Torrox knocks Nerja off the top after 55 years as 90 nationalities push population to 22,523

Mayor Oscar Medina says that Torrox is back where it last sat in 1971: the biggest municipality in its court district. Provisional INE census numbers for January, 1, 2026 show the town has 22,523 residents, 830 more than Nerja’s 21,693. Town hall books already list 23,159 people on the padron (local census).

That is 7,406 extra people living in Torrox since 2015, when the count stood at 15,117, a 49 per cent rise in ten years, and 508 more than last year’s 22,015.

Ninety flags, one padron

Foreign residents now make up more than 30 per cent of the official total of residents, drawn from 90 nationalities. Brits, Germans, Scandinavians and a long tail of other EU and non-EU passports sit on the same register as Spanish families in the old town, Ferrara, El Morche and the urbanisations inland. Moreno, president of the Junta de Andalucia,  called that mix the reason the normally empty winter streets have filled out: people are signing on the padron, not just temporarily renting for August.

Medina tied the extra bodies to work as well as weather. Registered unemployment has dropped from 26.61 per cent in 2015 to 10.20 per cent. Council debt, he said, is nil. Local taxes stayed frozen after the 2021 cut, and the rubbish charge has not gone up. New houses and the “Best Climate in Europe” line still pull buyers, but the 90-nationality figure is what turns a holiday strip into a year-round town.

Services must catch up

More passports means more pressure on health centres and classrooms. Medina is asking the Junta de Andalucia for a Palacio de Justicia (courts), a new health centre, stronger A&E cover and more education facilities at Alfaguar. Madrid is being chased again for the A-7 exit at El Morche, a lasting plan for the migrant centre there, and extra police backing.

Moreno put it plainly: growth has to be planned, or the extra 7,000 residents, Spanish and foreign, will outrun services.