How many Italians live in the Canary Islands: the official numbers

How many there are, and what share of the population they are

The figure is published by ISTAC, the Canary Islands' statistics institute, which takes the INE's annual population census, dated to 1 January each year, and breaks it down by island and by town. In the latest available edition, at 1 January 2025, there were 55,553 Italian citizens resident in the archipelago. The Canary Islands' total population on the same date was 2,258,866, of whom 342,612 were foreign nationals: Italians make up 2.46% of all residents, a percentage ISTAC calculates and publishes in the same table.

What surprises people who arrive here is that this isn't just one community among many: it's the largest, and by some distance. Doing the sums myself, 55,553 divided by 342,612, a little more than one foreign resident in six in the Canary Islands holds an Italian passport: 16.2%.

• Italy: 55,553 residents.
• Colombia: 32,381.
• Venezuela: 28,200.
• Germany: 27,631.
• United Kingdom: 25,740.
• Morocco: 20,382.

4,336 back in 2000

The long-run series comes from another table, the statistical study of the padrón municipal that ISTAC published covering 2000 to 2022. At the start of that series, in 2000, there were 4,336 Italian residents in the Canary Islands. By 2014, the year I arrived, there were 31,741. In the last year of that series, 2022, there were 49,987. In little more than twenty years the community multiplied more than elevenfold.

The annual census, which picks up where that series left off, tells the story of recent years: 50,384 at 1 January 2021, 50,471 in 2022, 53,764 in 2023, 55,306 in 2024, 55,553 in 2025. The sharpest jump is in 2023, and then the curve flattens out: between 2024 and 2025 the increase is 247 people. These are two different statistics, and for the years they have in common the figures don't match exactly: that's why I keep them separate.

Where they live, island by island

The Canary Islands are two provinces, and the figures per island change the picture completely. These are the Italian residents at 1 January 2025, island by island, with La Graciosa counted within Lanzarote as the table does.

• Tenerife: 28,295 Italians, well over half the archipelago's total.
• Gran Canaria: 12,029.
• Fuerteventura: 9,802, and it's the island where they make up the biggest share: 7.59% of its residents are Italian.
• Lanzarote: 4,346.
• La Palma: 769.
• La Gomera: 209.
• El Hierro: 103.

In Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, Italians are the largest foreign nationality in the table. Not in Lanzarote: there, ahead of them, are the Colombian community, with 8,045 residents, and the British community, with 5,944. It's a difference you can feel just walking down the street, and it matters when choosing where to live: the language you hear at the bar isn't the same on every island.

The towns with the most Italian residents

The same table breaks down to town level. At 1 January 2025, these are the towns with the most Italian residents.

• Arona, in southern Tenerife (Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas): 7,637 Italians.
• Adeje, in southern Tenerife (Costa Adeje): 5,501.
• La Oliva, in northern Fuerteventura (Corralejo, El Cotillo): 5,310.
• Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: 3,989.
• San Bartolomé de Tirajana, in southern Gran Canaria (Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés): 3,312.
• Granadilla de Abona, in southern Tenerife (El Médano): 3,046.
• Santa Cruz de Tenerife: 2,209.
• Puerto del Rosario, the capital of Fuerteventura: 1,785.
• San Miguel de Abona, in southern Tenerife: 1,741.

The absolute number only tells half the story, though. Looking at the share of the population, the ranking changes: in La Oliva 17.78% of residents are Italian, in Antigua 11.32%, in Adeje 10.87%, in Arona 8.58%. In Corralejo, which sits within the town of La Oliva, you can live in Italian almost without noticing it, and that percentage explains why.

What this number really counts

These tables count people registered on the municipal roll, the padrón. Spanish local government law is clear on this: anyone living in Spain is required to register on the padrón of the town where they habitually reside, and everyone on that roll makes up the town's population. The padrón is an administrative register, and its records serve as proof of residence and habitual address.

The padrón isn't the same as the EU citizen's registration certificate, which is a different thing altogether and is applied for elsewhere. Real Decreto 240/2007 requires an EU citizen who stays beyond three months to apply in person, at the provincial foreigners' office or the national police, for entry in the Registro Central de Extranjeros, within three months of arriving in Spain; the certificate is issued immediately. Two registers, two offices: one counts who lives in a town, the other recognises the right to reside in the country. I explain both in my guide to moving here.

There's a flip side too, and it's worth saying: anyone who lives here without registering on the padrón doesn't appear in these tables. It happens in the tourist towns of the south, and it pushes the numbers down, not up. So 55,553 is a floor, not a ceiling.

The figures on this page are official counts as at 1 January 2025: they capture a snapshot of the whole archipelago, not your neighbourhood or your own situation. I check them again every time the tables are updated.

Why they cluster there: my own view

Looking at the map of towns, one thing is obvious straight away: Italians haven't spread out across the islands, they've clustered in four stretches of coast. Southern Tenerife from Los Cristianos to Costa Adeje, Corralejo in Fuerteventura, southern Gran Canaria and the two capital cities. These are the places with year-round work, where direct flights from Italy land, and where someone had already arrived before: people go where they know someone, and every arrival makes the next one easier.

The advice I give people who write to me is to read these numbers the other way round. If you're looking for a town with an international feel, shops and services in several languages and a foreign community already settled in, the towns at the top of the list are the answer. But if you're moving to genuinely change your life, look where the percentage is low: northern Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera. You trade services and flight connections for quiet and lower prices. I help people move in both directions, and neither is the right one: there's only the one that's right for you.

One thing I always repeat: these numbers say how many Italians live here, not how many Italian-owned houses there are. Many Italians have a second home in the Canary Islands and remain registered as resident in Italy: they don't appear in any of these tables.