The salary differences between Spanish mayors paint a deeply unequal map. While the councilors of the country’s large capitals are in the highest salary range, with salaries typical of high-ranking officials, thousands of other mayors of small municipalities carry out their work without earning a single euro. According to data from the Information on Salaries of Administrative Positions (ISPA) for 2025, with data for 2024, more than 2,000 municipalities keep the mayor without salary. Hundreds of other locations record merely symbolic compensation, ranging between 1 and 1,000 euros per year.
The statistics, updated on Tuesday by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Services, show that the differences are large even in the provincial capitals. Above the threshold of 100,000 euros per year there are only José Luis Martínez-Almeida (Madrid), with 110,688 euros; Juan Mari Aburto (Bilbao), with 105,557 euros; and Jaume Collboni (Barcelona), with 104,000 euros. Immediately below are the city councilors of cities such as San Sebastián, Vitoria, Seville or Málaga, with salaries that in 2024 were around 95 thousand euros.
Another major contrast emerges if we compare these amounts with those of municipalities that are not provincial capitals, but which, in terms of size or budget, even exceed some large cities. The most striking case is that of Marbella, whose mayor receives 95,464 euros a year, that is, more than the city councilors of Valencia, Almería, Zaragoza, Alicante or A Coruña. The same happens with tourist cities such as Fuengirola (84,244.00 euros) or Torremolinos (69,721.53 euros), which surpass many medium-sized provincial capitals such as Huesca, Ávila or Lugo.
At the other extreme there are thousands of small rural municipal councils, where mayors work part-time or directly without dedication, receiving symbolic amounts: from 100, 200, 700 or 1,500 euros per year in countless municipalities to 0 euros registered in more than 2,200 municipalities.
This is explained by the fact that many first councilors maintain their regular jobs and perform public functions in their free time. Of the 6,858 municipalities analyzed by the statistics, approximately 3,500 have non-dedicated mayors, with an average remuneration of 1,660 euros per year. Another 1,656 councilors maintain part-time work and earn 19,560 euros a year and, finally, 1,615 mayors dedicate themselves exclusively to this job, with a salary of up to 44,118 euros.
(Latest news. There will be an extension)
