Navarra tops Spain's 2025 quality of life index as Canarias stays at the bottom

National trend

Spain's Multidimensional Quality of Life Index (IMCV) rose to 101.74 points in 2025 from 101.43 a year earlier, according to data the National Statistics Institute (INE) published on Friday, 23 October 2026. The gain is the third consecutive annual rise after the dip linked to the pandemic, but the index still sits below its 2019 value of 101.88, according to La Razón. Six of the nine dimensions improved nationally, covering material living conditions, work, health, education, environment and general life experience. Leisure and social relations fell to 93.87 points, the weakest area nationwide, and physical and personal safety eased three hundredths to 100.26. Governance and basic rights was not updated because the 2025 Living Conditions Survey did not include the quality of life module, according to the statistics office.

Navarra keeps first place

Navarra remains top of the ranking with 105.43 points, a position it has held since 2008, and its score is 0.31 points above the previous year, according to Europa Press. La Rioja (104.30) and the Basque Country (104.12) follow in second and third place. Navarra leads three of the nine dimensions, leisure and social relations, environment and general life experience, and ranks second in material living conditions, work and education. Its widest gap over the national average is in environment, at 6.6 points. Regional president María Chivite argued that the data answered what she called catastrophist talk about Navarra that had no basis, and she described the INE results as positive:

Navarra leads in quality of life and is improving. For the third year in a row we have managed to improve.

Canarias and the bottom of the table

Canarias scored 99.40 points, 0.02 more than in 2024 according to eldiario.es, and stayed below the national average and below the 2008 base of 100. Only Ceuta (98.33) and Melilla (98.39), which are autonomous cities rather than communities, score lower, with Andalucía (99.85) and Galicia (99.88) just above the islands. Among the 17 autonomous communities, Canarias ranks last. The INE's Living Conditions Survey put the share of the Canarian population at risk of poverty or exclusion in 2025 at 31.2%, against 25.7% for Spain as a whole. Castilla-La Mancha, with 101.16 points, placed 13th of the 17 communities, and its gap to the national average widened from 0.35 to 0.58 points, according to ABC.

Gender gap and dimensions

Men scored 102.48 points and women 100.59, a difference that El Confidencial reports as persistent across the index. Women scored higher in education (10.95 points more) and general life experience (9.36 points more), while men led in physical and personal safety (16.09 points more) and environment (9.19 points more). El Periódico also reported that the Spanish-born population scored higher than the foreign-born population in education and material living conditions.