Cost of living in Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza: spending, rent and pay from government data

Whether Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza are expensive is something the Spanish government measures rather than guesses. A resident of the Balearic Islands spends €14,217 a year, by the statistics office's household survey; the Spanish average is €14,066. The gap is smaller than the survey's own margin of error. The islands are not dearer across the board. Housing is, and housing is the cost a newcomer meets in the first month.

This is not a basket of shop prices, and not our calculator. What follows are three official measurements: what island households spend and on what, what tenants pay in each of our 12 places on three islands, and what people here earn. Together they cost a month for one adult and for a couple, with no figure of our own invention. Mallorca is the island older British guides spell Majorca.

Where the spending figures come from

Every year Spain’s statistics office (INEINESpain's National Statistics Institute. It keeps the padrón — the official register of residents of every municipality.Why it matters. The only primary source of population for the whole country. A figure 'per INE' can be checked against a table; a figure 'from the internet' cannot.) asks households across the country to log what they spend, and publishes the averages by region. The survey is the Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares, and the latest edition covers 2025. It records not prices but what people living here actually paid out over a year, owners and tenants together, split into 13 groups from food to insurance.

Regional figures carry a margin of error, and the office publishes that too. For the Balearics it is wider than for Spain: 3.09% on the total against 0.74% nationally, and 10.71% on transport. So a difference is called a difference here only when it exceeds twice the combined margin of both figures. Anything smaller could simply be the luck of which households were asked.

What the islands spend more on, and less

Spending per person in 2025, euros. Measured against the margin, Balearic households spend more than the Spanish average on housing and phones and internet, and less on food, cafés and restaurants, education, and alcohol and tobacco. Everything else sits inside the margin. That includes transport: 20% above Spain at face value, but the line is so uncertain that the survey does not support a difference.

Is food cheaper on the islands? The survey does not say so

The food line is the one most easily misread. A Balearic resident spent 18% less than the Spanish average on food and soft drinks, well outside the margin. That does not make a supermarket trolley cheaper. The survey records spending, not prices: the same gap appears if people buy less, or buy different things. Nor is it that islanders eat out instead: they spend less in cafés and restaurants too.

There is a second reason not to divide by heads. Island households are larger: 2.7 people on average against 2.5 for Spain, from the same survey. A big family shares one fridge and one light bill, so per person it looks thrifty. That is why the monthly figures below use the survey's other measure, spending per consumption unit. The first adult counts as one, each further person aged 14 or over as 0.5, each younger child as 0.3. Survey methodology.

Housing: what the extra 16% is made of

Housing is the largest line everywhere, and it needs taking apart. In this survey it includes a rent nobody pays: the office works out what an owner would pay to rent their own home and books it as spending. On the islands that imputed rent comes to €3,611 per person a year, against €3,117 for Spain. Rent actually paid is €833 against €584. It looks small because it is averaged over everyone, including people who rent nothing.

Take both rents out and what remains is the cost of running a home: water, power, gas, repairs. Per consumption unit that is €1,455 a year on the islands and €1,434 for Spain. Practically the same. The island premium on housing is the price of the walls, not of the bills. Spending subgroups.

Rent in Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza: 12 towns

For rent the government has a sharper figure than a regional average. The housing ministry builds a rent index from landlords’ tax returns (SERPAVISERPAVIThe Ministry of Housing's public registry of rents: medians of actual signed leases by municipality.Why it matters. Asking rent and signed rent are different things: an advert is today's price, while the registry also holds old leases whose rent has not moved in years. The registry shows what people actually pay.) and publishes the median monthly rent on existing leases in each municipality. The latest year is 2024. It is not today’s asking rent: leases signed years ago are in the sample, so it sits below what an empty flat is advertised for. But it is counted the same way in every town, which is what a comparison needs.

Monthly rent, 2024. Among our island towns Ibiza town has the highest median, €915, and Alaior the lowest, €500. The islands sit apart. On Ibiza and Formentera the median is €800–915; on Menorca, €500–583; on Mallorca, €650–800.

Per square metre, Sant Josep de sa Talaia ranks first of the 127 places in our base that have the figure: €14.63 a month, more than Barcelona at €13.68. The flats there are small, though: the median is 68 m². A word on precision, too. A median drawn from a few hundred leases moves more from year to year than one from tens of thousands: Formentera has 281, Barcelona 140,872. The ministry's rent index.

A month for one adult and for a couple

Add the two series together and a month can be costed without a single guess. Rent is the town's median. Everything else is what a Balearic household spends per consumption unit, minus both rents: food, bills, transport, cafés, the lot. One adult living alone is one unit; a couple is 1.5. The mainland cities get the same treatment, with their own rent and their own region's spending.

Per month, euros, from the cheapest couple's month to the dearest. On the islands everything except rent is identical in every row: €1,223 for one adult, €1,834 for two. The survey does not go below the region, so Palma and Formentera look the same in it. The spread between towns is rent and nothing else: a couple's month runs from €2,334 in Alaior to €2,749 in Ibiza town.

A couple's month in Palma de Mallorca, the islands' capital, comes out below Barcelona (€2,902) and above Valencia (€2,563), Alicante (€2,490), and Málaga (€2,413). Overall spending in Catalonia and the Valencia region is within the margin of the Balearics. Andalusia spends measurably less. Spending by region, margins of error.

And what people here earn

A cost means something only next to income. The statistics office publishes average net income per resident for every municipality; the latest year is 2023. Two such incomes are a rough yardstick for a couple who both work. Rough, because the average per resident includes children and pensioners, and the income year is earlier than the spending year. But it is counted the same way for every row in the table above.

On that yardstick a couple's month takes from 85% of two local incomes in Formentera to 102% in Sant Antoni de Portmany. Only in Sant Antoni de Portmany does it take more than both incomes whole. Alicante (109%) and Málaga (105%) come out tighter than any of our island towns. Island rents are higher, but so is what islanders earn. Income by municipality.

Buying: 5 towns with the ministry's valuation

For buying, the honest comparison is narrower. The housing ministry publishes the appraised value per square metre: what licensed valuers put on it, and what a bank looks at for a mortgage. Of our island towns, 5 have a figure in its bulletin: Santa Eulària des Riu, Ibiza town, Ciutadella de Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, and Maó. For the other 7 we have only asking prices, and those are never set against appraisals here.

Santa Eulària des Riu is appraised at €6,800 per square metre, the highest of the 79 places in our base with a ministry figure. Ibiza town follows at €5,435, second in the base. Palma de Mallorca is valued at €3,792, below Barcelona at €4,595. The lowest on the islands is Maó, at €2,981, close to Valencia at €2,957. The ministry's bulletin.

Cheaper rent, emptier winter

The lowest rents on the islands are not a bargain everyone overlooked. They sit where winter is empty. Social Security publishes, month by month, how many employers in cafés, hotels and shops pay contributions in each municipality. In January 2025 the three towns with the cheapest rent kept this share of their peak month's count: Alaior 44%, Es Castell 41%, and Ciutadella de Menorca 52%. Palma de Mallorca kept 91%.

There is a case that runs the other way. The emptiest January of our 12 towns is Formentera, at 30%, and its rent is still the fourth highest of the 12. A quiet winter does not by itself make a home cheap. Social Security series.

Further

How the islands live through winter, how far the hospital is and how many homes stand empty is covered in Mallorca or Menorca. What the law says about lease terms and deposits is in renting long term. Why an appraisal cannot be set against an asking price is explained in the two kinds of price, and prices along the whole coast on one basis in property prices on the coast. The month can be set against the minimum wage in the guide to pay, and the whole coast on one scenario in cost of living in Spain.

Every island town with its numbers is on the pages for Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza and Formentera.

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