Maó / Mahón
Maó, Mahón in Spanish, is the capital of Menorca with around thirty thousand residents. The town stands above a long natural harbour on the east of the island, one of the deepest in the Mediterranean; the easternmost point of the Balearics and of Spain is here too. It became the capital in seventeen fourteen under the British — before that it was Ciutadella.
For anyone moving, Maó is the most convenient point on the island. The hospital is 6 minutes away, the airport 8, the port is in the town, and all of it runs all year. Ciutadella at the other end of Menorca is quieter, 45 minutes from a hospital, and costs more. In winter the island empties: from December to February tourist load drops to the bottom of the scale, and that is worth seeing before moving rather than after.
- Ciutadella · 45 km — the old capital at the western end
- Es Castell · 3 km — the town at the harbour mouth, founded by the British
- Alaior · 12 km — cheese, shoes and the university branch
Maó / Mahón sits in Menorca, Balearic Islands, right on the water. You can live here without a car: our rating is 4 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast. The airport is 8 minutes away, closer than for most places in the database. Summers are packed: tourist load hits 5 out of 5 at the peak against 1 in winter.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
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.
Maó sea temperature by month
5 months above 20 °CsourceAverage sea surface temperature, °C, for 2015–2024 — NOAA OISST satellite series, grid cell 9.4 km from the centre.
Tourist load
Maó beaches and water quality
sourceMaó has 4 beaches tested under EU bathing water rules, at 4 sampling points. In the 2025 season, all 4 were graded excellent. No beach here has been graded “poor” since testing began in 1993.
The grade is bacteria in water samples over the last four seasons — not sand, views or crowds. “Poor” means bathing there is advised against.
| Beach | From the centre | Grade 2025 | “Excellent” in a row | Last “poor” |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playa Cala Mesquida | 3.5 km | excellent | 32 seasons | none since 1994 |
| Playa Es Grau | 6.9 km | excellent | 14 seasons | none since 1993 |
| Playa Cala Binidali | 8.4 km | excellent | 19 seasons | none since 2007 |
| Playa Cala Canutells | 9.2 km | excellent | 5 seasons | none since 1994 |
Where from: European Environment Agency, bathing water register, seasons 1990–2025, licence CC BY 4.0. Distance is from the centre in a straight line. Every place in one table
On the map
What tenants actually pay
sourcedThis is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 2 261 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: Maó
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 750 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 000 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 300 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 583 €/mo | SERPAVI · 87 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.
Renting without a Spanish contract
How realistic a long lease is without a nómina — on foreign income, savings or prepayment.
- —A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before
- —Stock goes to tourist lets: long leases are scarce and competed for
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- Colombia859
- Morocco792
- Italy396
- United Kingdom382
- Peru292
- Ecuador285
- Venezuela243
- Brazil160
- enEnglish~1 500school, 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 MAH
January 2026/278 min to the airport- United Kingdom1
Destinations served at least weekly in January; checked 2026-09-17.
Paperwork and practicalities
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».
Articles that include this place
- Menorca's beaches by water quality: excellent across the island, except near CiutadellaGrades from the European register for every sampling point on Menorca since 1990: the shore near Ciutadella against the rest of the island season by season, a beach with two points and two different grades, a point that stopped being tested, eight municipalities and the sea at our four places month by month.
- Mallorca's beaches by water quality: each beach's record since 1990Every Mallorca beach with an official sampling point: how many seasons in a row its water has been excellent, when it was last poor, and whose record is too short to judge.
- Mallorca or Menorca: winter, jobs, rent and prices, measuredSeven places on the two islands, by state data: how much work is left in winter, what tenants pay, the price per square metre on one basis, who the neighbours are, and how far the hospital is.
- Mallorca or Majorca: one island, two spellings — and what the numbers sayIt is the same island, and the official name is Mallorca. Then the part no spelling guide covers: of the places we cover there, only the capital stays open in winter, and the water varies beach by beach.
- Where are the Balearic Islands? Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and FormenteraSpain, not a country of their own. Which island is where and how far from Barcelona and Valencia, why winter splits the islands, the sea month by month, and the water at each island's beaches.
- Cost of living in Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza: spending, rent and pay from government dataWhat island households spend and on what, what tenants pay in twelve towns on three islands, and what people here earn — with the survey's margin of error, and no guessed baskets.
Where to look next
- Es Castell3 000 €/m²
- Alaior2 600 €/m²
- Ciutadella de Menorca4 077 €/m²
- Mataró2 512 €/m²
- Cambrils2 413 €/m²
- Lloret de Mar2 393 €/m²