Barcelona will reunite its international community on Saturday 24 October with a new edition of Barcelona et dona la benvinguda, Barcelona International Community Day. The Maritime Museum of Barcelona, in the old Drassanes Reials, will be the scene of this thirteenth edition, which comes with more participation and a broader program and continues to consolidate as the main welcome space for international professionals who have recently arrived in the city, as well as a reference event for all the people of the international community who live and work there.
This edition focuses on four areas especially relevant to the international community: linguistic integration, participation in community life, access to municipal services, and connection to the labor market. Promoted by the Barcelona City Council through the Directorate of International Economic Promotion, the day is open to both the international community and all those who want to connect with it and aims to promote knowledge of the resources, opportunities, and initiatives that the city offers.
As usual, the day will combine a fair of companies and entities that offer products, services, and initiatives aimed at international talent with a broad program of activities, workshops, and conferences. The venue will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and access will be free, with prior registration on the website barcelona.cat/internationalcommunityday.
A more diverse fair
One of the main spaces of the day will be, once again, the exhibitors' fair, which this year reaches 84 participants, the highest figure in the thirteen-year history of the Barcelona International Community Day. This growth is accompanied by a greater weight of public and associative organizations, which will represent 45% of the total, compared to 39% in the previous edition. Specifically, there will be 19 public entities, 35 companies, 19 associations, and 11 educational entities, and 26% of the exhibitors will participate for the first time.
The composition of the fair also reflects the expansion of the role that the Barcelona International Community Day has as a meeting point between the international community and the city. In addition to facilitating access to useful services and resources for life in Barcelona, the space connects participants with companies, entities, institutions, and initiatives that favor their participation in the economic and community life of the city.
Attendees will find services related to legal, real estate, health, education, and business fields, as well as resources for language learning. Companies specializing in relocation, international schools, business schools, sports activities, and other useful initiatives to facilitate settling in Barcelona will also participate.
Support in the integration process will be precisely one of the main axes of this edition. In this sense, the Barcelona International Community Day especially reinforces the linguistic field and doubles the presence of entities dedicated to promoting the learning and use of Catalan. The Centre de Normalització Lingüística (CPNL), the Ateneu Barcelonès, the Coordinadora d'Associacions per la Llengua Catalana, and the Speak Catalan initiative will participate.
Community participation will also gain space with the expansion of resources dedicated to volunteering and social participation. The Plataforma de Festes Majors de Barcelona and the Federació Catalana de Voluntariat Social will be present to publicize various entities and opportunities for the international community to get involved in community and associative projects in the city.
In parallel, the Barcelona City Council will reinforce its presence with an expanded institutional space that will bring together various municipal services in a single information point. Barcelona International Welcome, Barcelona Activa, Mercats i Comerç, Biblioteques de Barcelona, Torre Jussana, Barcelona Llibres, Guàrdia Urbana, Bombers, BSM and Barcelona Esports will offer resources and advice to facilitate the integration and daily life of international people.
Finally, the education sector will also have a prominent presence. In addition to the Barcelona Education Consortium, the fair will feature stands from various schools offering international curricula or degrees, business schools, and other educational centers.
A program to connect and discover
To this offer of services, resources, and initiatives concentrated at the fair, a program of activities will be added, which this year also grows to 68 proposals. The program will combine practical content to facilitate settling in Barcelona with sessions on access to the labor market, entrepreneurship, and networking, and will be complemented with cultural proposals, popular culture activities, and options designed for families.
Among the highlighted proposals will be debates on technology hubs and the professional opportunities Barcelona offers, as well as sessions on labor market trends and international entrepreneurship. The program will also include practical sessions on taxation, foreign affairs, housing, education, health, and volunteering, designed to answer some of the questions that are part of the daily life of the international community.
To this program will be added sectoral and community networking spaces and activities to encourage the learning and use of Catalan, which this year will double compared to the previous edition. The program will also include a guided visit to the Maritime Museum and various proposals designed to share the day with family and discover different expressions of the city's culture and life, from musical performances and a stand-up comedy show to a habanera singing with burnt rum and a parade of Chinese dragons and lions.
Employment will continue to be one of the central axes of the Barcelona International Community Day. In this area, Barcelona Activa will deploy various services throughout the day aimed at facilitating job placement, including the Empresa-Ocupación platform, a professional photography service for resumes, virtual reality tools to prepare for job interviews, and four practical workshops to improve job searching.
In this same area, the collaboration with Mobile World Capital Barcelona will take a step further this year beyond its usual participation as an exhibitor. The entity will promote the presence of multinational companies and technological hubs in search of international talent, who will be able to present their professional opportunities and establish contact with people interested in developing their career in Barcelona.
Six voices to welcome
As every year, the program of activities will feature the participation of the event's hosts (host ambassadors). They are six professionals from various countries who have settled in Barcelona and have developed their professional and life projects in the city. During the day, they will share their experiences with the attendees and discuss different ways of living and building a project in Barcelona.
The host ambassadors for this edition are Amber Jackson, an American entrepreneur specializing in communication, technology, and video games; the Chilean professor and researcher Patricio Reyes, currently coordinator of the Urban Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC); the Dutch Suzan Beers, founder of the inclusive sports initiative Equipo Sin Barreras; the Chinese journalist Ziliang Zhan, with 3 million followers on Chinese social networks; the Armenian Mariam Sargsyan, a PhD student in Business and Data Science; and the French audiovisual producer Clément Esso, co-founder of In The Mirror Films.
A day with the support of the city
To make this program possible and continue to expand the experience of the day, the Barcelona International Community Day will once again count on the collaboration of companies and institutions. Their support contributes to incorporating new activities, technical improvements, and complementary experiences that enrich the proposal.
Among the collaborating entities for this edition are Banc Sabadell, CaixaBank, Allianz, Eres Relocation, the Palau de la Música Catalana, Old Irish Pub, Grup Arenal and La Granja, as well as various media outlets as media partners specialized in content for Barcelona's international community.
This network of collaborations accompanies a day that, beyond concentrating services, activities, and resources in one space, aims to facilitate the connection of the international community with the city and its opportunities. In this sense, the Barcelona International Community Day reinforces its role as a reference space for reception, connection, and participation, with special attention to linguistic integration, volunteering, employment, and access to city services.
The impact of the 2025 edition
Data from the previous edition provides an idea of the scope this event has acquired and the diversity of profiles participating. The Barcelona International Community Day 2025 had 5,432 registered attendees from 131 countries of origin, with 77.7% foreigners and 22.3% locals.
One in four Barcelona residents is foreign, and 182 nationalities coexist in the city, in addition to Spanish
Diversity is also reflected in how long participants from the previous edition have been living in Barcelona. 25% had resided for one to three years, 24% for three to ten years, and 21% for more than ten years. Likewise, 65% were participating for the first time, while the rest had already experienced it in previous editions. Among all these attendees, the overall rating of the event was 8.2 out of 10 points.
This combination of newcomers and those who have been living in Barcelona for years reflects one of the event's vocations: to offer resources and connection opportunities to people at different stages of their connection with the city.
A 360º plan to nurture international talent
The reach of Barcelona International Community Day is also understood in the context of an international community that already represents 26.6% of Barcelona's population. One in four residents is foreign, and 182 nationalities coexist in the city, in addition to Spanish. Among the most numerous are Italian, Colombian, Pakistani, Chinese, and Peruvian.
This community, in turn, plays an increasingly relevant role in the city's development. It contributes with its talent and work, its investments, companies, professional projects, and economic activities, but also with new ideas, knowledge, and innovation. Its presence is part of an increasingly diverse and intercultural Barcelona.
It is in this context that the Barcelona City Council is promoting a 360º plan to retain, welcome, energize, involve, and retain international talent. The plan accompanies professionals, researchers, university students, entrepreneurs, institutional representatives, and other qualified profiles in the different stages of their connection with the city.
Within this approach, the Barcelona International Community Day and the resources of Barcelona International Welcome are integrated, the municipal initiative promoted by the Directorate of International Economic Promotion that offers practical information, useful resources, and activities to facilitate the arrival, integration, and personal and professional development of the international community in Barcelona.
To this set of resources, since November 2021, the Barcelona International Welcome Desk, a pioneering service in the State for personalized attention to international talent, has been added. The service offers information, advice, and support in several languages, both in person and by videoconference, thus completing the offer of accompaniment for international people arriving in the city or who are already developing their careers.