Half Of Foreign Welfare Recipients In Spain Are Moroccan
Nearly half of all foreign nationals receiving Spain’s Minimum Living Income (IMV) are Moroccan, according to previously unpublished figures obtained by The Objective through a transparency request.
The National Social Security Institute recorded 139,446 foreign recipients of the benefit, including 69,517 Moroccan nationals.
Foreigners therefore account for approximately half of the nearly 280,000 registered recipients, while Moroccans represent almost 50 percent of the foreign total.
The figures provide the first official nationality-by-nationality breakdown of foreign IMV recipients.
Public statistics had previously distinguished only between Spanish and foreign claimants without identifying their countries of origin.
Romanians formed the second-largest foreign group, with 15,262 recipients, followed by Ukrainians with 4,612.
Colombians accounted for 3,549 recipients, Algerians for 3,362, Italians for 3,043, and Bulgarians for 2,826.
Other recipients included Portuguese, Pakistani, Venezuelan, Brazilian, and Nigerian nationals. More than 100 nationalities were represented overall, alongside 215 people categorized under “other nationalities” and 175 stateless recipients.
The data counts only the registered recipient in each household, rather than every family member supported by the payment. The actual number of people benefiting from the program is therefore higher.
The totals also exclude the Basque Country and Navarre, which administer the Minimum Living Income independently under their special fiscal arrangements.
Social Security data also indicates that around 70 percent of Moroccan women of working age do not formally contribute to Spain’s employment system, reflecting particularly low labor-force participation among that group.
The publication of the figures comes at a politically sensitive time, given the much-reported migrant influx from the Arab country into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
Over 50,000 Moroccans are estimated to have entered the autonomous city illegally within the past week, and the number to have since been returned is heavily disputed.
💡 AI analysis provides alternative perspectives on current events
