List of best-selling Latin music artists

The following list of best-selling Latin music artists includes those music acts from the 20th century to the present with claims of 10 million or more record sales worldwide. This information cannot be listed officially, as there is no organization that has recorded global music sales.

The tables are listed with each artist's claimed sales figure(s) and their total independently certified units and are ranked in descending order by claimed sales. If two or more artists have the same claimed sales, they are then ranked by certified units. The claimed sales figure and the total of certified units (for each country) within the provided sources include sales of albums, singles, compilation-albums, music videos as well as downloads of singles and full-length albums. Sales figures, such as those from SoundScan, which are sometimes published by Billboard magazine, have not been included in the certified units column.

Definitions

Gold/Platinum certifications issued after 2016, especially on singles, are in some cases more than 50% streaming generated. Some of the 20th century artists can also have significant amount of streaming based certifications. The certified units of the newer artists may sometimes be higher than their listed claimed figures. This is because Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and almost all other certifying bodies count streaming towards Gold and Platinum thresholds required for Digital Single Award certification. For this reason, some singles and even albums get over certified by hundreds of thousands of units. The over certified figures, however, are often in millions of units for RIAA certifications.

The certified units for some artists/bands who have multi-disc albums can be higher than their listed claimed figures due to the RIAA counting each unit within set as one unit toward certification. The certified units also can be inflated by the redundancy of certifications, because each of tracks downloads and streams contributed to the certifications of both of the single and the respective album. The RIAA counts 10 downloads of individual track as well as 1,500 audio/video streams as an equivalent to one unit of album, including those from singles released prior to the album release. Theoretically, if one song were streamed 1.5 billion times on YouTube, the single would receive Diamond and the whole album could be certified Platinum, thus creating a combined total of 11 million certified units without any sales.

Issued certifications for songs which have been recorded by multiple artists including featured artists are added to each artist's total amount of certified units, as all the artists would have played a significant part in a song.  the certifications issued for songs that have been recorded by four or more artists are not included as the artists involved would have played minor roles.

Standards
 To ensure the highest level of fact checking and editorial control, this list sources sales figures to news organizations and highly regarded music industry related organizations such as Billboard.
 The figures of total certified units within the tables below are based on certified units of albums, singles (including digital downloads) and videos.
 Markets' order within the tables is based on Retail Value: each market generates respectively, the largest market at the top and smallest at the bottom.

Latin music
Latin music has an ambiguous meaning in the music industry due to differing views of what makes a recording "Latin". For example, the Latin music market in the United States defines Latin music as any release sung mostly in Spanish regardless of genre or artist nationality by organizations like as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Billboard, while international organizations and trade groups such as the Latin Recording Academy includes Portuguese-language music. Billboard considers any artist to be "Latin" if they perform in Spanish or Portuguese. As a musical genre, music journalists as well as musicologists defines Latin music as musical styles from Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America as well as Spain under the Latin music umbrella, while music from Brazil is also usually included and occasionally Portugal.

Either definition of "Latin music" may be used for inclusion. Therefore, for an artist to be considered, most of their catalog must be in Spanish or Portuguese and sold at least 10 million copies. In addition, only Latin recordings (defined as a record with 51% of its content in Spanish or Portuguese) are counted in the certified units table. Instrumental musicians may also be included if they mainly perform any Latin music genre. For recordings with multiple versions, only the Spanish/Portuguese version(s) will be counted towards certified units.

All artists included on this list, charts have their available claimed figures supported from available online databases from Latin America and Spain in certified units. With the exception of certifications from Spain prior to 2003, the certified units are sourced from available online databases of local music industry associations. Certifications from Spain prior to 2003 are listed on the book Sólo éxitos. Año a año. 1959-2002 (2005) by Fernando Salaverri. Certifications from other countries may be included but only if the source specifically mentions the name of the country's certifying authority. In the case of recordings that have simultaneously certified standard and Latin by the RIAA, only the unit with the higher certified copies will be counted. For example, Mi Tierra by Gloria Estefan has been certified standard platinum for one millions units and 16× platinum in the Latin field for 1,600,000 units, thus only the latter certification is counted. Albums that have been certified in both fields for the same value, such as Sueños Líquidos by Maná may use either certification, but not both. All certified units are converted from Gold/Platinum/Diamond certification awards based on criteria provided by certifying bodies.

Artists by reputed sales and certified copies

60 million or more

40 million to 59 million

21 million to 39 million

15 million to 20 million

10 million to 14.9 million

Artists by reputed sales only
Artists on this list are solely based on claimed sales and are not listed on any certification database online (or in the case of artists such as Jon Secada having none of their Latin recordings certified). This is mainly due to the lack of online databases for many Latin American countries. Currently, only Brazil and Mexico have an online database, while Argentina and Uruguay also had them for a while before they were taken down. Even so, the online database for the countries mentioned are not complete and only includes artists that have been certified after the databases went online. Thus, any album that was previously certified by the country's certifying authority are not retroactively included. For example, Falta Amor by Maná and Entrega Total by OV7 were certified platinum and gold by AMPROFON for sales of 250,000 and 100,000 copies in 1992 and 1998, respectively. However, neither albums are listed on AMPROFON's online database because its archives only date back to 1999. As a result, the figures shown are commonly cited by reputable sources, but their actual sales may be overexaggerated by the artists record label.

At least 10 million copies sold

See also
List of best-selling Latin albums
List of best-selling music artists

Notes
The claimed sales may include non Spanish/Portuguese recordings that are otherwise omitted from total certified units.

References

Latin
 Best-selling