TOP STORIES: "Spain's Imserso budget holidays go on sale this week with trips from just €50" and "Foreign workers in Spain hit a record high, and their contribution to the economy keeps growing"

 

This week in Spain, everything seems to be on the move. Airports are expanding, passenger numbers are soaring and flights are getting new routes; pensioners are snapping up bargain breaks and a record number of foreign workers are helping keep the country’s economy humming. From terminal queues to €50 holidays, it’s been a busy week all round.

 

Golden Getaways

If you're of a certain age and fancy getting away without breaking the bank, this one's for you. Spain's much-loved Imserso holiday scheme swings back into action this week, with 879,213 places up for grabs for the 2026-27 season, covering everything from beach breaks and island escapes to cultural jaunts and trips further afield in Europe. 

Bookings opened Monday September 14, though when exactly you can book depends on where you live. Murcia and Valencian Community residents with preferred-user status got first dibs from Wednesday September 16, everyone else from Thursday September 17. Early on you're limited to trips in your own province, but from Saturday September 19, leftover places open up nationwide.

There's plenty on offer: 440,284 places on the mainland coast, 228,142 on the islands, and 210,787 short breaks covering cultural tours, provincial capitals, nature holidays and trips to Ceuta, Melilla and parts of Europe. 

The real draw is the price. Pensioners on the lowest incomes can bag a trip for just €50, with 7,447 places reserved for those on certain low pensions, Imserso covers the rest. 

If eligible, you should have a letter with your four-digit accreditation code, needed with ID to book online through Turismo Social or Mundicolor, or in person at an authorised agency. Almost 3 million letters have gone out, so it's worth a rummage through the post if yours hasn't surfaced yet.

 

Spain’s New Backbone

While pensioners plan their next escape, Spain's workforce is quietly being reshaped too. Foreign workers registered with Social Security hit a record 3,551,759 in August, up almost 40,000 on the month and 482,490 on the year, growing more than four times faster than the workforce as a whole. 

They now make up 15.9% of all contributors, with Morocco leading at 407,350, followed by Colombia, Romania and Venezuela, and around 27% from elsewhere in the EU.

The numbers tell their own story sector by sector: a third of hospitality workers are foreign, along with 28.1% in agriculture and 27% in construction. In Murcia, eight out of ten new self-employed workers over the past four years have been foreign nationals. 

Perhaps most striking, more than half of every new job created since the labour reform has gone to a foreign worker, with their permanent contract rate climbing to 85.9%, up from 58.9% before the reform, quietly overturning the idea that migrant work in Spain is mostly short-term and precarious.

 

Booms and Boarding

There's an awful lot going on this week in Spain’s airports and some of it's actually good news for once.

Right, let’s start with the money. The government has just given the green light to DORA III, the regulatory plan setting out almost €13 billion of investment across Spain's airports between 2027 and 2031.

Aena had originally wanted to bump average passenger charges up by 43% over that period to help pay for it all, which would have taken the average fee from €10.52 to €12.69. Airlines went absolutely mad about it (Ryanair especially, no surprises there), and the competition watchdog reckoned Aena should be cutting charges rather than raising them.

The government has clearly listened, because the final increase is 3 cents. Not 3%. Three cents. Transport minister Óscar Puente is putting the spending down to the fact that Spain keeps smashing its own passenger records: 309 million in 2024, 321 million in 2025 and already past 190 million in the first seven months of this year alone.

Terminals get the biggest slice of that investment at €2.85 billion, with airfields and security also getting a healthy chunk. Regionally, Madrid takes the lion's share at €4.48 billion and Catalonia gets just under €2 billion, but there's plenty heading south and east too.

Alicante-Elche is in line for €868 million, the biggest piece of the Valencian Community's share, mostly going on terminal expansion, airfield work and security upgrades, with Valencia airport picking up another €402 million. The Valencian tourism minister Marián Cano didn't seem overly grateful, calling instead for "fewer announcements and more action" and pointing out that the region's airports have outgrown what they were designed for.

Given Alicante's numbers, it's hard to disagree: August alone saw 2.3 million passengers through the terminal, up 11.4% on last year, and the airport is on course to smash its all-time annual record of 19.9 million set back in 2015.

British travellers remain the backbone of that growth, with roughly 800,000 passing through in August alone, well ahead of Germany in second place. It was also the fastest growing of Spain's five busiest airports in August, comfortably outpacing Madrid, Barcelona, Palma and Málaga.

Down on the Costa del Sol, €830 million is heading Málaga's way as part of a wider expansion expected to cost €1.5 billion in total once everything is finished. The plan will take the airport's capacity from 30 million passengers a year up to 36 million, with the terminal building growing from 80,000 to 140,000 square metres.

Given Málaga handled just over three million passengers in August alone, up 6.6% on last year, that extra breathing room cannot come soon enough.

The Region of Murcia's Corvera airport is having a strong year too, with more than 700,000 passengers through the doors between January and August, up 8.4% on last year. International travel is doing most of the heavy lifting, while domestic numbers are climbing even faster in percentage terms.

There is also good news for anyone wanting to reach Amsterdam without changing planes as regional president Fernando López Miras has confirmed a new direct Transavia route from Corvera to Schipholostarting March 30, 2027, flying three times a week. Tickets go on sale this week.

With the Netherlands already a solid source of visitors to the region, it looks like a smart bit of route planning, and with Volotea also hinting at extra flights and a possible permanent base at Corvera, the airport's momentum shows no sign of slowing.

Punctuality was the real sore point this summer, especially if you flew through Palma. It was the worst performing major airport in the country, with only 60.5% of flights leaving on time between June and August, and a separate Eurocontrol report puts it third worst in the whole of Europe, behind only Zurich and Lisbon.

Reus and Ibiza weren’t much better, and tit just seems that these are the airports getting the most tourists relative to what they were built to handle.

Spain accounted for 17% of all flight delays across Europe this summer, with the average delay per route up 14% on last year. To be fair, things had already been worse earlier in the year, when Spain's on-time performance sank to just 63.3% in the first half of 2026, some fifteen points below the same period in 2025.

For a bit of light relief, the most punctual airport in Spain was El Hierro, a tiny strip in the Canary Islands with a runway too short for anything but turboprops, connecting to just two other airports and handling 88 flights over the entire last weekend of August. Madrid-Barajas handled nearly 5,000 in the same window.

 

The secret to a perfectly punctual flight, it turns out, is simply not being popular.

Across the country, more than a quarter of all flights this summer suffered some kind of delay or cancellation, affecting over 49 million passengers. AirHelp reckons around 561,000 of those could be owed compensation, so if your summer holiday involved a very long wait at the gate, it might be worth checking what you're entitled to.

 

Murcia

It's been another busy week around the Region of Murcia, so let's take a look at some of the stories you may have missed. After more than four years without a direct passenger train to Madrid, there may finally be some movement on the Cartagena-Chinchilla line. The railway has been closed to passenger services since 2022, and what was originally expected to be a temporary interruption has stretched into its fifth year.

Now, almost 12,000 people have signed a petition calling for the direct service to return. Campaign group Asociación Cultural Despierta CT has taken the issue directly to the Government, registering a letter with the Presidency of the Government addressed to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

The timing is interesting because just days later, Government delegate in Murcia Francisco Lucas said the works on the line are now “almost finished”.

He has previously said he is personally committed to restoring the connection by the end of 2026, although there is still one rather important detail missing: there is no confirmed reopening date.

The line is also expected to be used for freight when it reopens, while work continues around La Encina in Alicante. For passengers, though, the question is still when they will once again be able to get on a direct train from Cartagena towards Madrid. For a city that has had a rail connection with Madrid since the 19th century, it’s a service many people would like to see back.

And speaking of getting around, if you're one of those people who keeps meaning to book the ITV and then somehow manages to forget about it, you're certainly not alone. But you might want to move it up the list.

Almost 12,800 fines were handed out to drivers in the Region of Murcia for having an expired ITV during the first six months of 2026. That works out at around 70 fines every day. The good news is that the number is falling. There were 14,276 fines during the first half of 2024, followed by 13,683 in 2025 and 12,792 this year. It is now the second most common traffic offence in the Region, behind speeding.

There is another detail worth knowing too. You don't necessarily have to be driving the car to get into trouble. A vehicle parked on a public road can also be fined if its ITV has expired.

Murcia also has a fairly old car fleet, with the average vehicle on the roads aged 15.5 years. More than half are over 15 years old, which can make passing the inspection more difficult and any necessary repairs more expensive. Around 18% of vehicles failed their first ITV inspection in Murcia during the first half of this year, so if yours is coming up, it might be worth giving those tyres, lights and brakes a quick check before you go.

And from something that can cause problems for drivers, to something that can literally shake the ground beneath our feet. Murcia has recorded more than 260 earthquakes this year. More than 6,100 earthquakes have been recorded in the Region of Murcia since 1900, with more than 260 already registered in 2026.

Since 2020, the Region has experienced an earthquake roughly every day and a half. Before anyone starts eyeing the nearest doorway, though, most of these tremors are so small that nobody notices them. In fact, the number of recorded earthquakes has increased dramatically over the years, largely because the technology used to detect them has improved.

Only eight earthquakes were located in Murcia during the first decade of the 1900s. In 2010 alone, there were 2,342. Modern sensors can detect tiny tremors that would have gone completely unnoticed in the past. Most of the activity is concentrated around the Alhama de Murcia fault, with Aledo alone accounting for 995 recorded earthquakes.

The Region does, of course, have a serious seismic history. The 2011 Lorca earthquake killed nine people and damaged hundreds of buildings, while Cehegín, Mula and Bullas have also experienced significant earthquakes over the years.

Scientists are continuing to monitor the faults, including using 25 geophones along the 85-kilometre Alhama fault. Researchers are also looking at gases and cosmic radiation in a cave near Alhama de Murcia for possible changes linked to seismic activity.

There is still no reliable way to predict exactly when or where a significant earthquake will happen. For now, though, most of Murcia’s earthquakes are happening without us even noticing them.

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There's plenty going on for anyone hoping to get out and about this weekend too. Alhama de Murcia is pulling out all the stops this Saturday, with two cracking events happening on the same day, so take your pick, or try to squeeze in both.

First up, music lovers are in for a treat at the Teatro Cine Velasco, where a swing concert on Saturday September 19 celebrates the 60th birthday of local musician Juan Miguel Belchí. As Belchí puts it, the evening celebrates both his personal milestone and his life in music, and he's chuffed that some of his own compositions have made the setlist. He'll be joined by Maribel Castillo, Clemente Bonache, Julián and the Los Ases duo.

The concert gets underway at 9pm, with tickets a reasonable 10 euros, available from the lottery office in Calle del Mercado or at the box office on the night.

If engines are more your thing than swing bands, head to the fairground in the Nueva Espuña district for the 17th edition of Alhama's classic vehicle rally, also on Saturday September 19.

Things fire up at 4.30pm, it's a proper family day out with races, games, live music and a museum-worthy line-up of old vehicles. Entry costs 5 euros, with proceeds going to the Asociación del Síndrome 22q Levante charity, and anyone keen to bring their own vehicle can call 657 858800 or 619 887411.

There's a trial bike display featuring two-time world champion Dani Cegarra, a prize draw as the sun goes down, and even Spain's youngest professional ham slicer, David García Cánovas, showing off his skills.

You can check them all out in detail here and remember that to see more events coming up soon in the Murcia area, you just have to look at our EVENTS DIARY:

 

Spain

Property, gas, fuel. Whichever way you look at the cost of living in Spain right now, the numbers are heading the wrong way.

Property prices have risen by 36.3% over the past three years, while wages have crawled up by just 12.3% in the same period, according to Spain's National Statistics Institute. Even inflation hasn’t kept pace with housing, with consumer prices up 9.2% over the same three years, nowhere near enough to explain what's happening to the cost of a home.

Prices have now risen for 49 consecutive quarters, climbing without a break since 2014 and more than doubling over that period. The annual rate did ease slightly to 12.2% in the second quarter of this year, down from 12.9% at the start of 2026, but that's still close to the record 13.1% set in early 2007, right before the crash.

Salaries agreed through collective bargaining are up just over 3% this year, and looking back over the past decade the gap is massive: wages up 36.1% since 2016, property prices up 91.1%.

An average home now costs the equivalent of more than eight years of gross household income, up from 6.7 years back in 2016. Unsurprisingly, sales are starting to slow, down 2.6% in the first half of this year, while almost 75% of purchases are now financed with a mortgage, up from 68% last year.

With Spain building around 100,000 homes a year against a need for more than 200,000, don't expect this one to sort itself out any time soon.

Anyone who heats their home with a butane cylinder over winter is about to feel it too, with the price of a standard 12.5kg bottle rising 4.96% to €18.84 from Tuesday. That's the highest it's been in four years, but still shy of the all-time record of €19.55 set in 2022.

A temporary cut to the Hydrocarbons Tax was supposed to soften the blow, but rising raw material costs, higher freight charges and a stronger euro have eaten into that saving. The price is reviewed every two months and capped at a 5% swing either way, so there's a limit to how much worse it can get in one go at least.

Butane remains a lifeline for households without mains gas, even though usage has actually dropped by more than 12% since 2021 as people switch to other sources.

But fuel is arguably what’s hitting people hardest of all right now. Spain's inflation rate hit 4.3% in August, the highest since February 2023, largely thanks to fuel prices jumping 24% year on year, with diesel up 30.3% and petrol up 16.9%.

More than 2,200 petrol stations across the country are now charging above €2 a litre, and where you fill up really does matter. The most expensive petrol in the latest data was €2.399 a litre in Maó, Mallorca, while the cheapest was €1.244 in Las Palmas, a gap of well over €1 a litre.

To make matters worse, the government's fuel discounts (20 cents off diesel, 5 cents off petrol) are due to expire at the end of September, with no extension confirmed yet despite calls from the service station owners' association.

Worth bookmarking the government's Geoportal site if you want to shop around before filling up.

Don’t forget to join our Driving in Spain Facebook group and you can check out all the latest motoring and travel news here.

Alicante

There's plenty to catch up on around the Alicante Province and the Costa Blanca this week, starting with some good news for residents who have spent years dealing with long waiting times at Torrevieja University Hospital. The Valencian Government has announced plans for a €175 million expansion, which will see the hospital grow considerably, with new facilities, more beds and hundreds of additional staff.

The project will add around 30,000 square metres to the hospital, increasing its built area by 75%. The extra space will be built on an adjoining plot of land handed over by Torrevieja Town Hall. Once completed, the hospital will have 457 beds, compared with its current 270, as well as 150 new outpatient consultation rooms and four additional operating theatres. There will also be new delivery rooms, an outpatient surgery unit and expanded intensive care and dialysis facilities. The plans are expected to take five years to complete, with the work divided into three phases. 

The hospital serves ten municipalities in the Torrevieja Health Department, an area with more than 225,000 residents. That number increases by a lot during the summer months, when the Costa Blanca welcomes thousands of visitors.

There are also plans for additional medical staff and improvements to health centres across the area, including Los Montesinos, San Miguel de Salinas, Guardamar del Segura, La Loma, Pilar de la Horadada and Orihuela Costa. For now, the project is still at the planning stage, but it could bring some much-needed extra capacity to local healthcare.

And with so many more cars on the roads during the summer, it's perhaps no surprise that road safety is also getting plenty of attention. Almost 100 drivers in Alicante faced court in July, with more visitors arriving in the province and, for many people, a few more late nights. This means that naturally enough, there will be increased traffic enforcement.

Figures from the Guardia Civil show that 92 drivers in Alicante province were brought before the courts for alleged road safety offences in July. Driving without a valid licence or permit accounted for the largest number of cases, with 47 drivers investigated. Drink-driving followed closely behind, with 37 cases. The remaining offences included reckless driving, driving under the influence of drugs, speeding and leaving the scene of an accident.

Across the entire Valencian Community, 225 drivers were brought before the courts for road safety offences during the month. Drink-driving was the most common charge, accounting for 116 cases.

And if you're looking for something a little more enjoyable to do this month, there are a couple of local events coming up that might be worth a look. If you're around Orihuela Costa this Saturday, September 19, Wolfe Tones Irish Bar in Dream Hills is hosting a charity morning in aid of Casa Cuna.
The event runs from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, with local stalls, special offers and prizes, all helping to raise money for the organisation.

Casa Cuna supports pregnant women and mothers with children who are facing financial difficulties and don't have family or social support. It provides shelter and assistance, helping families move towards greater stability. The event will be hosted by local entertainer Rain O'Connor, so there should be plenty going on throughout the morning. Everyone is welcome, and it's a chance to enjoy a few hours out while supporting a local cause.

And finally, La Zenia Boulevard is celebrating its 14th anniversary this September, with a programme of free entertainment, family activities and prizes. The celebrations began on September 12 with a Sunset Ballet Gala in Plaza Mayor.

But there are more activities planned for families, including games, music, dancing and a gymkhana with eight challenges for children. The centre's mascots, Zimbo and Peludo, will also be joining in the birthday celebrations. The big anniversary event takes place on Saturday, September 26, when the shopping centre will host its Non-stop Party.

DJ Nono and his dancers will provide the music, with a travelling brass band, stilt walkers, glitter make-up, gifts and plenty of confetti expected throughout the afternoon. There will also be special promotions and entertainment taking place around the centre.

If you fancy trying your luck while you're there, a scratch-and-win promotion is running from September 12 to 27. Customers spending at least €50 can enter for the chance to win Zenia Boulevard gift cards, anniversary mugs and drinks at participating businesses.

 

Andalucia

Andalucía has just wrapped up its second hottest summer on record, pipped only by last year, and autumn is refusing to take the hint. The average temperature across June, July and August came in at 26.6°C, a full 1.7 degrees above the thirty-year average, according to Juan de Dios del Pino, the regional delegate for Aemet, Spain's national meteorological agency. 

Ceuta had its warmest summer since records began, Melilla its third warmest, and June alone was the hottest ever logged for the region. Del Pino reckons the whole summer could have gone down as an outright record if not for ten days of cooler westerly winds between August 20 and 29, a small mercy that arrived just in time. 

And don't pack the fan away just yet. Aemet puts the odds of a warmer than normal autumn at 60%, rising to 70% in the east of the region, and September has already shown its hand. 

El Granado in Huelva hit a scorching 45.7°C on September 3, the highest temperature recorded anywhere in Spain this year and a new September record for that station. 

By September 13, average temperatures nationwide were running more than four degrees above normal, records were tumbling in Zaragoza and Barcelona, and the spell could yet earn the title of Spain's fifth September heatwave on record. Not exactly the gentle autumn cooldown anyone was hoping for.

Thankfully, the skies above Almería had something a bit more magical to offer than sheer heat. The Calar Alto Observatory in the Sierra de Filabres mountains bagged a rare hat-trick within 24 hours earlier this month: two fireballs and a red sprite. 

The first, a chunk of comet debris, blazed into the atmosphere above Ciudad Real at a jaw-dropping 128,000 kilometres per hour in the early hours of September 10. 

Later that same night came the red sprite, an electrical flicker so fleeting it lasts mere milliseconds, before a second, even faster fireball lit up the sky near the Balearic Islands the following morning. 
All three were analysed by Professor José María Madiedo of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucía, proof that even in the middle of a heat-battered summer, the night sky can still steal the show.

And if shooting stars aren't quite your thing and you prefer a gentler night time glow, Mojácar has a softer kind of magic lined up. The town's beloved Noche de las Velas, or Night of the Candles, returns on Saturday September 19, when the streetlights in the historic old town go dark and thousands of candles take over instead. 

Expect acoustic concerts, a batucada parade and a spot of stargazing, with the candlelight taking hold from around 8.30pm or 9pm and lasting until roughly 11.30pm. It's the perfect excuse to see one of Andalucía's prettiest hilltop towns looking utterly different after dark and after a summer like this one, a cooler evening stroll by candlelight sounds rather appealing.
 

You may have missed…

1. Guardia Civil could be sent to drivers who activate Spain’s V16 emergency beacon - Spain's controversial V16 emergency beacon could soon trigger a more direct response from the Guardia Civil, with the DGT preparing new instructions requiring traffic patrols to assist drivers whenever the connected device is activated.
2. Murcia salaries among the lowest in Spain and struggle to keep up with rising prices - Workers in the Region of Murcia may have seen their salaries increase a bit last year, but rising prices mean their money still does not go quite as far.
3. Tuéjar wildfire burns 690 hectares and forces evacuations - Firefighters are working to contain a major wildfire in Tuéjar, Valencia, after the flames burned an estimated 690 hectares of land and spread across a perimeter of around 17 kilometres.
4. Another earthquake shakes Granada after weeks of intense seismic activity - A 3.1 magnitude earthquake has been felt in Granada as the area continues to experience tremors following weeks of intense seismic activity.

 

That’s all for this week’s Spanish News Today Editor’s Roundup. Thanks for reading - stay safe, have a lovely week, and we’ll be back with more news next week.

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