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

Our data sees Lanzarote almost whole: our four places hold about 80% of the island's residents, and all of them share one hospital and one airport. Tenerife has 5.7 times the people, two airports and a mountain in the middle, and our three places there are less than a third of the island. Below is how the two differ in government series: the weather in each month, the price of a hotel night, the neighbours, the hospital and flights home.

This compares our places, not whole islands. On Tenerife they are Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Adeje, and Puerto de la Cruz: 3 of the island's 31 municipalities. On Lanzarote, Arrecife, Teguise, Tías, and Yaiza: 4 of 7. Island populations are as of 1 January 2025. Population, municipalities by island.

Short answers

• By day Lanzarote is warmer from April to September; at night it is cooler from September to May. In any month the gap is about a degree.
• Lanzarote gets more sun in every month: 2,978 hours a year against 2,725 at the airport in southern Tenerife.
• The sea off our Tenerife places is warmer in every month, by 0.7–1 °C.
• A hotel night costs more on Tenerife from October to April and on Lanzarote from May to September.
• Britons are the largest foreign community in Teguise, Tías, and Yaiza; in Adeje, foreigners are 48.1% of residents.
• The drive to hospital is 5–25 minutes from our Lanzarote places and 31 minutes from Puerto de la Cruz.
• Both islands work in winter: in January 2025 every one of the seven places kept at least 96% of its best month's businesses.

Weather: twelve months at two airports

The AEMETAEMETSpain's state meteorological agency. It runs the weather stations and publishes the climate norms.Why it matters. Our sunshine hours and winter temperatures come from observations, not from resort marketing. The gap between the two can be several degrees. normal is a thirty-year average, 1981–2010. Both stations sit by the sea and near the resorts: Tenerife South airport at 64 m, Lanzarote airport at 14 m. «Day» is the average daytime high, «night» the average overnight low.

Lanzarote swings wider. By day it is warmer for 6 months in a row, from April to September: 29.1 °C in August against 28.4 °C. At night it is cooler for 9 months, from September to May: 14 °C in January against 15.2 °C. No month differs by more than a degree and a half, but the gap always runs the same way: winter in southern Tenerife is milder, and summer on Lanzarote is hotter.

On sun, Lanzarote leads all year: more hours in every month, 2,978 a year against 2,725. It is also drier: 109 mm of rain a year against 133 mm in southern Tenerife. Tenerife's capital, Santa Cruz, is a case of its own. Its station stands in the city: in summer, from June to September, it gets more sun than Lanzarote, yet it has 227 mm of rain a year, 1.7 times as much as the southern airport. One more caveat on sun: Lanzarote has more hours, but southern Tenerife has more completely cloudless days, 115 a year against 73. The two measure different things: hours count how long the sun shone, while the weather service calls a day clear only when there is almost no cloud at all. AEMET normals.

There is no weather here for Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast: no station with a normal stands by the sea there, and the northern airport is high up. What altitude does to Tenerife's weather is covered in which Canary Island to choose.

The sea

The water off our Tenerife places is warmer in every month, by 0.7–1 °C. For both islands it is coldest in March: 19.5 °C and 18.5 °C. The swimming line of 20 °C holds for 10 months a year off Tenerife and 8 off Lanzarote. The difference is January and April: in those months the water off Tenerife is at the line or above it, and off Lanzarote below. Averages for 2015–2024 from NOAA satellites, open water off each place. NOAA OISST.

A hotel night: Tenerife costs more in winter, Lanzarote in summer

Every month 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. publishes what each island's hotels took on average per room sold per day. Below is September 2025 to August 2026. The months when Tenerife costs more run as one stretch, from October to April, and a year earlier it was the same, month for month.

The dearest night on Tenerife came in March, at €174; on Lanzarote in August, at €181. The cheapest came in June and in May. In January Tenerife costs 19% more; in August Lanzarote costs 11% more. Summer is also when guests from Spain come: their share of Lanzarote's hotel nights rises from 5% in February to 20% in September. Over the year a night got dearer on both islands: by 6% on average on Tenerife and 5% on Lanzarote. Room price, nights by guests' country.

Who the neighbours are

The 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. census for 1 January 2025 counts each municipality's residents by citizenship. Britons are the largest foreign community in Teguise, Tías, and Yaiza, Lanzarote's resort towns. Our places on that island have 5,169 of them; our Tenerife places, 3,495. In Adeje foreigners are almost half the population, 48.1%, and the largest group is not Britons but Italians. Russians are most numerous there too: 1,674 people, the town's third-largest community. The island capitals look different: the largest groups there are Venezuelans in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Colombians in Arrecife, and Britons are not among the three largest.

These are registered residents, not everyone who spends time here: an owner who stays half the year is not in the census, and people who took Spanish citizenship count as Spanish. Census by citizenship.

Second homes and holiday lets

By the 2021 housing census, the place with the most homes where nobody lives full-time is Tías: 54.3%, more than half. The fewest are in Arrecife, 10.4%. Holiday lets are a separate count, which INE keeps from listings on rental sites: in Yaiza they are 21.7% of all homes, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1% (as of 30 April 2026). Where there are many, the neighbours on the stairs change every week. Housing census, holiday lets.

Rent, income and the price per metre

The median on existing leases (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., 2024) at our Tenerife places is €580–633 a month, at our Lanzarote places €500–611. The highest income per resident of the seven is in Teguise, €16,026 a year; the lowest in Adeje, €12,060 (INE, 2023). The price per metre on one basis, the housing ministry's appraisal, exists only for Adeje, Puerto de la Cruz, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Arrecife: from €2,011 in Arrecife to €3,774 in Adeje. Teguise, Tías, and Yaiza have no appraisal, only asking prices, which should not be set against it. Why is explained in appraised and asking prices; taxes, fuel and household spending on the islands are in the cost of living in the Canaries. Rent register, income.

The drive to hospital

On Lanzarote all four places share one nearest public general hospital, Hospital Universitario Dr. José Molina Orosa in Arrecife. The drive takes 5 to 25 minutes. Our Tenerife places use two different hospitals, but the island is bigger: 6 minutes from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, 10 minutes from Adeje to Hospital del Sur, and 31 minutes from Puerto de la Cruz to Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria.

Times are by car on a clear road from the centre of each place, using the government's hospital catalogue. They are not ambulance times or rush-hour times, and the catalogue does not say whether a hospital has an emergency department. Hospital catalogue.

Flying home in January

In January of the 2026/27 season, the airport in southern Tenerife has direct flights to 102 destinations outside Spain, and Lanzarote airport to 60. To the UK, 21 and 17; to Germany, 13 and 7; to Ireland, 4 and 4; to Scandinavia and Finland, 7 and 6. Tenerife's northern airport is closer to Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz, but in January it has only 6 destinations abroad.

This is not a government series but our own count from airline schedules and the press, checked on 17 September 2026. It answers «can I fly without changing», not «how many flights a week».

Seven places side by side

Winter settles nothing between the two: by Social Security's monthly figures for 2025, every one of the seven places kept at least 96% of its best month's cafés, hotels and shops open in January. Social Security series.

Further

All the islands on the same questions are in which Canary Island to choose. Tenerife month by month is in the best time to visit Tenerife, the water at its beaches in the Tenerife beach guide. Lanzarote against its neighbour is in Lanzarote or Fuerteventura. Our places on the islands are on the pages for Tenerife and Lanzarote.

Read next

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Best time to visit Lanzarote: sea, sun, rain and the price of a hotel night, month by month

Tenerife or Fuerteventura: nearly half dearer in winter, a few per cent in summer