Application, not completion

The report comes from idealista/hipotecas, the property portal's mortgage broker, and was published on 8 September 2026. What it records are solicitudes — applications that reached this one platform between April and June, not the loans signed before a notary, and certainly not all purchases.

The distance between the two is the most revealing part: the non-resident foreign households that did sign came, on idealista's figures, to 10,320 euros a month, bought at around 403,000 euros and financed 62 rather than 68 per cent.

6.3 per cent — and 22.7 per cent

Germans file the most applications at 15.6 per cent, but they do not lead on income: Swiss households reported over 9,300 euros a month, Americans 8,514, the British 6,977, Germans below 6,600, Italians 5,249. idealista writes that the Germans widened their lead over the British, but gives no figures for earlier quarters — it remains a snapshot.

The 6.3 per cent says nothing about what share of Canary purchases goes to foreigners, only about where Spain's foreign applicants are looking. The share of this market is far higher: on the Estadística Registral Inmobiliaria of the Colegio de Registradores, 22.7 per cent of Canary sale contracts went to foreigners in the first quarter of 2026 — in 2023 it was 28.3 per cent.

The other side of the sum

The INE's Encuesta Anual de Estructura Salarial, definitive figures for 2024 published on 28 May 2026, puts the average gross annual salary in the Canaries at 25,120.38 euros against 29,540.26 euros for Spain; only two regions are lower. On the Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida of 5 February 2026, 31.2 per cent of the Canary population were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

The comparison limps, because household net stands against individual gross. The order of magnitude holds: 6,779 euros a month is a good 81,000 a year for a household, against a good 25,000 gross for a Canary employee.

265,093 euros and 68 per cent in practice

265,093 euros is the average price of the properties applied for, 3.6 per cent above spring 2025; nearly 70 per cent of applications were below 200,000 euros. The financing requested was 68 per cent of the value, after 71 to 75 in earlier quarters.

Requested is not granted. The comparison service Rankia puts non-resident lending at around 60 per cent of the lower of purchase price and valuation, for Bankinter 60 per cent and a term of at most 25 years — residents get 80 per cent for a main home. Then come the costs no mortgage covers: on a second-hand purchase in the Canaries the ITP transfer tax is generally 6.5 per cent under Decreto Legislativo 1/2009 — on 265,093 euros around 17,200 euros — the AJD stamp duty 0.75 per cent, plus notary, land registry and gestoría. The reduced rates apply only to a vivienda habitual.

Cause or symptom?

That foreign buyers drive prices is what politicians here say. In January 2026 the Spanish government proposed to the European Commission that the Canaries be allowed to restrict the purchase of homes not meant to be lived in; the regional government had earlier suggested restrictions up to a ban. Regional president Fernando Clavijo justified this, on Infobae's account, by saying that one in four homes sold on the islands ends up in foreign hands.

That does not establish a link. The Registradores series shows the foreign share falling since 2023 while prices rose: on the INE house price index, housing in the Canaries became 11 per cent dearer in the second quarter of 2026, the 45th consecutive quarter of rises, but less than the 12.2 per cent Spanish average. Tinsa, which calculates 15.2 per cent, attributes it to demand the housing stock cannot absorb.