Madrid boasts of being a welcoming city for people from all over the world. That hospitality and its fiscal laxity with big capital have transformed the accent of some of the upper neighborhoods of the capital with the arrival of millionaires from all over Latin America. In fact, such has been the migration to the capital that some of the local millionaires have been displaced to other neighborhoods.
As response to that massive arrivallocal millionaires have found a new way to socialize: select clubs for wealthy members, with five-figure entry fees and selection processes that are more reminiscent of a job interview than a place to socialize. Only in the last two years have they opened Forbes House, the Metrópolis Club in the iconic building on Gran Vía, the Vega Members Club and Soho House is about to arrive.
Select and controversial club. Normally these spaces maintain a low profile and their openings do not appear in big headlines. However, the waiting list to enter some of them begins even before they open their doors. Remembering the scene from Brad Pitt in Fight Club: “The first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club.”
However, this silent phenomenon has made headlines after the statements by Tamara Falcó’s husband, by Íñigo Onieva collected by The World during the presentation of his club Vega Members Club. “We don’t want this to become the Latin American club either. We want there to be a balance between the local and international community,” Onieva said during the event. The comment seems to have not been well received by the Latin American millionaires living in the city, and has become an issue with economic, social and even political implications.
The Latin response was immediate. As published The CountryOnieva’s statements quickly circulated among the richest and most influential Latin personalities in Madrid, generating surprise and indignation. Sergio Contreras, a Venezuelan political refugee in Madrid, goes further by reminding the managers of those clubs that some of those Spanish fortunes were made thanks to the fact that they emigrated at the time to countries like Venezuela. “There is a racist discourse that I am beginning to notice: first it was said that we took away their jobs in the real estate sector. Now, it turns out that we also steal their leisure and their apartments,” he complains.
Manuel Campos Guallar, partner and co-owner of Vega, came forward to emphasize that different generations mix in these clubs, nationalities and professional profiles. For his part, the director of Forbes House, Andrés Rodríguez, was more direct: “We meet in the restaurants in Madrid, we meet in the stores, but we still don’t know each other very well nor are we doing much business,” he declared to the same medium. For Rodríguez, precisely connecting the Latin American community with the Spanish one is one of the missions of his project.
Entering costs money, but above all contacts. Beyond the controversy raised by the right of admission by nationality, the new private clubs that have proliferated in Madrid are not exactly cheap, but money will not give you the key to enter either.
Entering Forbes House or Vega does not depend only on being able to pay: there are interviews, filters and the mandatory recommendation of at least two current partners or the express invitation of the founders. Entry fees to these exclusive spaces are usually between 10,000 and 15,000 euros, to which must be added an annual fee that can exceed 2,000 euros. In the specific case de Vega, the founding members contributed 15,000 euros each and the annual fee is 2,400 euros and 1,500 for those under 35 years of age.
The model was not born here, but it has found its moment here. Madrid has not invented this type of exclusive access clubs for select members. New York has been living for years The New York Times christening as “member-only mania“. A survey GGA Partners’ 2023 report reveals that 63% of clubs reported an increase in membership from 2022. Remote working created a class of well-paid executives hungry for a social life, and empty buildings after the pandemic provided the infrastructure necessary to satisfy it.
London has been at this longer. The historian Seth Alexander Thévoz documents in his book ‘London, Clubland‘ a total of 133 active private clubs in the city, of which 78 are after 1985 and most of the newer ones have opened after 2015 or even 2022. Madrid is following that same path, with a small nuance: here the tension between the local and the international has given the phenomenon a charge that goes far beyond the economic filter to elect the wealthiest members of the city. The passport can also affect your income as a member.
The business behind the phenomenon. Beyond the social nature of creating a space where millionaires from the capital can interact among equals, the proliferation of private clubs in Madrid is not a passing fad or a whim of four rich people: it responds to a structural transformation of the city.
According to the latest report From Barnes City, the Community of Madrid leads foreign direct investment in Spain, concentrating close to 70% of the national total, with more than 24,000 million euros, and in 2026 it will repeat as the most attractive city for high net worth. That concentration of wealth It directly feeds the demand for exclusive leisure spaces for those ultra-rich clients.
The business model of these private clubs for the rich is not new, but its scale is. He Club Matadorone of the oldest of this new cycle, has around 2,500 members and an approximate turnover of six million euros per year, with an annual membership of 1,720 euros. He New Clubof nineteenth-century essence and founded in 1856, has a maximum of 500 members, a permanent waiting list and a monthly fee of approximately 1,500 euros. The death of a partner is usually the only way of access for a new partner, as collected The Country. It is not a mass business, it is a business of calculated scarcity and exclusivity.
In Xataka | The list of the richest people in Spain in 2025: many changes in the figures, but not in the protagonists
Image | Unsplasg (Florian Wehde)
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings