Spain 5G coverage reached 99.27% of population in 2025

Spain’s Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function said in the 2025 Broadband Coverage Report, presented by minister Óscar López in Patones, Madrid, that 5G coverage reached 99.27% of Spain’s population in 2025. The report said rural 5G coverage increased by 16 percentage points year on year to 96.13%, reducing the rural-urban gap to 3 percentage points. The ministry also said 5G Stand Alone (SA), the core-network version of 5G used for advanced services, reached 98.1% of the population, up by 54 percentage points in one year.

The same report said rural 5G SA coverage rose from 12.39% in 2024 to 91.22% in 2025, with support from the UNICO 5G Redes Activas program. In fixed networks, Spain said gigabit broadband coverage reached 95% of households and 86% of rural households. The ministry also said Spain completed the shutdown of its copper network on 27 May 2025, replacing legacy ADSL exchanges with fibre.

Spain’s National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) said rural connectivity still lags urban areas on several measures. CNMC said 5G is present in 96% of urban municipalities and 82.2% of rural municipalities. It also said 55.9% of rural municipalities still have no active 5G SA network, compared with 15.8% of urban areas, and only 15.4% of rural municipalities can choose between three 5G operators. CNMC added that fixed broadband download speeds in rural areas are 24% lower than in urban areas, installation can take up to 24 days in small towns versus 7 days in cities, and rural households still mainly use Wi-Fi 4 rather than Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6.