Catalonia continues to consolidate itself as a pole of attraction for international projects, with new records and new projects landing especially in Barcelona and its surroundings. Now, it adds a new historical maximum: the Government achieved last year the record for attracting foreign investment, with 1,105 million euros.
The figure represents 5% more than the previous year, and the first time that investment attracted through the Government exceeds 1,100 million. Thus, it reaches a maximum within the historical series, started in 1985. This investment translates into 101 projects that decided to start operating from Catalonia, in the third consecutive year in which the volume of attracted projects remains around one hundred.
The projects, in turn, translate into jobs. In 2025, 3,980 were created, through investments that allowed 1,728 more jobs to be maintained (in total, there were more than 5,700). In addition, adding the employment created during the last five years, it is 3% higher than that of the previous five, while that maintained through investments has grown by 61%, as reflected in the balance of Catalonia Trade & Investment, the Acció unit responsible for the attraction and management of foreign investments of the Government.
Thus, the channel to attract these investments has been Acció, the Government's competitiveness agency, as recalled by the Minister of Business and Labor, Miquel Sàmper. The balance of Acció's work is summarized with a figure: for every public euro allocated to attracting foreign investments, 307 euros of private investment have been attracted by international companies.
At the same time, for every professional in Acció's foreign investment attraction unit, 138 jobs have been created or maintained in Catalonia. In addition, three out of ten projects that have materialized in Catalonia have been attracted through the network of 40 Foreign Trade and Investment Offices that Acció has spread around the world. “In a context of global uncertainty at a sociopolitical level, we have generated confidence and we have a historical record,” highlights Sàmper.
The 1,105 million record also translates into another figure: “This means that, every day of the year, more than 3 million euros of foreign investment have arrived in Catalonia,” Sàmper illustrated in Parliament. The future on which the Government is working also points to good figures: “We are working with a portfolio of 500 projects,” the minister advanced.
The profile of the projects also indicates where this investment is directed. 77% of the investment attracted by the Government during 2025 corresponds to industrial, technological, and R&D initiatives. Manufacturing industry concentrates 38% of the projects, followed by the technological sector, with 25%, and research and development, with 14%. By sectors, information technologies and electronics stand out especially, representing a quarter of the total, ahead of automotive, chemical industry, and pharmaceutical.
In parallel, almost half of the attracted projects are linked to digital transformation or green transition. Overall, these investments have generated or consolidated more than 2,800 jobs, half of all employment associated with projects attracted during the year.
The origin of the investments also shows a diversified portfolio. The 101 projects of 2025 come from about thirty different countries, with the United States at the forefront, followed by Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. In addition, almost three out of ten projects correspond to companies that have established themselves for the first time in Catalonia, while the rest are expansions or new investments by companies that were already operating there.
If we broaden the view beyond the 2015 fiscal year, the figures show a sustained trend: between 2021 and 2025, Acció has contributed to attracting 4,267 million euros of foreign investment, 143% more than in the previous five-year period.
The international projects attracted by Acció are only a part of those that land in Barcelona, attracted by its ecosystem, its ability to attract talent, its positioning as a technological and entrepreneurial hub and, also, its quality of life. With all these elements, during 2025 multinationals such as Sanofi and Microsoft decided to open hubs in Catalonia, and the latest news arrived this very week, with the announcement by the Taiwanese TCI to invest 20 million in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat to open a new R&D hub.
10,000 subsidiaries by 2030
Looking ahead to the coming years, the Government has approved a new strategy for attracting, capturing, and retaining foreign investment for the period 2026-2030. The objective is to attract 600 projects, and achieve an accumulated investment of 6,000 million euros —including reinvestments by already established subsidiaries— and create or maintain 45,000 jobs.
The strategy is accompanied by the objective that these companies also land beyond the Barcelona metropolis: specifically, the Government wants 50% of the investment and employment to materialize in a distributed manner in the rest of Catalonia. Overall, by 2030, the strategy aims to reach 10,000 subsidiaries of international companies established throughout Catalonia.