Alicante
Alicante is the provincial capital and the tenth largest city in Spain, and the difference from the resorts around it is simple: people here work. Three quarters of those employed are in services; the city has a university, a port and the EU trademark office. It is old and it is a port town: the church of Santa María stands where the main mosque was, and the castle of Santa Bárbara sits on the rock above the roofs. Below them are the old quarter and the eighteenth-century town hall. Fifty thousand people lived here in 1900 and a hundred thousand by 1950; after that the city grew along with the building on the coast.
That is where the practical difference from the smaller towns comes from. The airport is twenty minutes away and fifth in the country by passengers. There is a high-speed rail station, a tram along the coast to Benidorm and Dénia, large hospitals and five international schools. About a fifth of residents are foreign — half the share in Torrevieja fifty kilometres down the road. That tells you something too: Alicante is not a resort but a city people live in all year. At the end of June bonfires are lit in the streets — the biggest festival of the year, on the list of events of international tourist interest since 1984.
- Elche · 25 km — the UNESCO-listed palm grove
- Tabarca · 20 km — the island reserve, by boat from the port
- Benidorm · 45 km — the coastal tram, the towers and the beaches
Alicante sits in Costa Blanca, right on the water. The square metre is 30% below the Costa Blanca median: €2 272 against €3 258. Winter here is livelier than in most towns on the Costa Blanca: our rating is 5 out of 5, one of the few on this coast that does not empty out. You can live here without a car: our rating is 5 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast, and the town has its own train station.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · ratings for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.
Alicante sea temperature by month
5 months above 20 °CsourceAverage sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 9.9 km from the centre.
Tourist load
Alicante beaches and water quality
sourceAlicante has 8 beaches tested under EU bathing water rules, at 10 sampling points. In the 2025 season, 7 of 8 were graded excellent. No beach here has been graded “poor” since testing began in 1990.
The grade is bacteria in water samples over the last four seasons — not sand, views or crowds. “Poor” means bathing there is advised against.
| Beach | From the centre | Grade 2025 | “Excellent” in a row | Last “poor” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playa del Postiguet | 0.3 km | excellent | 17 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa de San Gabriel | 3 km | excellent | 2 seasons | none since 2024 |
| Playa de l’Albufereta | 3.8 km | good | — | none since 1990 |
| Playa de l’Almadrava | 4.4 km | excellent | 16 seasons | none since 2004 |
| Playa Calas de Cabo Huertas | 4.9 km | excellent | 2 seasons | none since 2024 |
| Playa de Sant Joan | 6.7 km | excellent | 36 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa del Saladar | 7.8 km | excellent | 26 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa de Tabarca | 20 km | excellent | 36 seasons | none since 1990 |
Where from: European Environment Agency, bathing water register, seasons 1990–2025, licence CC BY 4.0. Distance is from the centre in a straight line. Every place in one table
On the map
What tenants actually pay
sourcedThis is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 19 641 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 120 € for a two-bedroom.
The point of the 75th percentile: it is closer to what is being signed now than the median. The gap between them shows how much a new tenant overpays relative to long-standing ones.
Where from: SERPAVI, Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: Alicante/Alacant
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 850 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 120 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 460 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 608 €/mo | SERPAVI · 89 m² |
Asking prices are what long lets are advertised at today; the registry is what tenants pay on signed leases, including old ones. The gap between them is your negotiating argument.
Schools nearby
from registries- King's College, The British School of AlicanteAlicanteBritishIBEnglish · 2–18 · private
- European School of AlicanteAlicanteotherGerman, Spanish, French, English · 4–18 · stateIntergovernmental school tied to the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO); European Baccalaureate, four language sections
- Lycée français international d'Alicante Pierre-DeschampsEl CampelloFrenchFrench · 3–18 · private10 km from Alicante, Mission laïque française network
Checked against registries and school sites: 2026-09-17. Fees are on each school's site: nobody publishes them centrally.
Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before
- —Prices rising 11.5% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
- —A big city: queues at viewings and a bank guarantee as the norm
This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nómina is an individual landlord's practice and nobody publishes it. The rating is derived from the share of foreign residents, the presence of a community with services, price growth, seasonality of the stock and the size of the town.
Who lives here
INE 2025- Colombia11 674
- Algeria11 063
- Ukraine7 019
- Italy5 186
- Russia4 068
- Morocco3 998
- Venezuela3 912
- Argentina3 028
- enEnglishschool, doctors or lawyers in the language
- ruRussianschool, doctors or lawyers in the language
Where from: INE, Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrón registrations by citizenship on 1 January, not everyone living here: seasonal owners and the unregistered are outside it, and naturalised residents count as Spanish.
Winter direct flights from ALC
January 2026/2720 min to the airport- United Kingdom21
- other countries17
- Germany12
- Poland10
- Norway7
- Italy6
- Sweden5
- France5
- Belgium4
- Netherlands3
- Switzerland3
- Ireland2
- Denmark2
- Czechia2
- Finland1
- Austria1
Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.
Paperwork and practicalities
From OpenStreetMap — an open map filled in by volunteers. Something missing there may still exist: read this as «we found this many», not «there are no more».
Month by month
Air, sea, how busy it gets and what stays open — for each month on its own.
Articles that include this place
- How the Spanish school system works: year groups by birth year, subjects, grades and five coastal regionsSpanish schooling from the education act, the curriculum decrees and the Ministry's statistics: which year group a child joins by birth year, what is taught, how grades and the university score work, how places are shared out, and how Andalucía, Murcia, Valencia, the Balearics and the Canaries differ.
- Which Spanish coast is best? 26 coasts on the same numbersJanuary, warm sea, beach water, price per square metre, damp, neighbours and the airport run: all 26 coasts on the same fields. Every question has a different winner.
- Which sea is Spain on? The Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay — and how warm each getsThe limits of each sea from the International Hydrographic Organization, the sea of every coast worked out from our places' coordinates, and the water temperature month by month, from the Canaries to the Costa Brava.
- Spain's minimum wage and average salary in 2026, with sources — and what rent takes on the coastThe 2026 minimum wage from the decree, and the mean and median from INE — every figure linked to its primary source. Then how much of the wage lease rents take, coast by coast.
- Costa Blanca and Alicante beaches by water quality: every beach's record since 1990Every beach in Alicante province with an official sampling point: where the water has stayed excellent, where it slipped in recent seasons, and when the coast is quieter for the same sea.
- Who already lives there — and why it is not about neighboursA headcount of compatriots and a doctor and lawyer who speak your language are different things. A move runs into the second.
Where to look next
- El Campello2 824 €/m²
- Santa Pola2 604 €/m²
- Guardamar del Segura3 363 €/m²