My Spain Visa
A 3-minute quiz, 20 questions: we score 237 Spanish municipalities on 7 priorities, from housing costs and taxes to healthcare and flights, and give you your top 15.
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My Spain Visa
Nobody can answer "where should I live in Spain" without knowing five things about you. The quiz asks them in this order.
Start with why you are moving, because that decides which towns are even possible. A local job ties you to the cities with that job market, mostly Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza and Bilbao. Remote work frees you from that, but the Digital Nomad Visa has its own income rule, so the town has to fit your visa too. Retirement usually means the Non Lucrative Visa, which allows no work at all. A family adds schools, and the international ones cluster around Madrid, Barcelona and the Málaga coast.
Pick the climate you can live with in January, not the one you liked in July. Only the Canary Islands have a genuinely warm winter. The coast from Málaga round to Valencia is mild and sunny. Madrid and the interior get cold, dry winters and hot summers. The north is green because it rains, and gets far less sun.
Your housing budget rules out more towns than any other answer. Rent in Barcelona, Madrid and San Sebastián sits at the top of our dataset. Valencia, Málaga and Seville are noticeably cheaper; the Murcia and southern Alicante coast, and inland cities such as Granada and Zaragoza, cheaper still. The quiz uses the official rent index and notarial sale prices, so every town is compared on the same basis.
Decide how much Spanish you want to need day to day. In Torrevieja, Mijas or Benidorm you can live for years in English, and many people do. In Oviedo, Zaragoza or Jerez you cannot, and that is why some people choose them. Where Catalan, Basque or Valencian are co-official, schools and town halls use them too.
Check the airport and the train before you fall for a town. Madrid and Barcelona have direct flights to the United States all year, Málaga and Palma only in summer; from Valencia, Alicante or Seville you connect. The AVE puts Zaragoza, Valencia, Alicante, Seville and Málaga within about three hours of Madrid. A village ninety minutes from an airport is a different life.
The towns below come from the same 237-municipality dataset the quiz scores: a starting shortlist, not a verdict.
Valencia is where a lot of remote workers end up when they want a real city without Barcelona rents: a beach inside the city, fibre nearly everywhere and Madrid in under two hours by AVE. Málaga suits people who fly to the US in summer, when the airport has seasonal direct routes; the rest of the year you connect through Madrid or another hub. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has the warmest winter in Spain and rent well below the mainland capitals, at the cost of a long flight to anywhere else.
Start the quiz as a remote worker →
Families with children usually end up near the international schools. Pozuelo de Alarcón and Las Rozas, west of Madrid, are the classic choice for a company move: several international schools close by, at some of the highest rents in the dataset. Sant Cugat del Vallès does the same job for Barcelona. Alhaurín de la Torre puts a family minutes from Málaga airport with cheaper housing than the city.
Retirees mostly choose between the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol. Torrevieja has one of the cheapest rents on any Spanish coast and one of the largest British communities on the register. Jávea is quieter and greener, with a long drive to Alicante airport. Nerja is the small-town option with the warmest January of the three. Our guides to retiring in Málaga and moving to Benidorm from the UK have the detail.
Americans are more urban than the British: the municipal register puts the largest US communities in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, not on the coasts. Madrid for work and direct flights home; Valencia for lower costs in a real city, though you connect to fly to the US; Málaga for the coast, with direct US flights in summer only. The two routes most Americans use are the Non Lucrative Visa and the Digital Nomad Visa; our page on moving to Spain from the USA covers both.
A British passport now gives you 90 days in any 180 without a visa, so living in Spain means a residence visa first. The towns have not changed: Orihuela, which includes Orihuela Costa, and Mijas have the biggest British communities on the register, and in Benidorm you will never be short of company. All three sit within an hour of Alicante or Málaga airport. Our guide for UK citizens in Spain after Brexit covers the paperwork.
On a small budget, the cheapest way to live in a real Spanish city is a university town inland. Granada has rents among the lowest of any provincial capital and the Sierra Nevada under an hour away. Murcia is cheaper still and close to the Mar Menor beaches. Zaragoza is the quiet winner: rents around the level of Murcia and Madrid in under an hour and a half by AVE. Our list of the cheapest cities in Spain goes deeper.
Every search for where to live in Spain returns the same ten names. Here is who each one fits, and who it does not.
Madrid is the right answer if you need a job market, direct US flights or international schools; it has more Americans on the register than anywhere else. It is the wrong answer if you moved for the sea: January is cold and the coast is a train ride away.
Barcelona has beaches inside the city, the largest British community of any big Spanish city and a milder winter than Madrid: 8.8°C on average in January against 6.5°C (AEMET, 1991-2020 averages), although Valencia and Málaga are warmer. It also has the tightest housing market of the ten and a language question: schools and the town hall work in Catalan.
Valencia is the city a lot of people settle on once they compare it with the two above: similar city life, lower rent, a long urban beach and Madrid in under two hours by AVE. No direct US flights and humid summers are the trade.
Málaga has turned from a transit airport into a city people move to on purpose: some of the sunniest hours of any mainland capital, direct US flights in summer and the AVE. Rent has risen fast and the centre is busy all year. For quiet, look east to Nerja or west to Estepona.
Alicante is the practical choice: lower rent than Valencia or Málaga, an airport ten minutes out with flights to the whole of the UK, mild winters and a working city behind the beach. Most people who choose it are choosing the Costa Blanca with a city attached.
Seville is for people who want Spain more than they want the sea. It is the most Spanish of the ten in daily life, with rent below Valencia and a small foreign community. Summers are the hottest on this list, and for many that is the deal-breaker.
Granada is a student city with the Alhambra and a ski resort on its doorstep, and rents among the lowest of any provincial capital. Winters are colder than the coast and long flights go through Málaga. It fits young adults on a budget; it rarely fits retirees who need warmth all year.
San Sebastián is the most beautiful city in Spain to a lot of people, and the most expensive to rent in our dataset, above Barcelona and Madrid. It rains, the sun is about a fifth scarcer than in the south, and the foreign community is small. Choose it for the food and the bay.
Las Palmas has the warmest January of any city on this list, rent in line with Alicante and a city beach you can use all year. The cost is distance: nearly three hours to Madrid by air and no train anywhere. Read our guide to living in the Canary Islands first.
Zaragoza is the one nobody searches for and a surprising number of people end up in. Rent is among the lowest of the large cities, Madrid and Barcelona are both under two hours by AVE, and you will live in Spanish. The wind is real and there is no beach within reach.
our list of the best places to live in Spain is where most people start; the quiz is how you finish. A list cannot tell you that with your budget, your passport and your need for a direct flight home, your top three are Alicante, Málaga and a town you have never heard of.
Not sure which part of Spain suits you? The quiz asks about your passport, budget, income, the climate you like and the kind of place you want. Then it scores 237 Spanish municipalities against your answers.
Housing costs, climate, safety, healthcare, flights and the English-speaking community, among other things. You choose what matters most, and that decides how much each one weighs. Two people with different budgets get different lists.
Every figure comes from official public sources such as INE, Catastro, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Interior and AENA. The full list is in the questions below.
You see it on screen as soon as you finish, with the reasons each place made the list.
It compares your top five side by side and lists its sources. We email it to you.
Your results show the route that usually fits a profile like yours, such as the Non Lucrative Visa or the Digital Nomad Visa. A lawyer confirms the route and the figures for your case.
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We score 237 Spanish municipalities on housing costs, climate, safety, healthcare, connections, community and more. Your answers set how much each of those weighs, so two people with different budgets or priorities get different lists.
Official public sources, town by town: INE (the municipal register and the household income atlas), the Ministry of Health hospital and primary care catalogues, Catastro and notarial property prices, the Ministry of Housing rent index, the Ministry of the Interior crime figures, ERA5 climate records for 2015 to 2024, European air quality data, national broadband coverage, and Renfe and AENA for connections. Your PDF lists the sources under the side by side comparison of your top five.
Yes. It asks where you are moving from and uses it for your flights home, including whether you need a direct route, and for the English-speaking community around each town. If you come from the US, the UK or Canada, it also shows how many people of your nationality already live there, from the INE annual census for 1 January 2025. To see where they have settled, read about Americans living in Spain and Brits living in Spain.
Yes. Give your monthly housing budget or your purchase budget, and put the cost of housing high on your list of priorities. Towns where your money goes further then move up. For a ready-made list, see the cheapest places to live in Spain.
Yes. Tick Beach town as the kind of place you want, and say whether you are open to the islands or would rather stay on the mainland. It also matches the climate you like, using ten-year averages from 2015 to 2024.
It can. You tell us your age bracket and the quiz compares it with the average age in each town. Moving somewhere everyone is a generation older or younger than you is the kind of thing people only notice once they have moved.
With offences recorded by the police in a year per 1,000 people, from Ministry of the Interior figures. In tourist towns the count includes registered tourist beds as well as residents, so a resort is not punished for crimes against visitors. If safety matters to you, put it high on your list.
The data was last rebuilt on 30 September 2026. Most official sources publish once a year, so each figure is the latest one available, not a live price.
It shows the route that usually fits a profile like yours. Whether you meet the requirements depends on your documents and your figures, and that is what a lawyer checks with you.
Yes. The quiz, your top 15 and the PDF report cost nothing. If you want a lawyer to go through your case, the initial consultation is paid, and we tell you the fee before you book.
We use them to send your report and so a My Spain Visa lawyer can review your answers and contact you about your case. Read our privacy policy.
Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, in that order on the municipal register, with Seville and Málaga next. A US passport gets 90 days in any 180 in the Schengen area; to live here you need a residence visa, usually the Non Lucrative Visa if you will not work or the Digital Nomad Visa if you work remotely. Our page on Americans living in Spain has the numbers town by town.
It depends on the town and on how many of you there are. A one-bedroom flat in Barcelona or Madrid takes a far larger share of that budget than the same flat in Murcia, Granada or the southern Costa Blanca. The quiz checks your housing budget against the official rent index for each of the 237 municipalities, so it shows where the money stretches. What a visa requires in income is a separate question from what a town costs.
It refers to arraigo, the route to residence for people already living in Spain without a permit. Since the Immigration Regulation approved by Royal Decree 1155/2024 came into force in May 2025, most types of arraigo require two years of continuous residence in Spain, down from three; family arraigo needs no minimum stay. It has nothing to do with the 90 day rule for visitors. Our arraigo page explains the five types and who qualifies. Rules change and no two cases look the same, so run your own situation past our advisors before you commit to a move.
The same seven come up again and again: choosing a city from a holiday memory, never visiting in winter, signing a lease without seeing the flat, assuming English will do, finding out about tax residence after the move, leaving the visa until the end when it should come first, and forgetting that outside the big cities you need a car. The rest is in our post on the biggest mistakes when moving to Spain.