Every La Liga Champion Since 1929, and Who Has Won the Most

Most La Liga titles by club

Real Madrid and Barcelona have won 65 of the 95 titles between them, 68 percent, and La Liga's own count matches ours: 36 and 29. The same two clubs have won all 20 of Spain's European Cup and Champions League titles, as our list of winners shows, and their players 24 men's Ballon d'Or awards, 12 each. Atlético Madrid have won 11, Athletic Bilbao (officially Athletic Club) eight and Valencia six; Real Sociedad have two, and Deportivo La Coruña, Sevilla and Real Betis one each.

Barcelona have finished second a record 28 times and Real Madrid 27, so Real Madrid have been in the top two 63 times and Barcelona 57. Five clubs have been second without ever winning the league: Racing Santander, Las Palmas, Real Zaragoza, Sporting Gijón and Villarreal, the last in 2007-08.

La Liga winners list: every champion since 1929

The league began in 1929 with 10 clubs, was not played from 1936 to 1939 because of the Spanish Civil War and has had 20 clubs and 38 games since 1997-98; wins have been worth three points since 1995-96.

La Liga champions by decade: how concentrated the title is

Real Madrid and Barcelona won only six of the first 19 titles, up to 1949-50. Athletic Bilbao won four of the first eight, and Real Madrid none in the 1940s, when Barcelona and Valencia won three each. Since 1950-51 the two have won 59 of 76, 78 percent: Real Madrid eight of the 10 in the 1960s, Barcelona six in the 1990s and six in the 2010s, when the two won nine of 10.

They have finished first and second 36 times, including five of the six seasons since 2020-21. Since 2004-05 only Atlético Madrid have broken through, in 2013-14 and 2020-21, so 20 of the last 22 titles went to Real Madrid or Barcelona, and in the 34 seasons from 1992-93 La Liga has had five champions, two fewer than the Premier League's seven.

La Liga record points and the best champions per game

Real Madrid in 2011-12 and Barcelona in 2012-13 hold the record of 100 points, each with 32 wins, four draws and two defeats. Seasons have run from 18 to 44 games and wins were worth two points until 1994-95, so we rescored every champion at three points a win and divided by games played.

On that scale the two 100-point teams lead with 2.63 points a game, ahead of Barcelona's 2.61 in 2009-10. The best of the two-points era is Real Madrid's 1960-61 team, at 2.53, with 24 wins in 30 games; Barcelona's 94 points last season, 2.47 a game, rank joint eighth. Deportivo's 1.82 a game in 1999-2000, from 69 points, is the lowest of all 95 champions.

Rescoring the same results would change four of the 64 titles won under two points, all in favor of the big two: Real Madrid would have won in 1965-66, level with Atlético Madrid but ahead on head-to-head, 1980-81 and 1983-84, and Barcelona in 1970-71.

Back-to-back La Liga champions and title droughts

The champion has retained the title 35 times in 94 attempts. Real Madrid won five in a row twice, from 1960-61 to 1964-65 and from 1985-86 to 1989-90. Barcelona's longest run is four, from 1990-91 to 1993-94, and this season they are going for a third in a row.

The worst title defense was Athletic Bilbao's 10th place in 1943-44, ahead of Real Madrid's ninth in 1976-77. Valencia waited 30 seasons between titles, from 1970-71 to 2001-02, the longest gap, and Real Madrid 17, from 1932-33 to 1953-54. Real Sociedad have not won since 1981-82, Athletic Bilbao since 1983-84, Deportivo since 1999-2000 and Valencia since 2003-04.

Closest La Liga title races and the head-to-head tiebreaker

Eight titles ended level on points at the top and 14 more were won by a single point. When two clubs finish level, the RFEF's rules rank them first on goal difference in the games between them, then on overall goal difference, and all eight ties follow that order. So in four of them the champion had the worse goal difference: Valencia in 1946-47 and 1970-71, Real Sociedad in 1980-81 and Real Madrid in 2006-07, who held the head-to-head edge over Barcelona.

Only in 1959-60 was the head-to-head level, each club winning at home, and Barcelona won on goal difference, +58 to +56.

La Liga table 2026-27: Barcelona's perfect start

Through October 21, Barcelona had won all nine of their games and led the La Liga table with 27 points and 39 goals, five points ahead of Atlético Madrid and six ahead of Real Madrid, after 89 of the season's 380 games. In the 31 seasons from 1995-96 to 2025-26, no team won its first nine league games; Barcelona and Atlético Madrid both won their first eight in 2013-14, when Atlético took the title.

The leader after nine games went on to win the league 15 times in those 31 seasons, and last season it was Real Madrid, on 24 points, who finished second. Real Madrid won the Clásico 2-1 at Barcelona on Sunday, October 25, ending that start, and our La Liga simulator plays out the rest of the season from the current table.

La Liga winners: frequently asked questions

Who has won the most La Liga titles? Real Madrid, with 36, the latest in 2023-24. Barcelona have 29 and Atlético Madrid 11.

Who won La Liga in 2025-26? Barcelona, with 94 points to Real Madrid's 86. They clinched the title by beating Real Madrid 2-0 on May 10, with three games to spare.

How many clubs have won La Liga? Nine: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Valencia, Real Sociedad, Deportivo La Coruña, Sevilla and Real Betis.

Has any team gone a La Liga season unbeaten? Two champions, both in 18-game seasons: Athletic Bilbao in 1929-30 and Real Madrid, as Madrid FC, in 1931-32.

How this was built: the final table of all 95 seasons from 1929 to 2025-26, as published on each season's Wikipedia page (for example 2025-26), checked against the table rebuilt from the same page's results grid, against Wikipedia's list of champions and, from 1995-96, against the 11,944 results of football-data.co.uk. Where a table and its grid disagreed near the top, the list decided, which changed only 1973-74's second and third places. Points per game rescore each champion at three points a win, and decades go by the year a season starts. Starts and the leader after nine games come from football-data; the 2026-27 table from ESPN's results, which match its standings. See our methodology. Data collected October 21, 2026; the Clásico is ESPN's.