Valencia is Spain's third city: eight hundred and forty thousand people. It lies between the sea and the huerta, the irrigated plain the Arabs planted with rice and oranges and which still feeds the city. The river Turia no longer runs through the centre. After the flood of nineteen fifty-seven it was diverted around the city, and the old bed became a park nine kilometres long running right through the middle.
The city works all year and costs noticeably less than Barcelona for the same set of city options: a university, hospitals, a metro, international schools, an airport twenty minutes away. The main local festival is Falles in March: huge figures burned on the final night, with the whole month given over to it. What to establish before moving is water. Autumn here is the season of heavy downpours, and how the street and the building handle them is a question for the neighbours rather than the agent.
Worth a trip nearby
- Sagunto · 30 km — the Roman theatre and the castle above the town
- Gandía · 70 km — a beach town with a commuter train to Valencia
- Albufera · 12 km — the lagoon and rice fields where paella comes from
Resalesource
2 894€/m²
+10.5% 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
841 558
Foreign residents 19.4%
Sunshine hours per year
2 660h
Valencia sits in Valencia, 4.3 km from the water. The square metre is 76% above the Costa de Valencia median: €2 894 against €1 644. You can live here without a car: our rating is 5 out of 5, rare on the Spanish coast, and the town has its own train station. The airport is 20 minutes away, closer than for most places in the database.
Hospital, terrain, getting around
Nearest hospitalsource
10min by car
Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia
València · 2.5 km · public
Terrainsource
flat
Centre at 12 m, 6 m of elevation change
under 25 m of elevation change within 700 m — pram, bicycle, bad knees all fine
Car-freeour rating
5/5
easy without a car
Stations: València - Estació del Nord, València Joaquín Sorolla · tram: 57 · bus stops within 1.5 km: 282
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
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.
899€/mo
This is the median rent on active leases — tax records for 2024, a sample of 65 742 leases. It includes long-standing contracts at unchanged rents, so it sits below what is asked today: our estimate of asking rent is 1 300 € 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: Valencia
Rent by number of bedrooms
asking price, estimate| 1 bedroom | 950 €/mo | |
| 2 bedrooms | 1 300 €/mo | |
| 3 bedrooms | ≈ 1 690 €/mo | model: two-bed × 1.3, no measurement yet |
| Median of active leases, 2024 | 681 €/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. · 85 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
from registries- British School of ValenciaValenciaBritishIBIBThe International Baccalaureate — an international school programme whose diploma universities worldwide accept.Why it matters. If the child may move country again, the IB avoids having to validate the school certificate. A Spanish bachillerato has to be homologated.English · 2–18 · private
- Cambridge House British International SchoolRocafortBritishEnglish · 3–18 · privateFirst school in Spain with both BSO and NABSS accreditation
- Caxton CollegePuçolBritishIBIBThe International Baccalaureate — an international school programme whose diploma universities worldwide accept.Why it matters. If the child may move country again, the IB avoids having to validate the school certificate. A Spanish bachillerato has to be homologated.English, Spanish · 1–18 · private
- American School of ValenciaPuçolAmericanIBIBThe International Baccalaureate — an international school programme whose diploma universities worldwide accept.Why it matters. If the child may move country again, the IB avoids having to validate the school certificate. A Spanish bachillerato has to be homologated.English · 3–18 · private
- Deutsche Schule ValenciaValenciaGermanGerman, Spanish · 3–18 · private
- Lycée français international de ValencePaternaFrenchFrench · 3–18 · private
Checked against registries and school sites: 2026-09-17. Fees are on each school's site: nobody publishes them centrally.
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.
- —A community with its own services: agencies have dealt with foreigners before
- —Prices rising 10.5% a year — the landlord picks, and the first filter is a nómina
- —A big city: queues at viewings and a bank guarantee as the norm
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.
19.4%
163,356 of 841,558 · València
- Colombia20 620
- Italy14 905
- Venezuela10 410
- Ukraine10 216
- China8 773
- Russia7 835
- Romania7 080
- Pakistan6 271
Communities and services in their language
- itItalian~9 000school, doctors or lawyers in the language
- roRomanian~8 000school, doctors or lawyers in the language
- zhChinese~6 000school, doctors or lawyers in the 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 VLCValencia airportIATA code VLC.
January 2026/2720 min to the airport- other countries20
- Italy14
- France8
- United Kingdom7
- Germany6
- Poland5
- Netherlands4
- Ireland2
- Belgium2
- Switzerland2
- Portugal2
- Finland1
- Austria1
- 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.· Valenciafrom reports
1Since early 2025 lawyers have described the same thing: no free slots for weeks. The police opened a dedicated address, valencia.docext@policia.es, for people waiting more than two months for fingerprints. Over summer 2026 a watching service counted just 15 free slots across four stations. The only things that help are checking at eight or nine in the morning and trying the suburbs: Sagunto, Gandia, Torrent.
1 — no slots for weeks, 5 — freely available. Checked 2026-09-17
Coworking within 3 km
Botanico Coworking Space, Corowking Boix 7, Garage Coworking, La Cueva de Benimaclet, Multiprecio, Regus, Territorio Mandalay, The Workshop. Coworking Campanar., Vortex Ciencias, Wayco Ruzafa
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».
Month by month
Air, sea, how busy it gets and what stays open — for each month on its own.
Where to look next
Cheaper with the same sea
