Figuring out where the best place to live in Spain is can be a tough decision, not least because there are considerable price differences between regions when it comes to renting a property. 

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the general trend for rental costs in Spain was on the up overall, especially in Madrid and Barcelona where prices had shot up by 30 and 35 percent respectively since 2010 (September 2018 figures).

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The latest data by Spanish rental platform Idealista suggests that during the three months of Spain’s lockdown rents hardly dropped across the country’s 20 biggest cities and in some cases actually went up, as in the case of Palma de Mallorca (+4.2 percent), Valencia (+3.26 percent) and Barcelona (+4.76 percent).

There had been hopes that Spain’s left-wing coalition government would introduce rent caps especially with regard to the growing job crisis born from months of economic stagnation.

But on Tuesday June 30th, the country’s Transport and Urban Affairs Minister José Luis Ábalos made no mention of this, announcing instead a new rent index which allows Spaniards to zoom in on specific areas to find average rent prices.

Although the Spanish government has used data from more than €11.2 million rental contracts, the website itself doesn’t appear to be that user-friendly.

However, here at The Local Spain we’ve started crunching the numbers and compiled the following map which shows the latest average rent prices across Spain’s 50 provinces in 2020 (with the exception of Spain’s Basque Country which didn’t supply the data).

The most expensive areas to rent in Spain

Madrid takes top place with rents on average costing €780 a month, more than €300 than across the majority of Spain.

Next in line is Catalonia, where tenants paid on average €694, and the touristy Balearic Islands where renting costs €624 a month on average.

At or under the €600 mark but still more pricey rents than most of Spain are the Andalusian provinces of Seville (€561/month) and Málaga (€600).

According to the data, Cantabria is the most expensive region to rent along Spain’s northern coast with average rents around €490, although the Basque Country’s provinces would be higher than this if the data had been provided.

The beautiful coastal town of Peñíscola is in Spain's cheapest province to rent: Castellón. Photo: Zoies Koraki/Flickr

The cheapest areas to rent in Spain

Lugo in the green region of Galicia is the cheapest place to rent in the north of Spain at €363/month, with neighbouring Ourense and León also well-priced at around €400 on average.

Ciudad Real to the south of Madrid and Ávila and Zamora to the west have the best rents in Spain’s interior, averaging €380 or less. 

Then there are the mainly rural provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz in Extremadura – on Spain’s border with Portugal, where rents hover around the €400 mark.

The cheapest province on Spain’s Mediterranean coast is Castellón at €360, making it also the cheapest place to rent in the whole country.

Further down the country’s eastern coastline Almería and Murcia are also well-priced at around €400 while Valencia and Alicante provinces are €50 more expensive on average.