The mayor Almeida detailed the nine key actions of the plan, which will be approved by the City Council before the end of the year.
From Madrid City Council
- It consists of 50 measures and the budget amounts to 675 million euros, to which will be added the actions in the area of housing specifically aimed at families.
- Direct aid will be granted for births, the budget for child grants will be doubled to 8 million euros and five new nursery schools will be built.
- In addition, the City Council will encourage companies to implement conciliation measures through a seal and tax bonuses and will grant up to 5 million in subsidies to entities that work in favor of families.
- The plan also provides that 10% of the housing that EMVS Madrid allocates to families will be reserved for those with children under one year of age.
The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, today presented the Plan to Promote Birth Rate and Reconciliation of the city of Madrid 2024-2029 at the Muñeco de Nieve Municipal Nursery School. Accompanied by the Deputy Mayor, Inma Sanz; the Delegate for Social Policies, Family and Equality, José Fernández, and the Councillor for Vicálvaro, Ángel Ramos, the Mayor detailed the nine key actions of this plan, which includes a series of 50 measures and a global budget amounting to 675 million euros, to which will be added municipal investments in housing aimed specifically at young families with children. “Few budgetary investments are more justified than that of guaranteeing the future of our society,” stressed the Mayor.
The aim of this “pioneering, comprehensive and transversal” plan, he stressed, “is to promote and reinforce birth and conciliation policies so that people who wish to form a family can complete their personal project” despite the socioeconomic context. “From the administrations – he pointed out – we must remove these obstacles so that this decision is taken freely” and “the new chulapos and chulapas become a sign of hope and future for Madrid”.
With this plan, Madrid City Council “is leading the most ambitious project, with specific measures to promote birth rates, that any administration in Spain can have”, Almeida stressed. With the involvement of all areas of government, it will provide a comprehensive response to the urgent need to stop demographic aging, a challenge that it shares with other large Spanish and European cities. As the mayor pointed out, “in Madrid, since 2021, there have been more deaths than births”; these have been reduced by 35% in the last 15 years and the average age to have the first child has been delayed to 33 years. Given this reality, the City Council will continue to work to promote an attractive environment in which to start family projects.
Madrid aims to be the best city to grow up in and the City Council is committed to supporting families in the process of raising children. Therefore, the plan will not only encourage births but will also protect motherhood and fatherhood and facilitate the reconciliation of personal and professional life.
The nine key measures of the plan
The measures, which will be implemented gradually, are structured around four axes: conciliation and employment; support for parenting and co-responsibility; urban planning, environment, mobility and housing, and family policies.
1st measure: Direct aid
Starting a family project is an economic challenge and the City Council wants to support families in this process. Therefore, it will grant direct aid for births or adoptions from June 1, 2025. The amount will be 500 euros for the first child, 750 for the second, and 1,000 euros for the third and subsequent children. The aid can be requested from November 2025 (with retroactive effect to June 1) and will be universal, so there will be no limitation on income or age. The requesting parent will only be required to have been registered in the city for at least five years.
In addition to this financial support, the City Council is now offering tax breaks to alleviate the tax burden on Madrid families.
2nd measure: Expansion of the Municipal Network of Nursery Schools
The City Council will continue to increase the number of places on offer with the dual objective of promoting conciliation and ensuring that children aged 0 to 3 can access quality early education. Next January, a new nursery school will open on Paseo de la Dirección (Tetuán), the 75th in the network, reaching 8,618 places this school year 2024-2025. In 2029, when the plan is completed, the city will have 80 centers after the opening of the two that are under construction on Calle Fúcar (Centro) and Calle Francisco Remiro (Salamanca), the two planned in Usera and Retiro and one more pending location definition.
3rd measure: Creation of the Beca Infantil Plus
The Beca Infantil Plus, with which the City Council helps families of students from 0 to 3 years old, enrolled in private nursery schools, to pay the registration fee, monthly fees, and the canteen, will increase its budget. In the current school year, 2024-2025, this aid will grow to 4.2 million euros. In the 2025-2026 call, the allocation will increase to 5.1 million and the budget will increase continuously in the following years until allocating a total of 8 million in the 2028-2029 academic year.
The next academic year, 2025-2026, will see another improvement: the grant will be paid every two months and not at the end of the school year, to avoid families having to pay all the monthly payments in advance. In addition, starting this academic year, the monthly amount transferred to families has been increased by 10%, so that contributions of 100 euros have risen to 118, those of 200 euros to 220, and those of 350 euros to 385. At the same time, the annual per capita income of the family unit to be eligible for the grant has been increased to a maximum of 30,000 euros.
4th measure: More places in municipal camps
Conciliation must also be guaranteed during non-school periods and, to this end, the Department of Social Policies, Family and Equality, and the districts make more than 43,000 places available to families annually in urban camps during Christmas, Easter, and summer. As a novelty, in 2025, 2,000 new places will be created to reinforce the offer in the form of sports camps during the first week of September.
5th measure: Quality seal and award to companies
The private sector must be an ally in the application of conciliation policies and, therefore, the Madrid City Council will recognize the good practices of companies in this area with a quality seal that will be awarded by a certifying entity. Companies that obtain it will benefit from a 25% discount on the Tax on Economic Activities (IAE). In addition, an annual prize will be awarded to the three companies that stand out for their measures to support conciliation.
6th measure: Institutional recognition of families and creation of the Family Council
Families must be at the center of municipal policies and their demands must be heard. To this end, in 2025 the Family Council will be created, a participatory body that will ensure that the decisions taken take into account the needs of mothers and fathers.
Measure 7: Subsidies to entities
The City Council will support projects promoted by third-sector organizations that work in favor of families, children, and young people. Specifically, in 2024, 2.1 million euros will be allocated in subsidies to their programs aimed at pregnant women and to promote births and conciliation. This figure will increase in 2025 to 5 million to cover new lines of subsidies from the Employment Agency.
Measure 8: Housing policies
The plan also includes actions to promote stability in the home that will foster a future with children. In this regard, half of the 12,000 homes that the Madrid Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS Madrid) plans to promote during this mandate will be intended for young people and young families. Of all the homes that EMVS Madrid offers for families, 10% will be reserved for those with children under one year of age.
Measure 9: New resources for families
The needs of families will be met with new services and facilities such as the new specific service that will be created to provide information and guidance to parents of children diagnosed with a disability during pregnancy or childbirth. In addition, in December 2024, the eighth Family Support Centre (CAF) will be launched and in 2025, the Casa Grande model will be extended to four new districts after its integration into the CAF. For its part, Madrid Salud will continue to offer its prenatal and postnatal workshops and support for pregnant women.
To ensure that all families can quickly and easily find out about the range of resources and assistance available, the Department of Social Policies, Family, and Equality will soon launch a website and an application that will bring together all the information.
Final approval before the end of the year
The Birth Rate and Reconciliation Promotion Plan has been conceived as a transversal project for the entire municipal organization. Therefore, all areas have participated in the commission that has been carrying out the diagnosis of the situation and designing the measures since September 2023, in addition to representatives of the Community of Madrid, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), the Business Forum for Madrid and experts from the university field. The drafting of the plan has been entrusted to the Autonomous University of Madrid Foundation.
Following the presentation of the plan, a period for objections will open next week. The final text will be approved by the Governing Board before the end of the year. From that moment on, the Birth Rate Promotion Plan Commission will be responsible for its monitoring and evaluation, as it is a living document that could incorporate new measures in the future.