Spain's business landscape has changed

I remember watching Spain's economy unravel in 2008 and thinking, how did nobody see this coming? The Spain that made investors nervous in 2008 was built on construction.

16% of an entire country's economy resting on one sector, more than double the EU average. Less a housing boom and more a country that had bet everything on the price of bricks going up forever.

When it collapsed, it took the banks, the regional governments and the savings banks with it.

That's the Spain a lot of people are still pricing in but it's not the Spain of today. We've spent nearly 20 years rebuilding on completely different foundations.

Foreign investment into tech and information services went from €21 million to €2.6 billion between 2019 and 2024.

Construction went from nearly a fifth of the economy to only 6% of GDP. Technology and professional services have grown from 4% to 12%.

Non-tourism services now exceed tourism in export value, a shift that nobody anticipated a decade ago.

Three credit rating upgrades in 2025, from Fitch, Moody's and S&P, all cited economic diversification as well as fiscal improvement... and trust me, rating agencies don't give upgrades for effort.

The scepticism about Spain destination is understandable but it's based on a version of the economy that no longer exists.

Spain has changed but business decision-makers haven't updated their view and are often still working from a 2009 mental model.

Are you?

Post 6 of 16 in the Beyond the Sun & Sangria series.

++ I'm Rolf. I write about business compliance, Spanish market entry, and cross-border accountancy. Follow me if that's of interest.