relocoast
Calpe playa Cantal Roig beach near Penon de Ifach at Alicante spain
Costa Blanca · North, Alicante

Calpe / Calp

4Winter liveability / 5To the sea 200 mTo the airport 65 min · ALCPer m² 3 004

You can see Calpe from a long way off: in the middle of the town a rock 332 metres high runs out into the sea. Sailors once steered by it; today it is a nature park you can walk up in a couple of hours. People began settling here in the Bronze Age, then came Iberians, Romans and Arabs — the shore is easy, so it was never left empty. The prime meridian passes through the town. Until the last century Calpe lived on almonds, raisins and fishing, and took salt from a lagoon. The lagoon is a nature park now as well.

The town became a resort in the sixties and you can see it from a mile away: the towers that grew around the rock have no equal on this coast. More than half the residents are foreign — the highest share in our whole base. The British and German communities are big enough that the local calendar now has a German carnival and an Oktoberfest next to the Spanish festivals. Practical life is middling: there is a tram station for Benidorm and Alicante, the airport is a little over an hour away, but the nearest hospital is half an hour off in Dénia. For a retired person that is the question that matters.

Worth a trip nearby
  • Altea · 11 kmthe white old town on the hill above the sea
  • Benidorm · 22 kmhospitals, shops, everything open all year
  • Jávea · 25 kmthe bay under the Montgó mountain
Resalesource
3 004€/m²
+4.5% price growth yoy
appraised value, Ministerio de Vivienda
New build
4 400€/m²
Rent, 2 bed
1300€/mo
Populationsource
27 440
Foreign residents 54.1%
Winter humidity
66%
Sunshine hours per year
2 860h
Rent, 1 bed
1000€/mo
International schools
1
Internet
400Mbps

Calpe / Calp sits in Costa Blanca North, Alicante, right on the water. 54.1% of residents are foreign nationals per the census: Spanish is not the only language you will hear on the street. Summers are packed: tourist load hits 5 out of 5 at the peak against 1 in winter. The nearest hospital is a 30-minute drive, further than usual on the coast.

Hospital, terrain, getting around

Nearest hospitalsource
37min by car
Hospital de Denia
Dénia · 31.5 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 56 m, 66 m of elevation change
25–80 m of change — the climb from the sea to the centre is noticeable on foot
Car-freeour rating
3/5
possible without a car, with caveats
No rail station within 3 km · bus stops within 1.5 km: 1

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.

Sea temperature

5 months above 20 °C
15
J
14
F
15
M
16
A
19
M
23
J
26
J
27
A
26
S
23
O
19
N
17
D

Tourist load

1
J
1
F
2
M
2
A
3
M
4
J
5
J
5
A
4
S
3
O
2
N
2
D

On the map

What tenants actually pay

sourced
Median
550€/mo
75th percentile
685€/mo
Flat size
77

This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 1 455 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 300 € 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: Calp

Rent by number of bedrooms

asking price, estimate
1 bedroom1 000/mo
2 bedrooms1 300/mo
3 bedrooms1 690/mo
Median of active leases, 2024550/mo

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

estimate

International schools counted in the base: 1. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.

5

Renting without a Spanish contract

How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.

  • 54.1% foreign residents — income from abroad is routine for landlords here
  • A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before

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
Foreign residents on the padrón
54.1%
14,857 of 27,440 · Calp
  • Colombia1 591
  • United Kingdom1 494
  • Ukraine1 400
  • Belgium1 388
  • Romania1 219
  • Russia1 129
  • Germany1 046
  • Morocco922
Communities and services in their language
  • enEnglishschool, doctors or lawyers in the language
  • deGermanschool, 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 2026/2765 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

Appointment for the TIE· Alicantefrom reports
2
You can book in six places: Alicante, Benidorm, Dénia, Elche, Orihuela and Torrevieja. There are more free slots here than in Valencia, 131 counted over summer 2026, yet the wait is four to eight weeks and getting in is very hard. In June 2026 a police union called the six-officer documentation unit in Torrevieja a collapse, and some cases were moved to Elche and Orihuela. Slots appear in the morning and vanish within minutes.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
not on the map
Dog beaches within 8 km
not on the map
Vets within 5 km
2

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.

Where to look next

Nearby on the same coast
Compare with Benidorm
Cheaper with the same sea
Similar price, other coasts
Compare with Es Castell
Verified: 2026-09-14 · where the data comes from