Spain's dependency waitlist swells to 265,503 as 13,503 die without care in 2026, report finds
A new report from social services directors shows 265,503 people waiting for dependency assessments or benefits in Spain as of May, with deaths reaching one every 16 minutes.
National tally
Spain's dependency care waiting list stood at 265,503 people at the end of May, according to data from the Imserso-based Observatorio Estatal de la Dependencia released on 15 June. That is 7,293 more than at the start of the year, reversing a years-long decline that had lasted until the end of 2024. The Asociación de Directores y Gerentes de Servicios Sociales, which compiled the figures, criticized the Ministry of Social Rights for counting only those whose legally mandated 180-day deadline has expired, suggesting the real backlog is larger.
Few matters of state achieve such consensus and are of such social urgency as care for people in a situation of dependency. After 20 years it remains an unfulfilled right.
Of those on the list, 110,108 were awaiting an initial assessment and 155,352 had been granted a service or benefit but were still waiting to receive it. Nationally, the average wait from application to resolution climbed to 320 days, 19 days shorter than at the end of 2025 but still well beyond the 180-day legal limit.
Regional divide
Only six autonomous communities and Ceuta respect the six-month deadline. Castilla y León is the fastest, resolving cases in 119 days, followed by Aragón (122), Basque Country (131), La Rioja (144), Castilla-La Mancha (166) and Cantabria (171). At the other extreme, Murcia takes 552 days, Andalusia 446 and Asturias 411. The Canary Islands slashed its wait by 95 days to 335, though it remains above the cap.
- Castilla y León
- 119 days
- Aragón
- 122 days
- País Vasco
- 131 days
- La Rioja
- 144 days
- Castilla-La Mancha
- 166 days
- Cantabria
- 171 days
- Canarias
- 335 days
- Asturias
- 411 days
- Andalucía
- 446 days
- Murcia
- 552 days
Geographically, 80,827 people on the list live in Catalonia, 49,513 in Andalusia, 28,808 in the Valencian Community and 17,457 in the Canary Islands — together accounting for almost 67 percent of the national total. Three regions saw the list grow sharply this year: Cantabria (+106.8 percent), Madrid (+42.6 percent) and Castilla-La Mancha (+26.9 percent), while the steepest drops were recorded in the Canary Islands, Navarre and Castile and León.
Deaths while waiting
Between January and May 2026, 13,503 people died before receiving the care they had requested or been promised. That works out to one fatality every 16 minutes. Of those, 6,940 were still awaiting a dependency assessment and 6,563 were waiting for a service they had already been granted. Catalonia accounted for 4,342 of the deaths and Andalusia for 2,204; Galicia recorded the fewest, at 34.
Funding friction
The association tied the reversal in waitlist trends directly to the end of the extra €600 million yearly injection that was part of the 2021–2023 Plan de Choque. José Manuel Ramírez, the group's president, warned that the system is advancing too slowly to cope with an ageing population, and that new beneficiaries are increasingly being allocated lower-cost services such as telecare and family-care subsidies. The Ministry's stance, which the directors labelled "triumphalist", has drawn sharp criticism for what they say is a lack of transparency and for classifying only a narrow slice of cases as genuine waiting.
