The key point: the Real Decreto 806/2026 of 5 October 2026, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado on 6 October, dissolves parliament and calls an early election for Sunday, 29 November 2026. The decree also sets out the binding distribution of 350 seats in the Congreso de los Diputados by constituency. Madrid will gain one seat, bringing its total to 38, while Cádiz will lose one and send eight MPs. These changes are expressly set out in the annex to the decree and apply to the election on 29 November 2026.
Legal basis and procedure: the allocation of seats is governed by Article 162 of the Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General (LOREG). Each of the fifty provinces initially receives two base seats; Ceuta and Melilla each elect one MP. The remaining 248 seats are allocated in proportion to the population (“población de derecho”) of the provinces. The decree now published applies the quota based on the latest population data and bindingly assigns the resulting seats to each province. This results in the changes cited for Madrid and Cádiz, while the other constituencies remain unchanged, according to the annex.
Since the last parliamentary election on 23 July 2023, Community of Madrid has seen above-average population growth. Cádiz has recorded lower relative growth by Spanish standards. The redistribution reflects these demographic shifts while the overall size of parliament remains unchanged. A change of one seat can matter politically in a multi-party system, for example when majorities are narrow. Its practical significance, however, depends entirely on the balance of votes on election day.
Alongside the election date, the decree brings the key deadlines in the electoral calendar into effect. The seat distribution is therefore legally established and provides the basis for candidate lists and the subsequent allocation of seats in the two provinces concerned. For Andalusia, the loss in Cádiz province means that the autonomous community’s delegation in the Congreso will nominally shrink, provided allocations in the other Andalusian provinces remain unchanged. Madrid will correspondingly have more seats to fill, which may affect competition between lists within the region.
Distinguishing facts from assessments: the adjustment to the number of seats for Madrid and Cádiz is a documented legal effect of the published decree. Statements about its possible political significance are assessments and remain dependent on the actual election result on 29 November 2026.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).