Press Release - February 2026

• In 2025, the upward trend in supply in the student accommodation sector continued, with the opening of 22 sites adding around 7,700 new beds. At the end of that year, 1,169 student accommodation sites were in operation, offering 132,335 beds.

• Existing projects to open new sites are expected to raise the total number of beds in operation to around 139,500 at the end of the 2026-2027 two-year period.

• INFORMA's DBK Sectoral Observatory recently published these insights in the 'Student Accommodation' Special Basic Report.

Madrid, 17 February 2026.- According to INFORMA's (Cesce's subsidiary) DBK Sectoral Observatory—a leading provider of business, financial, sectoral, and marketing information in Spain and Portugal—at the end of 2025, 1,169 student accommodation sites were operating in Spain, offering 132,335 beds. Most are residential colleges, with 1,005 sites and 112,029 beds, while halls of residence totalled 164 sites and 20,306 beds.

In 2025, the number of sites rose by 22 and total bed capacity increased by 7,656, extending the strong growth trend seen in recent years. Over the last five years, the number of sites increased by over one hundred and the number of beds by more than 35,000.

Madrid stood out as the leading region, accounting for 21.7% of total beds. It was followed by Andalusia, with 17.0%, Catalonia, with 16.6%, and Castile and León (11.9%).

The sector showed rising concentration, with the top five entities, considering both public and private entities, accounting for 28.3% of bed capacity in 2025 (26.4% in 2024). This share rose to 37.4% (34.4% in 2024) for the top ten. 

In the coming fiscal years, the residential colleges sector will continue to consolidate as an attractive investment target, due to the persistence of a significant mismatch between available capacity and demand for accommodation.

Spain remains one of the leading destinations for international mobility programmes. In the 2023/2024 academic year, the number of incoming foreign students in the Spanish University System reached 159,002, of whom 95,378 were enrolled in degree mobility and 63,624 were enrolled in credit mobility programmes. Meanwhile, among resident students, in the 2022/2023 academic year, 32% of undergraduate students at on-campus universities enrolled at a university in a province other than the one where they usually live (a total of 363,462 students).

Against this backdrop, the development of numerous new projects will help extend the upward trend in bed capacity in 2026-2027, reaching 139,500 beds at the end of the two-year period.

Data Synthesis, 2025