The Police Estimate That in 2025 1.5 Million Immigrants Entered Spain by Plane

Irregular immigration to Spain underwent an unprecedented structural change last year, marked by the displacement of traditional routes towards new access routes, mainly by air. Immigrants have exchanged canoes and jumps over the fences of the autonomous cities for the plane to reach Spanish territory. This is the main conclusion of a report by the General Commissariat for Foreigners and Borders of the National Police, to which THE OBJECTIVE has had exclusive access. According to the analysis of this department, in 2025 more than 1.5 million people in an irregular situation arrived from Latin America by air, consolidating this modality as the main gateway of entry, ahead of sea and land, which registered a drop of 42%.

In the case of these passengers, who cross from the other side of the Atlantic, the modus operandi is to enter with tourist or short-stay visas and stay in Spain once the allowed period expires. Even so, more than half of the tickets were denied. For citizens who come on planes from Africa or making a supposed stopover in the Spanish capital, the strategy is different. Normally, they get rid of their documentation when they arrive at the terminal and ask for international protection, a method that is now registered to a lesser extent, but that two years ago collapsed the asylum rooms of Barajas for several months with passengers from Senegal and Mauritania.

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Within this new scheme, the sea route accounts for only between 5% and 8%, while the air route concentrates between 60% and 65% of the flows, becoming the main access point to Spain. The Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport is the epicentre of this new migratory phenomenon. The most relevant routes come from Latin America, a region that led the arrival of non-EU passengers with 1.5 million people in 2025, according to police data. Among the nationalities with the greatest presence are Colombian, Venezuelan and Peruvian citizens.

In any case, refusals of entry represent 53% of the total. The most frequent routes depart from countries such as Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. However, the General Commissariat for Borders and Foreigners has also identified other itineraries that use international hubs to facilitate transit to Spain. This is the case, for example, of Casablanca airport, which is used especially for immigrants from the Gulf of Guinea (Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, etc.); or Sao Paulo, which functions as a “key node” for Iranian, Moroccan, Bolivian and other citizens from Asia and the Middle East.

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The conclusions of the police analysis of the 2025 data point to an “increasingly dynamic, adaptable and complex” migratory phenomenon and confirm that Spain has ceased to be a transit country “to consolidate itself as the final destination of these flows”. Police sources warn that “punctual responses” by the government to the migration crisis “are no longer enough”, given that criminal organisations have demonstrated the ability to redirect large masses of immigrants to other routes, countries and modalities.

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