Top Latin Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine and is labeled as the most important music chart for Spanish language, full-length albums in the American music market. Like all Billboard album charts, the chart is based on sales. Nielsen SoundScan compiles the sales data from merchants representing more than 90 percent of the U.S. music retail market. The sample includes sales at music stores, the music departments of electronics and department stores, direct-to-consumer transactions, and Internet sales of physical albums or digital downloads. A limited array of verifiable sales from concert venues is also tabulated.
To rank on this chart, an album must have 51% or more of its content recorded in Spanish. Before this chart, all Latin music information was featured on the Latin Pop Albums chart, which began on June 29, 1985, and is still running along with the Regional Mexican Albums and Tropical Albums chart. On the week ending February 11, 2017, Billboard updated the methodology to compile the Top Latin Albums chart into a multi-metric methodology to include track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent albums units.
As of January 2026, a total of 297 albums have achieved a number-one debut on the chart. Mi Tierra (1993) by Cuban singer Gloria Estefan was the first album to debut as number one on the chart. The first male artist to have a number-one debuting album on the chart is Spanish singer Julio Iglesias with Tango (1996), while the first due or group is Mexican-American rock band Santana with Supernatural (1999). Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny is the artist with the most number-one debuting albums, with all nine of his first consecutive works reaching number one on the chart on debut.