Laredo is a small town in eastern Cantabria with around eleven thousand residents. It is known for La Salvé beach: five kilometres of sand in a single curve, one of the longest in northern Spain. The old town, the Puebla Vieja, stands higher up below the hill and has survived intact.
In the sixteenth century this was an important port: Charles the Fifth last set foot on Spanish soil here, returning from Flanders. Today Laredo lives on summer: in August the population multiplies with visitors from Madrid and the Basque Country, and in winter it empties noticeably. Housing costs less than in neighbouring Castro Urdiales. The sea is cold and it rains in every month.
Worth a trip nearby
- Castro Urdiales · 25 km — the town on the Basque border
- Santoña · 5 km — the fishing port and its anchovies across the bay
- Santander · 50 km — the Cantabrian capital and its bay
Resalesource
2 908€/m²
+22.8% price growth yoy
asking priceaskingWhat sellers ask on portals. No official appraisal exists for this town: they are published from 25,000 residents up.Why it matters. It carries haggling room, optimism and time on market. A real deal is usually 5–10 % lower; not comparable with another town's appraised value.: what sellers ask
Populationsource
10 675
Foreign residents 6.3%
Winter humidity
79%
damp risk without heating
Sunshine hours per year
1 750h
Laredo sits in Cantabria, right on the water. Winters are damp at 79% humidity, so ask about mould before you sign. Summers are packed: tourist load hits 5 out of 5 at the peak against 1 in winter. A small town of 10,675: for anything beyond groceries you will be driving.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Nearest hospitalsource
33min by car
Hospital Comarcal de Laredo
Laredo · 8.1 km · public
Terrainsource
steep
Centre at 24 m, 156 m of elevation change
over 80 m of change — stairs and switchbacks; hard without a car or a lift
Car-freeour rating
2/5
hard without a car
No rail station within 3 km · bus stops within 1.5 km: 0
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.
601€/mo
This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 338 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 750 € 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: Laredo
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 580 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 750 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 980 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 500 €/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. · 79 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.
1Renting 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.
- —6.3% foreign residents — the market is built for locals with a contract
- —Prices rising 22.8% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
- —Stock goes to tourist lets: long leases are scarce and competed for
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.
6.3%
670 of 10,675
- Peru145
- Colombia68
- Romania61
- China44
- Senegal38
- France34
- Dominican Republic26
- Brazil22
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 SDRSantander — Seve Ballesteros airportIATA code SDR.
January 2026/2730 min to the airport- United Kingdom2
- other countries2
- Ireland1
- Belgium1
- France1
- Italy1
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.· Cantabriafrom reports
4One queue for the whole province, at the Santander police station. One to two weeks of waiting and booking is not hard. There is little evidence and no reports of a shortage. Treat this as a rough estimate.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
espacio3cowork
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
