El Campello is a small town thirteen kilometres north of Alicante, with around twenty-nine thousand residents. A long promenade runs along its shore, and on the La Illeta headland stand excavations: an Iberian and Roman settlement, one of the oldest on this coast, with the remains of fish-salting tanks.
The main convenience is the tram. The line runs along the coast from Alicante, and the centre is half an hour away without a car. That is rare on the Costa Blanca, where almost everywhere is hard without one and everything is built around it. In summer the town is full and in winter quieter, but Alicante is next door and life does not stop. Housing costs more than in Santa Pola and less than in Alicante itself.
Worth a trip nearby
- Alicante · 13 km — the city, the airport and hospitals
- Benidorm · 35 km — the resort that works all year
- Villajoyosa · 20 km — the painted houses and the chocolate factories
Resalesource
2 906€/m²
+11.5% price growth yoy
appraised valueappraisedValue from licensed appraisers, published by the Ministry of Housing. Not a listing price.Why it matters. It runs systematically below asking prices. Comparing it with another town's asking price flips the comparison., Ministerio de Vivienda
Populationsource
31 567
Foreign residents 22.5%
Sunshine hours per year
2 860h
El Campello sits in L'Alacantí, Alicante, right on the water. 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. Summers are packed: tourist load hits 5 out of 5 at the peak against 1 in winter. Fast internet at a median of 450 Mbps: remote work is not a problem here.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Nearest hospitalsource
16min by car
Hospital Universitario San Juan de Alicante
Sant Joan d'Alacant · 6.5 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 24 m, 31 m of elevation change
25–80 m of change — the climb from the sea to the centre is noticeable on foot
Car-freeour rating
4/5
comfortable without a car
Has a rail station
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · ratingswinter liveabilityOur 1-to-5 rating of whether a town lives from November to March — open places, running transport, people around.Why it matters. Most resorts shut for winter. Tourists never notice; someone who moved gets four empty months. An estimate, not a measurement. for car-free and hospital minutes are ours.
Sea temperature
5 months above 20 °CTourist load
What tenants actually pay
sourced75th percentile75th percentileThe rent that only a quarter of leases exceed. The median is the middle of all leases, old ones included.Why it matters. A new lease is signed closer to this figure than to the median: long-standing tenants pay old rates, a newcomer pays today's.
823€/mo
This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 1 619 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 050 € 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: 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: across our base listings run about one and a half times above the registry. The registry shows what people actually pay., Ministerio de Vivienda · municipality: El Campello
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 800 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 050 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 370 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 654 €/mo | 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: across our base listings run about one and a half times above the registry. The registry shows what people actually pay. · 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
estimateInternational schools counted in the base: 0. Names and curricula for this place are not verified yet — the school registry covers the thirty most-requested places so far.
2Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nóminanóminaA Spanish employment contract with payslips. Landlords ask for it as proof of income.Why it matters. A newcomer does not have one and will not in the first year. Where it is required, a long lease is nearly impossible — even with money in the bank. — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —Prices rising 11.5% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
This is our model, not a measurement: demanding a nóminanóminaA Spanish employment contract with payslips. Landlords ask for it as proof of income.Why it matters. A newcomer does not have one and will not in the first year. Where it is required, a long lease is nearly impossible — even with money in the bank. 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
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. 2025Foreign residents on the padrónpadrónThe municipal register of residents. Registering in it — empadronamiento — proves you live here.Why it matters. Official population comes from it, and you will need it yourself: without registration there is no health card and no school enrolment.
22.5%
7,112 of 31,567
- France773
- United Kingdom717
- Italy640
- Ukraine606
- Algeria568
- Russia450
- Romania317
- Colombia293
Communities and services in their language
- frFrench~773French citizens in the 2025 census — the largest foreign group; the nearest French school and services are in Alicante
- enEnglish~717UK citizens in the 2025 census; English-language services are in Alicante
Where from: 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., Censo Anual de Población · the register-based census counts padrónpadrónThe municipal register of residents. Registering in it — empadronamiento — proves you live here.Why it matters. Official population comes from it, and you will need it yourself: without registration there is no health card and no school enrolment. 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 ALCAlicante-Elche — Miguel Hernández airportIATA code ALC.
January 2026/2730 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 TIETIETarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero — the plastic residence card with your NIE and the permit's expiry. Issued at the police after entering on a visa or after a permit is approved.Why it matters. Without the card you cannot open a resident bank account, sign a long lease or prove your status at the border. The police appointment (cita) is a weeks-long bottleneck in some provinces.· Alicantefrom reports
2You 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
Where to look next
Cheaper with the same sea
