Canary Islands on Course for Third Consecutive Tourism Record
The influx of foreign tourism to the Canary Islands continues to rise, with official data for November 2025 showing a 0.9% increase compared to the same month last year. This positive trend, published this Friday by Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) using its Frontur border movement survey, leaves only December’s figures to confirm the full picture for the recently closed year. In November, the islands welcomed 1.46 million international visitors, bringing the total for the first eleven months of 2025 to 14.24 million. This figure already surpasses the entire annual total for 2023 (13.9 million), achieved with one month still to go.
Historic Milestone Within Reach
If official arrivals for December 2025—yet to be published—remain above 800,000 people (a near certainty, as they are expected to be around 1.5 million, similar to December 2024), the Canary Islands will achieve another historic annual record for foreign tourist reception in 2025. This would mark two consecutive years of record-breaking international visitor numbers and three consecutive records for total visitors (foreign and domestic), following the highs of 2023 (16.2 million people), 2024 (17.7 million), and the expected total for 2025. The forecast for the close of 2025 is approximately 15.7 million foreign tourists, half a million more than the final 2024 figure of 15.2 million, according to Frontur data.
If this projection holds, total tourism to the islands in 2025—including domestic visitors—will reach a new historic high above 18 million annual visitors, a milestone few imagined possible after the tourism crisis caused by the pandemic.
The Flip Side of the Tourism Boom
Despite the tourism boom that began in earnest in 2023 (following a reactivation from mid-2022 as Covid-19 controls eased), which has brought notable improvements in tourist spending and record hotel revenues, the archipelago also faces significant social challenges. According to official indicators, the Canary Islands is the autonomous community with the lowest average net wages for its workers, the highest percentages of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and the worst levels of per capita income relative to the national average.
November Trends Cement Canaries’ Lead
In November, the Canary Islands was the top destination for foreign tourists in Spain, capturing 25.3% of the national total (5.8 million tourists). It was followed by Catalonia (22%) and Andalusia (14.3%), both far behind the impact achieved by the islands, which are now fully into their high tourist season from last October to March 2026. The islands received 0.9% more tourists than in November 2024. Over the first eleven months of 2025, the top regions for tourist arrivals were Catalonia (19.1 million, up 1%), the Balearic Islands (15.5 million, up 2.6%), and the Canary Islands (14.2 million, up 3.4%).
Record Tourist Spending in the Islands
In terms of tourist expenditure (not all of which constitutes direct income for the Canaries), the main destination regions in November were the Canary Islands (27.7% of the Spanish total), Catalonia (18.1%), and the Community of Madrid (17.1%). For the January-November period, the regions with the highest cumulative spending were Catalonia (18.5% of the national total, €126.707 billion), the Canary Islands (17.5%), and the Balearic Islands (16.4%).
Spending by tourists increased by 1.7% year-on-year in the Canaries in November, reaching an absolute monthly value of €2.241 billion (the highest of any Spanish region). Over the eleven-month period, the absolute figure for the Canary Islands reached a historic record of €22.174 billion, representing 17.5% of the national total.
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