Lanzarote's beaches by water quality: ten seasons of excellent everywhere, then a first slip at Famara

For ten seasons running, 2015 to 2024, Lanzarote had not a single water grade below excellent. Every one of its 37 sampling points that was tested in a given year got the top class. In 2025 the run broke in one place: Caleta de Famara on the north coast was graded good. It had not dropped below excellent since 2005. The grade counts bacteria in samples; sand, waves and wind are not part of it.

In 2025, 36 of 37 points were excellent, 97%, against 91% for Spain as a whole. Among the Canary Islands, El Hierro, La Gomera and La Palma had every point excellent. Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote had one point each below. More than one: Tenerife, 5.

How the grade is set

From spring to autumn, water is sampled regularly at every official bathing point. The lab counts two kinds of bacteria that reach the sea with waste water: E. coli and enterococci. A season's class comes not from one summer but from four, this one and the three before. So the grade moves slowly, and a single step down signals several poor samples, not one bad week. The EU bathing water directive.

Excellent, good and sufficient: the water met the standard. Poor: it did not, people are warned, and bathing may be closed or advised against. The European Environment Agency.

Caleta de Famara: good in 2025

The point in the village of Caleta de Famara, in the municipality of Teguise, has been tested since 1999. Its record: excellent 1999–2004, sufficient 2005, excellent 2006–2024, good 2025. This is the second time in 27 seasons it has been below excellent, and the first under today's rules. Good means the standard was met with a smaller margin; there is no bathing ban behind it.

0.4 km away, on the long beach of Famara, there is another point, and it has been excellent in every season it was tested since 1990. A grade describes the sampling spot, not the whole bay. Why the water by the village got worse the register does not say: it reports what was found in the samples, not where it came from. Whether this is one season or the start of a slide, the next ones will show.

Arrecife: up to 2014 and after

The island's capital has beaches right in town, and its 8 points are 22% of the island's. Yet 56% of all seasons below excellent on the record fell on them. Under today's rules, from 2011, and until 2025, every lower grade on the island was here: El Reducto, in 2011–2014. El Reducto, the beach in the town centre, has three points, and 2 of them stepped down in those years. Since 2015 all 8 of the capital's points have been excellent.

All the poor grades in the island's record are old, before 2005, and under the older rules: El Cable (Arrecife): 1991–1993; Muelle de la Pescaderia (Arrecife): 2004; El Ancla (Teguise): 2002–2003. They need care in reading: water was measured differently then, and the Spanish series has no good grade yet.

Costa Teguise: neighbouring beaches, different records

El Ancla, on the resort shore of the municipality of Teguise, is one of the island's three beaches ever graded poor. Its record: excellent 1990–1998, sufficient 1999, excellent 2000, sufficient 2001, poor 2002–2003, sufficient 2004, excellent 2005–2010, no grade 2011, excellent 2012–2025. Yet on the same shore, within 3.5 km of it, 3 beaches have been excellent in all 36 seasons: Jablillo at 2 km, Las Cucharas at 2.5 km and Los Charcos at 3.1 km. Las Caletas (Ensenada Las Caletas) at 0.7 km and Bastian at 1.5 km had the odd sufficient under the old rules. Today all of them are excellent, El Ancla included.

Across the island, 4 points have been excellent throughout, since 1990: Jablillo (Teguise); La Ria de la Santa (Santa Sport), Tinajo; Las Cucharas (Teguise); Los Charcos (Teguise). In all, 20 of 31 beaches have never dropped below excellent, counting those first tested after 1990.

Seven municipalities

All 7 of the island's municipalities have points. Haría, Yaiza and Tinajo never had a grade below excellent; among them is Yaiza, home to the resort of Playa Blanca.

At our four places

• Arrecife: 8 points, all excellent in 2025. Nearest to the centre: Muelle de la Pescaderia, 0.8 km, excellent.
• Teguise: 8 points, 7 of 8 excellent in 2025. Nearest to the centre: Famara, 6.4 km, excellent.
• Tías: 8 points, all excellent in 2025. Nearest to the centre: Pocillos, 3.6 km, excellent.
• Yaiza: 4 points, all excellent in 2025. Nearest to the centre: Pila de la Barrilla, 10 km, excellent.

Distances are in a straight line from the point our base uses for each place. For Teguise that is the old town inland, so the nearest point is 6.4 km away; the municipality's resort shore is Costa Teguise. Each place's beaches with distances are on its own page: Arrecife, Teguise, Tías, Yaiza.

The sea by month

The water at our four places is nearly the same: in no month do they differ by more than 0.2 °C. It is coldest in March, at 18.5–18.6 °C, and warmest in September, at 23.1–23.2 °C. It stays at 20 °C or above from May to December. Off Teguise, May is a tenth of a degree under the line, so the table gives it one month fewer. These are NOAA satellite averages for 2015–2024: a cell a quarter of a degree across, centred 9.2–13.8 km from the place; open water, not a reading at a beach. NOAA OISST.

All 31 beaches on the island

Further

The island month by month is in best time to visit Lanzarote. Neighbouring islands' beaches on the same grades: Fuerteventura beaches and Gran Canaria beaches; the whole country: Spain's cleanest beaches. Our places on the island are on the Lanzarote page; water at every place in our base is in our dataset.

Read next

Gran Canaria or Lanzarote: alike over the year, different month by month

Lanzarote or Fuerteventura: the price of a hotel night, neighbours, flights, hospitals and weather

Tenerife or Lanzarote: weather month by month, the price of a hotel night, neighbours, hospitals and flights home