The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, was once again, for yet another year, the highest paid in Spain. He earned 108,157.80 euros gross in 2022, the same amount as the previous two years, having his salary frozen. They are more than 7,000 euros per month, above the salaries of the President of the Government and the members of the Council of Ministers. The municipal corporation of the capital is also the one with the best annual salaries, with salaries that exceed or are close to 100,000 euros.
The Ministry of Finance and Public Function has updated the salary list of the town councils throughout Spain with a novelty on the podium in 2022. There are almost 7,000 town councils that have provided their economic information.
The novelty occurred in second place on the list. Until 2021, Ada Colau was the second highest-paid mayor in Spain, although she limited her salary. But in 2022, the top municipal official of Bilbao, Juan Mari Aburto, emerged in that position, earning 101,449.08 euros. They are almost 3,500 euros more per year than in 2021, when he received 98,018.40 euros.
In third position was the mayor of Barcelona, who last year was Colau. For several years, the Barcelona council had limited his salary to 100,000.04 euros. Starting this year, the annuity that Jaume Collboni will receive will be 104,000 euros.
The salary of the mayors of Vitoria and Donosti is close to 100,000 euros, after an increase in 2022. Specifically, the city council led by Gorka Urtaran until May paid 96,717.82 euros to the top official last year. Eneko Goia, in San Sebastián, for his part, received 91,849.62 euros in remuneration.
In this second salary step were the salaries of the mayors of Seville, Valencia and Valladolid, Antonio Muñoz, Joan Ribó and Óscar Puente, respectively, who received more than 90,000 euros in the case of the Andalusian and Valencian capitals, and more than 89,000 euros annually in the case of the Castilian-Leonese city. In all three cities there was a change of municipal government in May.
All of these mayors earned more than Pedro Sánchez, who had a salary of 86,542 euros in 2022. The mayor of Getxo, Amaia Agirre, a municipality of less than 80,000 inhabitants, also had a higher remuneration than the President of the Government.
In a third step, the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, last year exceeded 85,000 euros in remuneration; and the councilors of Pozuelo de Alarcón and Las Rozas, municipalities of Madrid with a notable GDP, exceeded 84,000 euros annually.
In the case of the Catalan town councils, the councils with the best salaries for their top officials are those of Tarragona, which exceeds 76,000 euros annually; Terrassa, above 74,000; Reus, more than 73,000; and El Prat de Llobregat, which reaches 72,000 euros per year.
On the opposite side of the table, among the provincial capital councils with the lowest annual salaries, is Girona, with a remuneration of 39,625.44 euros; Zamora, with 37,373.14; Oviedo, with 35,000 euros; and Teruel, with 15,000. The reason for these figures is that their mayors do not have exclusive or partial dedication.
The Ministry of Finance and Public Function also offers data on the salaries of municipal corporations. In this section, Madrid stands out, whose city council earns around twenty salaries above or close to reaching 100,000 euros; Barcelona and Bilbao. All three have payrolls above 90,000 euros per year.
All these data provided by the Ministry of Finance come from the ISPA system, the Administration's Position Information mechanism, the platform for collecting information on the perceptions of elected officials and the remuneration assigned to the jobs of civil servants. town councils, provincial and provincial councils and island councils and councils, as well as autonomous communities. The document already includes, and this is also a novelty, the councils of the Foral Community of Navarra as the system is implemented.
