Context
Madrid, Digital Capital (MDC) is Madrid City Council’s cross-cutting Digital Transformation Strategy, designed to anticipate, adapt to, and connect with people’s and businesses’ needs, ensuring that technology is human-centred, inclusive, and trustworthy. After its launch in late 2022, the City consolidated a structural shift from paper-based administration to a fully digital, data-driven operating model. In 2025, the share of procedures conducted through electronic channels reached 83.41% (up from 14.34% in 2019), paper usage in municipal procedures has dropped to near zero, and electronic notifications exceeded 14 million. At the same time, mobile access has become mainstream, with nearly one million cumulative downloads of the Madrid Móvil app, now a central gateway for key services. For example, through this, over eight million reservations have been made for municipal sports activities and spaces. All these digital advances significantly reduce waiting times and increase user satisfaction.
MDC is also aligned with European principles of data-driven public administration and the twin green and digital transition, while reinforcing transparency and accountability through public monitoring instruments (e.g. dashboards and observatories). The strategy is continuously updated and reported, evolving into MDC 2.0 with strengthened governance, measurable outcomes and a medium-term horizon (including an updated road map of projects and capabilities).
Objectives
Madrid, Digital Capital pursues three integrated objectives:
- more and better digital services for people, designed around user needs, available 24/7 and mobile-first, and accessible for everyone, especially older people and vulnerable groups, so that digitalisation closes gaps rather than creating new ones;
- a smarter and more efficient City Council, leveraging data, automation, and AI to re-engineer processes, improve quality, reduce administrative burden, and strengthen decision-making;
- a dynamic digital ecosystem, attracting talent and innovation, strengthening public–private collaboration, and reinforcing competitiveness and public value.
These objectives are backed by sustained investment capacity: approximately EUR 160 million dedicated to digital government (more than 4% of the municipal budget) at the Direction General of the Digital Office, plus a strategic commitment to dedicate budget across 74 projects (including 10 transversal corporate projects).
Beyond individual initiatives, Madrid Digital Capital represents a structural administrative reform of the City Council’s operating model. It is structurally integrated in governance, budgeting, and performance management systems. It embeds accountability through public KPIs, institutionalises responsible AI governance (Madrid Inteligencia Artificial – MAIA), and integrates IoT and 5G-enabled infrastructures to support greener, data-driven urban services. This reform consolidates digital transformation as a long-term policy instrument rather than a time-bound technological programme.
Implementation
Madrid, Digital Capital is implemented as a whole-of-government transformation programme, coordinated from the Digital Office and IT function, with cross-departmental delivery, and annual planning and monitoring. It combines service redesign and multichannel delivery (digital + assisted), interoperable platforms and process automation, data governance and performance management through indicators, and capability-building (digital skills for staff and citizens).
A distinctive pillar is Responsible AI at scale, operationalised through MAIA (Madrid Inteligencia Artificial), a multidisciplinary working group identifying and delivering high-impact use cases while ensuring legal guarantees, ethics, transparency, traceability, and human oversight. Operational use cases already include automated information extraction (e.g. traffic complaints), automated subtitling of plenary sessions, and classification of citizen reports (cleaning, suggestions, and complaints), as well as tools to improve clarity and accessibility of public information.
Inclusion is embedded through assisted digital channels and community-based approaches such as Digital Volunteering and Madrid te Acompaña, supporting older residents: 92 volunteers trained in digital skills, around 1800 older people supported through 15 senior centres, and the Madrid te Acompaña app reaching 1703 volunteers and 5764 older users since its start. Additionally, 15 digital inclusion agents provide in-person support for electronic procedures in municipal offices.