Growth and, above all, productivity: pending subjects for Spanish companies

• Medium-sized companies — some 21,000 — employ one million people and represent about 4% of the employed population.
• Funding has ceased to be a limiting factor for business growth in Spain.
• The “Top 100” growth-leading medium-sized companies invest twice as much, grow four times more in employment and improve their productivity.

Madrid, November 25, 2025. The Afi Emilio Ontiveros Foundation today presented its new annual study, An X-ray of the Spanish business fabric: in search of growth focused this year on the analysis of the business demography in Spain in the last fifteen years and their comparison with the main European economies. After the presentation, the authors of the report discussed their findings with the Secretary of State for Economy and Business Support, Israel Arroyo, and the vice-president of the CNMV, Paloma Marín.

The study analyzes the evolution of the business fabric from the great financial crisis to 2024, its structure, its economic-financial performance and the levers of growth. Between the main findings highlights the role of medium-sized enterprises as job creators, the financial convergence of SMEs with their European counterparts and the persistence of the structural challenge of productivity.

Size and composition of the business fabric

Spain has 3.26 million companies, of which the 52.1% have no employees. Among those that do have them, 43.1% are microenterprises, 4.1% small, 0.6% average and 0.2% large (about 5,000). solo 5%, some 160,000 companies, has more than ten employees.

The average business size is 4.6 employees, still below that of France, Germany and Italy, although the gap has narrowed. Despite the fact that microenterprises predominate, employment is distributed in a balanced way: micro and large companies each concentrate the 34%, while the rest is divided between small and medium-sized. Taken together, the SMEs generate two-thirds of employment in Spain.

The medium-sized company: more employment, more relevance

Medium-sized companies employ A million people, they bill 250,000 million euros And they add up 23 billion of operating margin. Its cumulative growth in recent years exceeds the national average.

The study confirms the convergence of Spanish SMEs in profitability and solvency with Europe, although with lower productivity. “Spain does have medium-sized companies that contribute significantly to employment, although to a lesser extent to productivity,” the report states. In addition, it highlights that “funding has ceased to be a limiting factor for business growth”.

Main structural challenges

La productivity remains the main challenge. The contribution of SMEs to added value is substantially lower than their contribution to employment, maintaining a wide differential with respect to large companies and Europe. “Closing the productivity gap must be the first priority,” the document underlines.

Other factors are also analyzed: more than 60% of the companies are concentrated in Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia and the Valencian Community; the female presence is the majority in services, education and health and lower in industry and construction; and more than 50% of companies do not exceed five years of life.

The study devotes a section to”Top 100”, medium-sized companies that are leading in growth, which They invest twice as much, They grow four times more in employment and they improve their productivity and profitability.

The Foundation stresses the need to strengthen training, innovation and the ability to take risks to build a stronger and more competitive business fabric. “Spain has the necessary skills and talent to build a more robust business framework,” say those responsible.

Download the full study hither.

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