-gu	49	0.2
7	Seoul Jung-gu	35	0.3
8	Incheon Yeonsu-gu	34	0.2
9	Seoul Gwangjin-gu	33	0.2
10	Seoul Seongdong-gu	33	0.4

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and nationality).

Note: Nationwide, Spain nationals make up 0.1% of all registered foreigners, so an area whose share is above that holds relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Spain Nationality	Location quotient (LQ)
1	Seoul Mapo-gu	154	16.5
2	Seoul Seodaemun-gu	126	16.1
3	Seoul Jongno-gu	52	14.5
4	Seoul Yongsan-gu	75	14.2
5	Seoul Jung-gu	35	11.4
6	Seoul Gwanak-gu	75	6.0
7	Seoul Dongdaemun-gu	49	5.4
8	Seoul Seongdong-gu	33	4.6
9	Seoul Gwangjin-gu	33	3.8
10	Seoul Yeongdeungpo-gu	32	3.3

Source: Location quotient from the open dataset.

Note: the location quotient is the local share divided by the national share; above 1.5 counts as over-representation.

Table 4.By status of stay Spain nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Visa category	Persons	Share
Student(D2)	391	29.2
Marriage Migration(F6)	262	19.6
Working Holiday(H1)	138	10.3
General Trainee(D4)	84	6.3
Other statuses(ETC)	80	6.0
Dependent Family(F3)	75	5.6
Specially Designated Activities(E7)	64	4.8
Arts & Entertainment(E6)	41	3.1
Other statuses	204	15.2

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The rows of this table add to 1,339, the whole of the Spain nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Age group	Total	Male	Female	Share
0-4	34	24	10	1.4
5-9	46	30	16	1.9
10-14	56	28	28	2.3
15-19	60	21	39	2.5
20-24	539	213	326	22.3
25-29	395	115	280	16.3
30-34	370	151	219	15.3
35-39	248	145	103	10.3
40-44	184	112	72	7.6
45-49	134	88	46	5.5
50-54	112	63	49	4.6
55-59	103	63	40	4.3
60+	138	77	61	5.7

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 2,419 rather than the 1,339 registered foreigners

Figure 2.Composition by age and sex, 2025Unit: %

Year 2025

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Note: The bar length is the share each cell holds within the whole nationality. This figure alone uses staying foreigners, so its total differs from registered foreigners.

Figure 3.Change in status-of-stay composition, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The share each status holds within this nationality in that year. The five largest statuses in 2025 are drawn.

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Year
2008	10.8	0.0	0.0	0.0	21.7
2009	17.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	20.0
2010	23.9	0.0	0.0	6.4	17.5
2011	29.7	0.0	0.0	6.2	20.7
2012	27.9	7.4	0.0	6.6	20.7
2013	20.7	10.1	0.0	8.5	20.0
2014	23.1	10.1	0.0	6.7	20.1
2015	26.8	13.0	0.0	5.4	18.5
2016	30.3	13.5	0.0	5.3	16.1
2017	28.1	16.1	0.0	6.2	5.8
2018	30.6	17.5	0.0	5.8	6.8
2019	29.2	15.8	6.6	4.2	7.2
2020	16.9	25.8	0.0	7.1	10.1
2021	26.6	22.0	0.0	10.7	9.0
2022	32.4	18.6	9.5	6.5	7.6
2023	29.3	18.8	9.9	6.0	6.0
2024	29.0	19.6	9.9	4.9	6.6
2025	29.2	19.6	10.3	6.3	6.0

Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, 2014–2025Unit: index

Indicators

Source: Segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals, isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. The three run on different ranges, so they are selected one at a time.

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Year	Index of dissimilarity (D)	Interaction with Koreans
2014	0.603	0.971
2015	0.582	0.969
2016	0.574	0.968
2017	0.567	0.968
2018	0.585	0.967
2019	0.583	0.965
2020	0.532	0.970
2021	0.539	0.970
2022	0.570	0.967
2023	0.546	0.967
2024	0.541	0.963
2025	0.538	0.962

Table 6.Spain nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %

First language		Share
Spanish		80.9
Catalan		7.2
Galician		4.5
Arabic		1.8
Romanian		1.3
Basque		0.9
English		0.6

Source: Ethnologue 24th edition, first-language shares by country.

Note: the estimated demand on the language page is this share multiplied by the registered foreign population of each nationality. Shares below 0.5% are not listed, and a person who speaks more than one language is not distinguished.

Figure 5.By province, Spain nationality, 2025Unit: persons

Year 2025

Count range

Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality and district), summed to the province level.

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Province	Spain Nationality	Share of national
Seoul	869	64.9
Gyeonggi-do	190	14.2
Incheon	66	4.9
Busan	47	3.5
Daejeon	27	2.0
Daegu	25	1.9
Gyeongsangnam-do	17	1.3
Gyeongsangbuk-do	16	1.2
Jeju-do	15	1.1
Ulsan	14	1.0
Gwangju	13	1.0
Gangwon-do	11	0.8
Chungcheongbuk-do	10	0.7
Sejong	5	0.4
Jeollabuk-do	5	0.4
Chungcheongnam-do	5	0.4
Jeollanam-do	4	0.3