Almería
Almería is the capital of the province of the same name in south-east Spain. The city lies in a wide bay ringed by mountains on three sides: the Sierra de Gádor to the west, the Sierra Alhamilla to the north, and the valley of the Andarax to the east. Above it stands the Alcazaba, a tenth-century Moorish fortress and one of the largest in Spain.
This is one of the driest corners of the country. There are fewer than thirty rainy days a year, and by hours of sunshine Almería ranks first in our base. The local economy is built on that dryness: west of the city stretch kilometres of greenhouses growing vegetables for export all year round. Housing here is among the cheapest on the Mediterranean, and that is no accident — the city lives on farming and the port rather than on tourism. Next door is the Cabo de Gata nature park, a shore with almost nothing built on it.
- Cabo de Gata · 30 km — the nature park and an undeveloped shore
- Mojácar · 90 km — the white town on the hillside and the beaches
- Roquetas de Mar · 20 km — the cheaper resort town next door
Almería sits in Almería, right on the water. Winter here is livelier than in most towns on the Costa de Almería: 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 4 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast, and the town has its own train station. The airport is 15 minutes away, closer than for most places in the database.
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.
Almería sea temperature by month
5 months above 20 °CsourceAverage sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 24.9 km from the centre.
Tourist load
Almería beaches and water quality
sourceAlmería has 13 beaches tested under EU bathing water rules, at 19 sampling points. In the 2025 season, all 13 were graded excellent. The last “poor” grade here was in 2010: Playa El Bobar.
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 San Miguel-Las Conchas | 1 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa Zapillo | 1.7 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1991 |
| Playa El Palmeral | 2.2 km | excellent | 17 seasons | none since 2003 |
| Playa Las Olas | 2.6 km | excellent | 31 seasons | none since 1995 |
| Playa Nueva Almeria | 2.7 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa La Garrofa | 5.2 km | excellent | 36 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa Costacabana | 6.5 km | excellent | 17 seasons | 1990 |
| Playa El Alquian | 9.3 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1992 |
| Playa El Toyo | 12.5 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1992 |
| Playa Retamar | 13.1 km | excellent | 36 seasons | none since 1990 |
| Playa Torregarcia | 14.3 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1992 |
| Playa San Miguel de Cabo de Gata | 20.3 km | excellent | 35 seasons | none since 1991 |
| Playa Las Salinas de Cabo de Gata | 23.4 km | excellent | 34 seasons | none since 1990 |
No longer tested: Playa El Bobar (last season 2020).
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 8 031 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 680 € 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: Almería
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 500 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 680 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 880 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 549 €/mo | SERPAVI · 83 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- Montessori School AlmeríaAlmeríaBritishEnglish, Spanish · 2–12 · privateOnly preschool and primary (up to age 12), no secondary stage; recognised by the Junta de Andalucía as a "British School in Spain"
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.
- —Prices rising 8% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
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- Morocco11 081
- Colombia2 633
- Romania1 845
- Venezuela891
- Argentina722
- Peru674
- Italy604
- Senegal503
- No notable foreign-language community with services recorded.
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 LEI
January 2026/2715 min to the airport- United Kingdom2
- other countries1
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
- 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.
- What a month on the Spanish coast costs, town by townOne identical scenario costed across all 132 places. The spread between towns is wider than between countries, and nearly as wide within a single coast.
- Winter sun in Spain: 30 towns that stay open all winterWinter-sun lists usually rank the weather. This one ranks what stays open: January against the summer peak from Spain's social security data, plus sea months, rent and the drive to the airport.
- Andalusia's beaches by water quality: five provinces, the Bay of Algeciras and the sea from the Strait to MojácarGrades from the European register for every sampling point on Andalusia's coast since 1990: where the water was not excellent in 2025, Huelva's bad first year, the bay against the ocean in Cádiz, eight clean seasons in Málaga and Almería, and the sea on five coasts.
- Best places to live in coastal Spain: five lists, not one rankingAlive in winter, longer swimming, no car needed, cheaper, with children — five sorts of the base by measured fields. A single ranking does not exist.
Where to look next
- Roquetas de Mar1 706 €/m²
- Adra1 150 €/m²
- Mojácar2 651 €/m²
- San Sebastián de La Gomera1 500 €/m²
- Vinaròs1 497 €/m²
- Cartagena1 479 €/m²
- Gandía1 758 €/m²
- Los Alcázares1 750 €/m²
- Telde1 796 €/m²