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Persons legally recognised as being disabled. By type of disability. Counties and Aran, areas and provinces

Persons legally recognised as being disabled. By type of disability. Counties and Aran, areas and provinces Catalonia
Physical Visual Hearing Intellectuals disability Mentally ill Multiple disability (physical and intellectual) Not stated Total
2025 404,192 33,927 35,786 98,984 140,949 20,177 23,475 757,490
2024 381,352 34,595 35,944 91,623 135,982 15,445 25,325 720,266
2023 357,262 34,445 35,552 84,754 128,040 11,368 26,119 677,540
2022 351,174 34,910 35,643 78,784 124,925 7,728 27,243 660,476
2021 340,357 34,197 34,675 73,093 121,344 6,492 24,640 634,798
2020 331,950 34,078 33,825 68,780 118,642 5,942 22,835 616,052
2019 330,088 34,451 33,519 66,741 118,471 5,871 21,893 611,034
2018 313,839 33,826 32,315 62,748 113,886 5,000 20,413 582,027
2017 303,687 33,432 31,320 57,647 110,332 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 15,021 551,439
2016 294,366 33,050 30,243 54,973 105,511 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 10,960 529,103
2015 290,360 33,091 29,330 53,147 102,185 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 6,773 514,886
Source:
2015-2020: Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Families.
2021-2023: Departament de Drets Socials.
2024-2025: Departament de Drets Socials i Inclusió.
Note: In 2015, the series was broken for two reasons: recipients of contributory invalidity pensions were included and the de registration of pensions was edited.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.

Last update: March 27, 2026.

Methodological note

Definition of concepts

Physical disability
It is divided into two types: Motor: Physical disability suffering people who have affected the ability to move for various reasons (birth defects, accidents, brain injury...). Non-motor: Physical disability with people who for organic causes cannot develop a full life (fatigue, coronary heart disease, kidney disease, lung disease...).
Intellectual disability
Disability presented by persons who, for both congenital and acquired causes, have mental deficiencies. This group is characterized by intellectual function below average and ease of understanding and information reduced. This category does not include people with mental illness.
Recognised disability
Certificate granted to those people with a disability that is equal to or higher than 33% of the threshold established by law. It indicates the diagnosis and degree of handicap expressed in percentage terms and issued by the evaluation and orientation teams (EVO) at care centres for disabled people (CAD) run by the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Sensory disability
There are two types: Visual: Disability experienced by people who have a total or partial lack of vision prevents them from living a full life (total or partial blindness). Hearing: Disability experienced by people who have a total or partial lack of hearing prevents them from living a full life and, that as a result of this deficiency, also may lack speech. These situations may have originated from genetic lesions, delivery or in diseases of the mother during pregnancy (total or partial deafness, deaf-muteness...).
Mental illness
Disability experienced by people affected by cognitive, affective and behavioral disorders.

Methodological aspects

The Catalan social services system is the coordinated set of personal services, facilities, activities, economic benefits and of prevention, care and social promotion in Catalonia, which aims to ensure the participation of all citizens in the benefits of social life. Is specifically designed for individuals, families or groups who, by having difficulties in the development and integration into society, lack of personal autonomy, physical, mental or sensory disabilities, family problems or suffer social marginalization, are creditors of collective and caring effort.

The system is divided functionally into primary care social services and social services of specialized care, and is organized territorially in key areas of social services, sectors of county, regional and territorial areas of Catalonia, and in the following areas of action: care for family, childhood and adolescence; care for people with disabilities, old age care and treatment of drug addicts.

The statistics on the disabled population of Catalonia is the result of the operation of a database that feeds information recorded in the assessment and guidance services dependent of the Catalan Institute of Assistance and Social Services (ICASS).

The valuation of disability meets the regulation set by the Royal Decree 1971/1999 of December 23, on the procedure for recognition, declaration and classification of the degree of disability (BOE number 22 of January 26, 2000 ).

The aim of this provision is regulate the recognition of the degree of disability, establish new applicable scales, determine the competent bodies to make the aforementioned recognition and procedure to be followed, all with the purpose of the valuation and classification of the degree of disability affecting the person is uniform throughout the State, and ensure equal conditions for access of citizens to the benefits, economic rights and services given by public bodies.

The WHO international classification defines disability as any restriction or lack of ability of a human to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal. Therefore, the severity of limitations for activities is the fundamental criterion used to develop the scales.

The official typological classification of disabilities is as follows: physical, sensory and mental. The typology exploited statistically encompasses the following groups: motor and non-motor physical, visual, auditory, mental and mentally ill. The tables include the 'no record', which are collected those encodings that cannot be included in any of these main groups.

Regarding the degree of disability ,is divided into three main groups. The first groups degrees of disability between 33% and 64%, which includes people with disabilities with a level of personal autonomy sufficiently important to social and labor insertion at least in a protected work system. The second group comprises degrees of disability between 65% and 74%. This block includes people who, generally speaking, have more difficulties to achieve full employment and social integration. The third group, with degrees of disability equal to or greater than 75%, recorded in most affected people who are likely to require highly specialized tools for social integration.

For further information about these statistics, you may check the methodology.