The reasons why Spain is a top choice for American digital nomads

According to a survey by the Expatsi website, a company which helps Americans move abroad, over the past year more than 113,000 respondents said they were considering leaving the US to work remotely from other locations around the world.

Sixty-eight percent of them preferred a European destination and Portugal and Spain ranked first and second place when it came to choosing a favoured country to work from.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the profile of the digital nomad looking to leave the US isn’t the traditional type of remote worker that stays in a country for a few months and then continues travelling. Many of them want to stay in Spain for several years.

In fact, 44 percent are professionals with partners and 39 percent are between 25 and 44 years old. There is also a high number of workers between 55 and 65 years old.

And 30 percent of them have confessed that they intend to stay indefinitely in their chosen countries, in which case they can't technically be considered digital nomads at all, despite the fact that they work remotely.

So why is Spain such a popular destination for Americans to come to live and work?

A more stable political climate

A total of 56 percent of respondents said that the US has become too conservative and that the political climate is too polarised (53 percent) - these both being the reasons that have grown most over the past year for those wanting to leave the US. Although Spain has had its fair share of divisive politics, many believe that the country is currently in a better and more stable position since than the US under President Donald Trump.

READ ALSO: Trump, safety and quality of life - Why our American readers are moving to Spain

Less gun violence

Forty-eight percent of respondents say that one of their reasons for wanting to live outside the US is to avoid the threat of gun violence. According to website Nation Master, the US ranks first in the world when it comes to gun crime, while Spain ranks 59th, and the homicide rate was nine times higher in the US than in Spain. This makes Spain a much safer destination and one of the reasons people want to move here.

Universal healthcare

Two thirds or 68 percent of respondents said that they wanted to move to a country with universal or public healthcare. Spain has a very good public healthcare system, which is ranked 8th in the world by the Health Care Index. It’s important to remember though that only self-employed digital nomads in Spain who pay their own social security will be able to access it. Those who are employed by companies abroad will either have to get their company to register with social security and pay it for them or get private health insurance. Having said that, both social security and private health insurance are much cheaper than health insurance in the US.

READ ALSO: How does Spain's healthcare system compare with the US?

Greater acceptance of homosexual relationships

The fourth most popular reason (48 percent) of respondents gave for wanting to leave the US is that they are allowed “different freedoms”. A total of 60 percent said they were looking for a country where homosexual relations (60 percent) and same-sex marriage (56 percent) are permitted. In 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to legalise gay marriage, following the Netherlands and Belgium. Spain is a progressive country when it comes to LGBTQIA+ rights and generally people here are very open and accepting of homosexuality.

Language

Language is another reason why many Americans choose Spain. A total of 51 percent of those surveyed said that they would be willing to learn Spanish, while only 27 percent said French and 23 percent said Italian, even fewer said they would be willing to learn German. Spanish is the second most common non-English language spoken in the US and according to Forbes, the US also has the 2nd largest population of Spanish speakers in the world. Around 43 million people speak it the US already.

Landscape

When it comes to landscapes, Spain seems to tick all the boxes for Americans too. A total of 55 percent of those surveyed said they wanted beaches and coastlines in their new chosen countries, while 47 percent said mountains. Spain has both of these in abundance with a long coastline and the most Blue Flag beaches in the world, awarded to those beaches that meet demands of hygiene, water quality and accessibility. Spain is also home to countless mountain ranges, from the Pyrenees in the northeast to the Sierra Nevada in the south and the Picos de Europa in the northwest. Many of them boast excellent hiking trails, ski resorts and epic landscapes.

Right to self-determination of gender

A total of 58 percent of respondents said they wanted to move to a country where they had the freedom to determine their own gender. In early 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order proclaiming that the US will only recognise two sexes – male and female. While in early 2023, Spain passed its Ley de Trans or Trans Law, which states that “No person may be pressured to hide, suppress, deny, modify, or forcibly make visible their sexual orientation, gender expression and/or identity, sexual characteristics, or membership in an LGBTQIA family”. The law recognises the right of trans people to self-determine their gender identity, and depathologises trans people so that it’s not seen as an illness, but a personal decision.