Lorraine Williamson
Spain’s economy is still growing. Its tourism sector remains powerful. Employment has improved over recent years. Yet a new set of European figures shows a harsher reality beneath the national growth story: Spain still has the highest child poverty rate in the European Union.
According to figures published by Eurostat and highlighted by the European Anti-Poverty Network in Spain, the Spanish child poverty rate stood at 28.4% in 2025. That is the highest level in the EU, even though it fell slightly by 0.8 percentage points compared with the previous year.
The figure puts Spain 8.8 percentage points above the EU average for child poverty. EAPN-ES says it shows the need for specific measures for families with children.
A growing economy with a stubborn social divide
The timing of the figures is striking. Spain’s GDP grew by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2026, with annual growth of 2.7%, according to provisional data from the National Statistics Institute.
Those numbers confirm that Spain is still performing more strongly than many European neighbours. But they also underline a central contradiction.
Economic growth is not reaching all households equally.
For many families, especially those with children, the pressure of housing, food, energy, and insecure work is still shaping daily life. The result is a country that can show healthy macroeconomic figures while millions of people remain at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
Almost 12.6 million people affected in Spain
Spain had one of the highest overall rates of poverty or social exclusion in the EU in 2025. EAPN-ES says 25.7% of the Spanish population, equal to almost 12.6 million people, was at risk. The EU average was 20.9%.
Across the EU, Eurostat said 92.7 million people were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025. That represented 20.9% of the bloc’s population, a slight fall from 93.3 million people in 2024.
Spain ranked fifth among EU countries for overall poverty or exclusion. Only Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Lithuania recorded higher rates, according to EAPN-ES.
Children and families carry the greatest risk
The data shows that poverty in Spain is not spread evenly. Families with children are more exposed than households without children.
EAPN-ES says almost three in ten people living in Spanish households with children were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025. Across the EU, households with children also faced a higher risk than adult-only households, but Spain’s gap remains especially severe.
This matters because child poverty rarely affects only the present. It can shape education, health, housing stability, and future earnings.
When children grow up in homes where money is constantly short, the effects can last long after the immediate crisis has passed.
Work does not always protect families
One of the most troubling details in the figures is the level of working poverty.
Spain has often focused on employment growth as a sign of recovery. Yet EAPN-ES says 11.2% of people in work in Spain were still in poverty in 2025. That was the second-highest rate in the EU, behind Bulgaria.
The problem is not simply whether people have a job. It is whether that job pays enough, offers enough stability, and allows families to meet rising costs.
Temporary work, low wages, and part-time hours can leave households vulnerable, even when adults are employed. For parents, that pressure is often multiplied by childcare, rent, school costs, and transport.
Housing costs add another layer of pressure
Housing has become one of Spain’s defining social issues, especially in cities, coastal areas, and popular tourism zones.
EAPN-ES says 7.2% of Spain’s population spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2025. Among people already living in poverty, that figure rose to 28.3%.
That helps explain why poverty can persist even when employment improves. A household may appear stable on paper, yet still be one rent increase, broken contract or unexpected bill away from serious difficulty.
In areas where rents have risen sharply, the squeeze is even more visible. Families on modest wages can be pushed further from schools, work, and support networks.
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Spain’s welfare support is less effective than the EU average
The figures also point to a weaker protective effect from Spain’s social support system.
EAPN-ES says social transfers, excluding pensions, reduced poverty in Spain by 23.2% in 2025. The EU average was 33.2%.
In countries such as Belgium, Ireland, Poland, France, and Germany, benefits and support systems had a stronger poverty-reducing impact.
EAPN-ES argues that Spain needs more effective action, including fairer taxation, stronger housing policies, and a European anti-poverty strategy based on human rights.
Why these figures matter now
This is not just a statistics story. It is a warning about the kind of recovery Spain is building.
A country can grow and still leave families behind. It can attract visitors, create jobs, and report strong GDP figures while parents struggle to cover rent, food, and school costs.
The latest Eurostat figures show that Spain’s challenge is no longer only about generating growth. It is about making that growth reach the households where childhood is being shaped by insecurity.
Unless policy catches up with the scale of the problem, Spain’s child poverty rate will remain more than an uncomfortable European ranking. It will be a measure of lost opportunity.