Getxo is a municipality at the mouth of the Nervión at the entrance to the Bilbao estuary, with around seventy-eight thousand residents. The Biscay Bridge crosses the river here — an eighteen ninety-three transporter bridge that still carries cars and people in a gondola and is on the UNESCO list.
Getxo is Bilbao's most expensive suburb: in the late nineteenth century the owners of the shipyards and mines built houses here, and those mansions still line the seafront. Today it is a residential district of the Biscayan capital, with a metro to the centre and beaches inside the municipality. The climate is Atlantic: rain all year, a cold sea. Housing costs more than in Bilbao itself.
Worth a trip nearby
- Bilbao · 15 km — the Guggenheim and the airport
- Plentzia · 15 km — the bay and beach at the end of the metro line
- Bakio · 30 km — the surf and the San Juan de Gaztelugatxe hermitage
Resalesource
4 044€/m²
+7.2% 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
75 967
Foreign residents 7.7%
Winter humidity
77%
damp risk without heating
Sunshine hours per year
1 700h
Getxo sits in Basque Country, Biscay, right on the water. The square metre is 21% below the Basque Coast median: €4 044 against €5 107. 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. Winters are damp at 77% humidity, so ask about mould before you sign.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Nearest hospitalsource
24min by car
Hospital Universitario Cruces
Barakaldo · 12.3 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 19 m, 40 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
No rail station within 3 km · bus stops within 1.5 km: 39
Where from: the Ministry of Health hospital catalogue, road time · elevations from the Copernicus terrain model · OpenStreetMap · 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
3 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.
1 080€/mo
This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 2 604 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 400 € 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: Getxo
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 1 000 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 400 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 820 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 900 €/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. · 82 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: 1. 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.
- —7.7% foreign residents — the market is built for locals with a contract
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.
7.7%
5,851 of 75,967
- Colombia635
- Paraguay566
- Bolivia397
- Morocco396
- Honduras381
- Romania358
- Peru297
- Nicaragua294
Communities and services in their language
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 BIOBilbao airportIATA code BIO.
January 2026/2722 min to the airport- other countries7
- Italy6
- Germany5
- United Kingdom4
- Switzerland3
- Poland3
- Portugal2
- Ireland1
- Netherlands1
- Belgium1
- France1
- Czechia1
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.· Bizkaiafrom reports
3You can book in Bilbao or Barakaldo. The watching services disagree: one reports one to three weeks with a September and October peak, the other three to five weeks, having found 58 free slots in 67 days. Nobody reports a shortage of fingerprint appointments. Treat this as a rough estimate.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
Berango Gazte Lab
Dog beaches within 8 km
not on the map
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».
Where to look next
Cheaper with the same sea
