Overview
- Overall satisfaction remains high, with 86.5% of international professionals saying Barcelona is a good place to live and work.
- A growing 62.5% now perceive Barcelona chiefly as a tourist city, while only about 7.2% see it as innovative and roughly 2% view it as sustainable.
- Affordable housing, the cost of living and administrative procedures rank as the top competitiveness barriers, with just 9.3% satisfied with housing affordability.
- Eight in ten respondents are dissatisfied with local salaries, and only 39% consider Barcelona optimal for doing business.
- Strengths highlighted include international connectivity (95.6%), a cosmopolitan atmosphere (94.5%) and talent attraction (81%), based on surveys conducted in summer 2025 across 27 nationalities by Barcelona Global with support from Banco Sabadell and GAPS.