El Economista (Spanish: The Economist) is a Spanish daily newspaper which focuses on economical, financial and business affairs. The daily is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.^[1]

El Economista was first published on 28 February 2006,^[2] being the fourth financial daily in Spain.^[3][4] The founders of the daily are Alfonso de Salas, Juan Gonzales and Gregorio Pena who also launched El Mundo daily.^[4][5] The Editorial Ecoprensa, S.A. is the publisher the daily^[6][7] of which CEO is Salas.^[4][8]

The paper's target audience include professional and modern readers and investors.^[3] It advocates the free competition, female equality and transparency.^[3] The daily is published in broadsheet format^[9] and uses plain and easy-to-understand words while reporting complex economical and financial affairs in its four sections which have their own colors.^[4] It does not employ standard pink paper generally used in financial dailies, instead it uses white paper and full color print.^[4][6] The number of pages on weekdays is 36 whereas it is 64 during weekends.^[4] Each Saturday the daily gives a supplement, El Especial, which provides analyses, reports and investigative articles.^[4] In weekdays it also offers two distinct supplements.^[4] On 31 March 2006 its website was launched^[3] and the paper became the first Spanish financial daily to publish on Internet.^[4] The daily later started an English website.^[3]

El Economista was awarded the World's Best Designed Newspaper™ for 2006 by the Society for News Design (SND).^[1][10][11] In 2006 and in 2007, El Economista was named again by the SND as the best designed newspaper in Spain and Portugal.^[4] For the period of 2006–2007, the World Association of Newspapers named the paper as one of the world's ten best designed newspapers.^[4]

The 2007 OJD certified circulation of El Economista was 26,155 copies.^[4] In 2011, El Economista was the third daily in its category with a circulation of 23,000 copies.^[5] The paper sold 32,274 copies in 2012.^[12]