Average Annual Salary in Spain (2025)
Average annual wages in Spain from 1990 to 2025, expressed in constant 2025 USD at purchasing power parity. At $57,779 in 2025, Spain sits approximately 11% below the OECD average of $64,809. Source: OECD Average Annual Wages dataset.
Data
| Year | Avg. Annual Wage (USD PPP) | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 49,766 | n/a |
| 1991 | 51,353 | +3.2% |
| 1992 | 53,251 | +3.7% |
| 1993 | 54,101 | +1.6% |
| 1994 | 54,666 | +1.0% |
| 1995 | 53,582 | -2.0% |
| 1996 | 54,419 | +1.6% |
| 1997 | 54,386 | -0.1% |
| 1998 | 54,747 | +0.7% |
| 1999 | 54,655 | -0.2% |
| 2000 | 53,409 | -2.3% |
| 2001 | 53,110 | -0.6% |
| 2002 | 53,347 | +0.4% |
| 2003 | 53,088 | -0.5% |
| 2004 | 52,421 | -1.3% |
| 2005 | 52,655 | +0.4% |
| 2006 | 52,436 | -0.4% |
| 2007 | 53,018 | +1.1% |
| 2008 | 54,944 | +3.6% |
| 2009 | 58,456 | +6.4% |
| 2010 | 58,022 | -0.7% |
| 2011 | 57,002 | -1.8% |
| 2012 | 55,608 | -2.4% |
| 2013 | 55,492 | -0.2% |
| 2014 | 55,362 | -0.2% |
| 2015 | 56,334 | +1.8% |
| 2016 | 56,012 | -0.6% |
| 2017 | 55,306 | -1.3% |
| 2018 | 55,186 | -0.2% |
| 2019 | 56,009 | +1.5% |
| 2020 | 55,380 | -1.1% |
| 2021 | 57,625 | +4.1% |
| 2022 | 56,683 | -1.6% |
| 2023 | 56,286 | -0.7% |
| 2024 | 57,083 | +1.4% |
| 2025 | 57,779 | +1.2% |
About this Dataset
In 2025, Spain's average annual salary stood at $57,779 in constant 2025 USD, adjusted for purchasing power parity. That is approximately 11% below the OECD-wide average of $64,809, placing Spain in the lower-middle tier of OECD economies. The figure covers mean gross wages for a full-time, full-year equivalent employee across the total economy, compiled by the OECD Centre for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs from national accounts and labour force surveys.
Spain's 2025 average wage of $57,779 is $7,030 below the OECD average of $64,809. Real wage growth over the past decade was roughly 2.6% between 2015 and 2025. For labour cost modelling, total employer cost in Spain typically runs 25–35% above the gross wage once social security contributions are included.
The dataset covers Spain from 1990 to 2025 at annual frequency. Key methodological notes:
- Unit: Constant 2025 US dollars, adjusted for purchasing power parity using OECD deflators
- Definition: Mean gross annual wage of full-time, full-year equivalent employees, total economy
- Coverage: 1990–2025, annual frequency, Spain (ISO-3: ESP)
- Measure code: WG (average wage) with USD_PPP unit measure, series AV_AN_WAGE
- Publisher: OECD Centre for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS.SAE)
The most striking feature of Spain's wage series is the 2009 spike. Average wages jumped 3.6% in 2008 and a further 6.4% in 2009, reaching $58,456 — the highest point in the 36-year record. This was not a genuine wage boom. Spain's construction sector collapsed during the global financial crisis, shedding several million low-wage workers in a short period. The remaining employed workforce had a higher average wage, pushing the statistical mean upward even as GDP and total employment fell sharply. This composition effect is a known feature of aggregate average wage series during severe recessions with uneven job loss across skill levels.
From 2010 to 2014, wages fell as Spain underwent fiscal consolidation and internal devaluation. Average wages dropped from $58,022 in 2010 to $55,362 in 2014, a real decline of 4.6% over four years. Public sector wage cuts, labour market reforms under the 2012 Ley de Reforma Laboral, and rising long-term unemployment all contributed. Recovery from 2015 was gradual: wages drifted back toward $56,009 by 2019, without recovering the 2009 peak.
The COVID-19 shock in 2020 hit harder than in several neighbouring economies (-1.1%, from $56,009 to $55,380), even though Spain's ERTE (Expediente de Regulación Temporal de Empleo) furlough scheme kept most workers formally employed. A sharp rebound followed in 2021 (+4.1%, to $57,625), before a real contraction in 2022 (-1.6%, to $56,683) as inflation accelerated faster than nominal wages. Wages have since edged up: $56,286 in 2023, $57,083 in 2024, and $57,779 in 2025 (+1.2%), suggesting nominal gains are now running modestly ahead of price growth.
Spain's structural wage gap relative to the OECD average reflects several labour market features: a high share of temporary and part-time contracts (Spain has typically had the EU's highest share of involuntary temporary employment), a sectoral mix weighted toward lower-productivity services such as hospitality and retail, and productivity growth that has lagged northern European peers since the early 2000s. The government's sustained SMI increases since 2019 have raised the wage floor significantly, but analysts benchmarking labour costs for Spanish operations or consumer-facing businesses should treat the OECD mean as an indicator of full-time equivalent costs rather than typical take-home pay across the workforce.