Spain Now Has More Pets Than Young People Under 30 — Over 15 Million, Official Data Shows

Spain's Ministry of Social Rights has for the first time published official statistics on pets. According to data obtained from regional registries for the period from 2021 to 2025, there are 15,171,569 pets in the country. This is 14% more than five years ago.

According to INE data, in 2025 there were 14,432,931 people under the age of 30 living in Spain. As a result, there are already more pets in the country than young people under 30. And if you compare only with the number of children under 10 (3.86 million), there are already almost four times as many pets.

The most popular pets in Spain are dogs. A total of 7.56 million were registered — almost half of all pets. In second place are cats — 5.62 million, or 37%. The remaining 13% are accounted for by rabbits, birds, turtles, and reptiles. Notably, it is cats that showed the largest increase over five years — more than a million animals, whereas the number of dogs grew by only 665,000.

Ceuta and Melilla were the only regions where more cats than dogs were registered. Andalusia leads in the number of pets — 3.26 million. It is followed by Catalonia (1.99 million) and Madrid (1.89 million). The Valencian Community is the only region besides the top three to pass the one-million mark, with 1,533,551 animals registered there. The fewest pets are in Ceuta (18,627), Melilla (23,618), and La Rioja (96,070).