The Canary Special Zone (ZEC) has consolidated in 2024 and 2025 its role as one of the great economic engines of Canarias. The latest data presented by its Governing Council in February confirm that the special tax regime grows above the regional economy as a whole and gains prominence as a vehicle to attract investment, create employment and diversify strategic sectors of the archipelago.
The definitive report for 2024, prepared with real tax data from the entities, closed with the best figures in the history of the ZEC: almost 900 registered companies, more than 700 active, and more than 11,000 jobs. The joint turnover exceeded for the first time 3,378 million euros and profits grew to 264.6 million, 16% more than the previous year.
These data reflect the greater added value of ZEC companies, which with average workforces exceeding 15 positions —double the Canarian average— generate an average turnover of around five million euros. As a result, the ZEC already contributes more than 5% of the total business result of the archipelago.
Preview of 2025 data and projections
The progress of 2025 confirms this evolution. The ZEC already exceeds 12,560 jobs and reaches 933 registered entities. In that year alone, it created almost 1,500 additional jobs, the largest annual increase since its creation, growing well above the Canary Islands labor market as a whole.
In addition, close to 3% of all new companies created in Canarias chose to set up in the ZEC, consolidating itself as one of the most dynamic business attraction poles of the archipelago.
If this trajectory is maintained, the ZEC could represent between 2% and 3% of regional employment and between 7% and 9% of total business profit in the next decade.
Behind these results is the strategy of recent years, focused on specializing foreign promotion in sectors of higher added value, together with PROEXCA–Government of the Canary Islands, ICEX, the Chambers and the Island Councils, as well as on strengthening legal certainty in coordination with the Tax Agency and the Ministry of Finance.
This combination has allowed to attract international reference business projects that generate employment and real activity in the archipelago. Among them stand out numerous technology companies, R&D&i, maritime or audiovisual companies.
The president of the ZEC, Pablo Hernández, highlighted that the regime “has gained significant momentum, driving the Canarian economy, growing above it and creating more employment in 2025 than in any other year of its history”.
Hernández also recalled some of the most representative cases of the regime's potential: “The ZEC is already a reality that drives from the Canary Islands the most innovative chip technology on the planet, developed by Wooptix; some of the most-watched series on platforms like Netflix or Disney; or one of the most cutting-edge naval engineering firms on the planet developed by Ghenova, among more than 700 stories of business success”.