The new edition of the Forbes List of the 100 Richest Spaniards 2026 once again places Eustasio López González as the person with the largest fortune in the Canary Islands. The Gran Canarian businessman, owner and leader of the hotel group Lopesan, has a personal fortune valued at 1.5 billion euros, which represents an increase of 200 million compared to the previous year and allows him to retain exactly the 37th position in the general ranking of the country's wealthiest individuals.
López's tourism empire, corporately structured through the company Invertur Helsan SL, continues to expand both within and outside the archipelago. Born in Gran Canaria, the chain not only maintains a decisive weight in the islands' hotel market but also has operational establishments in the Dominican Republic, Germany, and Austria, in addition to undertaking urban hotel projects on the mainland, such as the ongoing renovation of the emblematic Miguel Ángel hotel in Madrid.
Canarian representation in the top 100 club
Alongside Eustasio López, the archipelago has a second representative in the Spanish economic elite: the businessman of German origin based in Tenerife Wolfgang Kiessling.
The founder and president of Loro Parque is ranked 98th in the national table with a fortune estimated at 520 million euros, after adding 70 million in the last fiscal year. Kiessling has consolidated a leading international leisure and tourism group in the islands, which includes attractions such as Siam Park and the Poema del Mar Aquarium, as well as zoological facilities and hotel complexes in Tenerife.
On a national level, the Forbes 2026 list continues to be led by a wide margin by the founder and majority shareholder of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, whose fortune amounts to 125.2 billion euros after the textile group's stock price recovered. The podium is completed by his daughter Sandra Ortega (11.5 billion euros) and the president of Mercadona, Juan Roig (9.8 billion euros), who climbs to third place driven by the supermarket chain's results.
Within the tourism sector —the field of activity of the two Canary millionaires—, the classification also highlights the patrimonial power of Balearic hoteliers such as Miguel Fluxà (Iberostar, 10th with 4,100 million), the siblings Carmen and Luis Riu (Grupo Riu, 26th and 27th with 1,800 million each), Simón Pedro Barceló (Barceló, 55th with 1,100 million) and Gabriel Escarrer (Meliá, 56th with 1,100 million). On that board of major holiday operators, Eustasio López maintains his position as the main benchmark of the accommodation industry based in the Canary Islands.
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