canary islands second lowest salary spain 2025

Canary Islands wages second lowest in Spain despite tourism boom

Tourism boom fails to lift wages

Three consecutive record-breaking years for tourism in the Canary Islands (2023, 2024 and 2025, each setting new highs for total visitor arrivals) have done nothing to improve the archipelago’s position in the ranking of Spain’s autonomous communities by average annual salary paid to workers. This refers to the net amount an employee receives in their payslip or has paid into their bank account.

The stark reality is that the Canary Islands ended 2025 as the region with the second lowest average annual salary in Spain, virtually neck and neck with Extremadura, which occupies last place. This is a pattern that repeats itself year after year, almost identically, since the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic was left behind. It is a persistent truth that endures despite the excellent macroeconomic results delivered by the tourism sector, according to official and already published data.

Average salary just above €23,000

The services sector, so dominant across the islands, is also the main private employer. According to the Annual Labour Cost Survey (2025), released this Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the average salary or wage received by a local worker last year was €23,264. This compares with a Spanish national average of €28,411 per year and €28,742 in the Balearic Islands, which sits comfortably above the national figure and far ahead of the Canary Islands. Extremadura recorded €23,254, the lowest annual salary of any autonomous community in the country. As can be seen, history repeats itself for yet another year.

Cheapest labour for employers

At the same time as the Canary Islands has the second poorest average salary in Spain, almost identical to that of Extremadura, the archipelago is also the territory where hiring labour is cheapest for employers – a clear cause-and-effect relationship. The net labour cost (excluding subsidies and deductions) in the islands was an average of €32,017 per year in 2025, compared to €31,657 in Extremadura.

The highest net labour costs in the reference year were recorded in the Community of Madrid (€45,983), the Basque Country (€44,034) and the Foral Community of Navarre (€41,697). At the other end of the scale, the lowest were the aforementioned Extremadura and the Canary Islands, in last and second-to-last place, followed by the Region of Murcia (€33,293). The national average for this same variable per worker, but in gross terms, reached €38,749 in 2025, an increase of 3.3% on the previous year. The net figure, excluding subsidies and deductions, rose by 3.2% to €38,512.

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