Madrid is a black hole of workers and students who live outside Madrid. And they just took away their transport pass.

No Autonomous Community lost as many inhabitants as Madrid in 2025. No Autonomous Community gained as many inhabitants as Madrid in 2025.

It may seem paradoxical but is what the data says. Madrid has become a labor and economic black hole. And the consequences are obvious. It is the region that attracted the most population last year, adding more than 100,000 new residents. But it is also the one that lost the most population, with just over 12,000 people who have gone to live outside the Community of Madrid.

The increase in house prices and the day-to-day cost of living is expelling some of its workers from the city. Some of them simply go to live far enough away to find more affordable housing with the promise that a quick train connection allows them to be just over an hour from their work. A good example is Valladolid.

Those, perhaps, are the luckiest. Others have simply grown up outside the region, in a rural environment, and have come to Madrid to try their luck to get one of those jobs. statistics place only in large cities. Workers who, perhaps, simply They arrived in Madrid during their university days. and they have ended up staying. Unlike when they were in their twenties and returned to their place of origin every summer.

Or workers who do not appear anywhere because they are irregular immigrants who have arrived in Madrid with the same promises as any other profile we have talked about before but that remain outside of any type of statistics.

Madrid has decided to remove their transport pass from all of them. Or make it much more complicated.

Unnecessarily unnecessary registration

All the previously mentioned profiles could have access to the transport subscription of the Community of Madrid without any type of hindrance. All that was necessary was a DNI, a residence permit or a passport and to pay the corresponding fee each month.

This transport pass allows you to take Metro, bus and Cercanías throughout the Community of Madrid, which is divided into zones. These areas even reach the closest towns in Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León and They range from 32.70 euros to 79.00 eurosdepending on the extension we seek to cover.

Obviously, the pass is especially useful for those who travel by public transport to go to work or school, since it is a flat rate that in zone A is compensated after 40 or so trips. That is, if every week you take a train, a subway or a bus twice a day, the investment is already worth it. Much more if we take into account that the cost of the youth subscription (from 15 to 26 years old) is just 10 euros.

But the Community of Madrid has announced something: you will have to be registered in the region or in one of the municipalities covered by the transport pass. (even if they are in one of the Castiles) to enjoy the flat rate. That is, this leaves out all those who have left the city to more distant municipalities, the students who do not register in the city because they return to their places of origin once the school year ends. Or immigrants who cannot prove their stay in the city.

And the latter is what, everything indicates, has served as fuel for the Community of Madrid to make this decision. When the Government of Spain opened the door to the regularization of thousands of immigrants in April, some conditions were placed. One of them was to demonstrate certain rootssuch as receipts for rent, purchases… or being the holder of a public transport pass. The latter, because it is the simplest, filled the transportation offices with immigrants who wanted to get said transportation pass..

In response, in the Community of Madrid the requirements to obtain this card have changed and now they require proof of registration (unless you are a large family) in a municipality in Madrid or in surrounding regions. The result is that, automatically, immigrants in an irregular situation cannot get this transport pass but, as we said before, neither can workers expelled by the city itself, those who come to try their luck for a few months or university students.

In The Country They point out that the Community of Madrid estimates that around 200,000 people are affected by this change, which will also be extended to all renovations in the future. That is, if you are not registered in Madrid and you renewed your transport pass last year, you will not have problems in a decade but it will be more complicated for those who renew it next year.

The measure has sparked great controversy. And there are those who have pointed out the measure as “racist and exclusive”, as Oscar Lopezminister of the government of Spain and general secretary of the PSOE in Madrid, and of course numerous associations in defense of immigrants such as Regularización Ya, as reported in the newspaper.

From the Community of Madrid they defend that The measure has been approved since 2011 and that has been delayed due to technical issues but in addition they have already opened the door for some autonomous communities to co-finance Madrid transport so that Your students can benefit from this flat rate.

Those 200,000 affected barely exceed 3% of Madrid’s public transport users, but the economic hole is especially harmful to them. Right now, a university student who lives and goes to class within the city of Madrid pays 10 euros. If you take a bus and a subway each day there and back, you will make a minimum of 80 trips a week (Monday to Friday only). Without registering, you will start paying 58.40 euros.

If you live in Madrid but study in another area beyond the city, you will pay at least 85 euros. The punishment is even greater if you combine the metro and/or the municipal bus with the Cercanías service.

The situation is the same for those workers who have gone beyond the municipalities indicated by the Madrid Transport Consortium, although in this case the price difference at the end of the month should be somewhat less. Of course, always counting on the previous simulations, if Cercanías, Metro and Bus are combined, the cost at the end of the month continues and continues to grow.

Photo | Draceane (1) and (2)

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