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WORKING IN SPAIN

20 business ideas that can work in rural Spain

Rural Spain has a big problem with underpopulation and a lack of services. But it is in many ways a blank canvas, "a land of opportunities". Here are 20 business ideas that could help both you and your new rural community.

Published: 1 March 2023 11:05 CET
Updated: 3 April 2024 08:14 CEST
20 business ideas that can work in rural Spain
Marketing rural produce could be a great business idea in Spain. Photo: ANDER GILLENEA / AFP

España vaciada or ‘Empty Spain’ refers to huge rural areas in the country’s interior that have suffered severe depopulation over the past decades.

Provinces and regions such as Soria, Teruel, Cuenca and parts of Extremadura are the most affected in Spain and are among the least populated areas in Europe. It is estimated that 3,403 municipalities in Spain are at serious risk of depopulation.

A life in the Spanish countryside can be blissful, especially for those who wish to get away from Spain’s busy and noisy cities, but the matter of work is one of the main drawbacks for many people considering the move, especially those of working age.

At Spain’s 4th Congress on Depopulation and Demographic Challenges in the city of Albacete in 2023, there was talk of action rather than victimisation, with calls for ‘Empty Spain’ to be referred to as ‘The Spain of Opportunities’ instead. 

READ ALSO: How ‘Empty Spain’ is now a political party

In that vein, rural Spain offers far cheaper property and rental prices, an impressive and growing network of villages with fast internet, a lack of competition and the welcoming attitude of locals who want new arrivals to breathe life into their waning municipalities.

So if you’re considering what kind of businesses you could set up in rural Spain, here are 20 ideas to get you started.

Door-to-door errands
Many businesses and physical shops have been closing down in rural Spain, opening the way for door-to-door services from larger towns. This could be for anything from gardening to furniture delivery to clothes shopping.

Service aggregator
Good online services are few and far between in rural Spain, so one good option could be to gather together lists of local plumbers, painters, electricians, etc and present them in one place so that people only have to go to one website to find what they need.

READ ALSO: The Spanish regions where the population has declined the most

Mobile beauty services
Often those in rural villages might have to travel a long way to get their hair done or have any beauty treatments such as waxing or manicures, so there’s a lot of scope for someone willing to provide mobile services door-to-door.

Specialised training centres
Training centres are severely lacking in rural communities in Spain and often people have to travel several hours to a large city if they want to undertake some type of course. An online training centre with face-to-face support and assistance could be a great idea.

Food delivery services
We take companies like Glovo and Just Eat for granted in big cities, but in the countryside, these are often just not available. One good business idea could be a food delivery service with its own kitchen to supply rural areas.

Private minibuses
Public transport can be spotty and unreliable in underpopulated areas (or even non-existent), so a minibus service offering set routes for people to be able to go shopping or visit nearby towns could be a profitable venture.

Co-living spaces
Co-living spaces have become all the rage in places popular with digital nomads – basically large houses where people can live together and enjoy a range of services. It could be ideal in places where they aren’t many options available to rent.

READ ALSO: How to find Spanish villages that are helping people to move there

Co-working spaces
With Spain’s Startups Law approved and the digital nomad visa now available, there may be an increase in remote workers who want to experience rural Spain. They will, however, need services like a good internet connection and office spaces, so co-working spaces will be in demand. 

Online communication services
In areas with a good internet connection, it’s possible to create online communication businesses such as podcasts, online newspapers or newsletters to connect communities.

Ecotourism companies
Of course, rural or eco-tourism companies are a no-brainer, especially if you are located close to natural and national parks or areas of stunning natural beauty. It could feature activities such as bird watching, hiking excursions or even photography tours.

Business services
If you are good at what you do, you could help other local businesses by providing marketing services, legal advice or digital services, so that they can thrive too.

Artisanal/Farmer’s markets
Creating places so that locals can sell their local produce could be another great idea in rural communities, especially if people can find them all in one spot. 

Reclaim lost trades
Basket makers, knife sharpeners and blacksmiths are just some of the professions which are scarce these days, but in rural areas, there may still be a need for them, plus many of the places where you can do them such as old mills etc. still exist. 

Local gourmet produce
There is more and more demand for local kilometre 0 produce, which you could market and turn into a gourmet product for nearby towns. 

Workshops or factories producing natural products
One advantage that the countryside has is that the land to build an industrial plant is much cheaper and, in addition, you have better access to raw materials too.

Restoration of towns and villages
With more than 3,000 abandoned towns in Spain, there are a whole array of profitable ideas that they could become, from language camps for foreigners to tourist attractions or hotel villages.

Gym and wellness services
One of the big problems in rural Spain is that people are so spread out and often don’t get the chance for certain services like in cities. Why not start yoga or Zumba classes and travel around to different areas so that people can partake in these activities?

Digital intermediation
More and more services are going online, but in rural areas people may not be used to this yet and still hold on to old practices. By acting as an intermediary, your business could help people through the digital transformation process.

Recovery and care of the environment
Recovering old olive trees to mill for oil or planting new crops could be a business idea that will help both the rural communities and the environment.

Basic services
Don’t forget that basic services are also needed in rural villages such as bakeries, hairdressers, bars, mobile repair shops, pharmacies and local stores, and these can be of great benefit to the local communities too.

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PENSIONS

Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

As the retirement of baby boomers looms, Spain's ageing population and declining birth rate mean the country will need millions of foreign workers to maintain its public pension pot and reinforce the labour market, the Bank of Spain has warned.

Published: 2 May 2024 09:46 CEST
Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

A recent study by the Bank of Spain estimates that the country will need up to 25 million more immigrant workers by 2053 in order to combat demographic ageing and maintain the ratio of workers to pensioners in order to support the pension system.

Without an influx of more foreign workers or sudden increase in the birth rate in Spain, something that seems very unlikely, experts fear that the growing disparity between working age people and pensioners could put the public pensions system in danger in the medium to long-term.

Like in many countries in the western world, the Spanish population is ageing, with the percentage of the population over 65 years of age predicted to peak in 2050, when almost one in three will be 65 years old or older.

READ ALSO: Spain’s over 65s exceed 20 percent of the population for the first time

By 2035 around one in four (26.0 percent) of Spaniards are expected to be 65 or older. That figure is currently around one fifth of the population.

Furthermore, this is compounded by falling birth rates. Spain’s birth rate hit a record low in 2023, falling to its lowest level since records began, according to INE data. Spain’s fertility rate is the second lowest in the European Union, with Eurostat figures showing there were just 1.19 births per woman in Spain in 2021, compared with 1.13 in Malta and 1.25 in Italy.

If nothing changes, the current ratio of 3.8 people of working age for every pensioner is predicted to plummet to just 2.1 by 2053, according to INE projections.

Maintaining this ratio seems unlikely moving forward, according to the report’s conclusions, something that would put pressure on pensions without significantly increasing social security contributions among working age people.

READ ALSO: Older and more diverse: What Spain’s population will be like in 50 years

The Bank of Spain report noted that “immigrants have high labour participation rates, generally above those of natives – in 2022, 70 percent and 56.5 percent, respectively.”

In three decades’ time, the INE expects Spain to have 14.8 million pensioners, 18 million Spanish nationals of working age and 12 million foreigners. To maintain the ratio, the Bank of Spain forecasts that the working immigrant population would have to rise by more than 25 million to a total of 37 million overall.

Of course, the arrival of 25 million working-age foreigners seems unlikely, if not impossible. To achieve this, around 1 million net migrants would have to enter Spain each year (discounting departures), a figure unprecedented in recent history. To put the figure in context, between 2002 and 2022 net arrivals in Spain reached five million, roughly five times less than what would be necessary to maintain the balance between workers and pensioners.

READ ALSO: ‘Homologación’ – How Spain is ruining the careers of thousands of qualified foreigners

Putting the economics aside, even if such an increase were statistically plausible, such a surge in net migration would be contentious both politically and socially. And it’s not even certain that increased migrant flows would be able to fill the gap in working age people and bolster public pensions: “The capacity of migratory flows to significantly mitigate the process of population ageing is limited,” the Bank of Spain warned in its report. 

What these projections suggest is that Spain’s public pension system will, in coming decades, likely have to be sustained by the contribution of fewer workers overall. This likely means higher social security payments. “Migratory flows have been very dynamic in recent years, but it does not seem likely that they can avoid the process of population ageing… nor completely resolve the imbalances that could arise in the Spanish labour market in the future,” the report stated.

The problem of ageing will also be transferred to the labour market and the types of jobs filled in the future. Increased migratory flows will soften the effect, but the labour characteristics of migrants coming to Spain may not match the job market in the coming decades. The jobs of the future, increasingly digital, will likely require qualifications that many of the migrants expected to arrive in the coming years do not have.

Consequently, the Bank of Spain suggests that “without significant changes in the nature of migratory flows, it does not seem likely that… [they] can completely resolve the mismatches between labour supply and demand that could occur in the coming years in the Spanish labour market.”

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