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View of the town of Tossa de mar, city on the Costa Brava. Buildings and hotels on the hill. city in Girona, architecture and beach of Catalonia.
Costa Brava · Girona

Girona

5Winter liveability / 5To the sea 33 kmTo the airport 75 min · BCNPer m² 2 335

Girona is the capital of a province in north-east Catalonia, with one hundred and eight thousand residents. It stands not on the sea but on rivers — the Ter, the Onyar and two more meet inside the city — half an hour from the Costa Brava shore. The old centre is walled, partly along Carolingian defences from the ninth century; the painted houses above the Onyar are the city's best-known view.

For anyone moving, Girona offers what the resorts nearby do not. This is a real city with a university, a hospital and a high-speed railway station: under an hour to Barcelona, half an hour to the French border. Girona airport is a low-cost base. In winter the city works exactly as it does in summer, and that is the main difference from Lloret forty minutes away, which shuts for the season. You cannot see the sea from here, and nobody pays for it.

Worth a trip nearby
  • Lloret de Mar · 40 kmthe nearest beach town
  • Figueres · 40 kmthe Dalí museum and the road to France
  • Cadaqués · 70 kmthe white town on the rocks by Cap de Creus
Resalesource
2 335€/m²
+8% price growth yoy
appraised value, Ministerio de Vivienda
New build
2 734€/m²
Rent, 2 bed
1000€/mo
Populationsource
108 352
Foreign residents 21.9%
Winter humidity
76%
damp risk without heating
Sunshine hours per year
2 400h
Rent, 1 bed
750€/mo
International schools
2
Internet
500Mbps

Girona sits in Girona, 33 km from the water. Winter here is livelier than in most towns on the Costa Brava: 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 sea is 33 km away: not a seaside town but a town near the sea, and the beach means a drive.

Hospital, terrain, getting around

Nearest hospitalsource
8min by car
Clínica Girona
Girona · 2.5 km · public
Terrainsource
rolling
Centre at 71 m, 47 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
Stations: Girona · bus stops within 1.5 km: 162

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
14
J
13
F
14
M
15
A
17
M
21
J
24
J
25
A
23
S
20
O
17
N
15
D

Tourist load

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

On the map

What tenants actually pay

sourced
Median
685€/mo
75th percentile
809€/mo
Flat size
77

This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 10 384 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 000 € 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: Girona

Rent by number of bedrooms

asking price, estimate
1 bedroom750/mo
2 bedrooms1 000/mo
3 bedrooms1 300/mo
Median of active leases, 2024685/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

from registries
  • Saint George's SchoolFornells de la SelvaSpanish bilingualCA, Spanish, English · 3–18 · privateCatalan curriculum with intensive English immersion, 5 km from Girona

Checked against registries and school sites: 2026-09-17. Fees are on each school's site: nobody publishes them centrally.

2

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
Foreign residents on the padrón
21.9%
23,753 of 108,352
  • Honduras4 908
  • Morocco4 559
  • Colombia1 558
  • Romania1 383
  • China857
  • GM781
  • Italy691
  • India539
Communities and services in their language
  • arArabic~3 000
  • frFrench~1 000

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 BCN

January 2026/2775 min to the airport
  • other countries76
  • Italy16
  • United Kingdom14
  • France11
  • Germany9
  • Poland6
  • Netherlands3
  • Switzerland3
  • Portugal3
  • Ireland2
  • Belgium2
  • Denmark2
  • Austria2
  • Sweden1
  • Norway1
  • Finland1
  • Czechia1

Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.

Paperwork and practicalities

Appointment for the TIE· Gironafrom reports
3
Since September 2025 the card is issued not only in Girona but also in Figueres, Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Portbou, and the appointment is booked for you once the permit is approved. The watching services still report three to five weeks. Even so, in 2026 Barcelona residents were travelling here to book. Moderate confidence.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
Colectivo Devesa
Dog beaches within 8 km
not on the map
Vets within 5 km
8

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 Lloret de Mar
Cheaper with the same sea
Similar price, other coasts
Compare with Gijón
Verified: 2026-09-14 · where the data comes from