Living in Spain: the honest pros and cons, by the numbers
Every pro and con you read about Spain is true somewhere and false somewhere else. Here is each one with the number behind it for 333 towns, and how many towns escape the catch.
"Great weather, cheap, slow healthcare, noisy summers": the usual list mixes up Sevilla with Santander and Benidorm with Burgos. The table gives the median town of the 333 compared, the catch in numbers, and the number of towns where the catch does not apply, each with the article that ranks them.
| The good | The catch | Where it does not apply | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunshine | The median town has 7.7 hours of sun a day and 14.2°C on a January afternoon. | 107 towns have 60 or more nights a year above 20 °C; the median is 34. | 94 towns have 10 or fewer such nights (Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Basque Country, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre and Valencian Community). Not too hot in summer. |
| Healthcare | 260 of 333 towns have a public general hospital within 10 km. | Public waiting lists: planned surgery takes 173 days in Andalusia against 50 in Madrid; 60 towns are in regions waiting 150 days or more. | 132 towns are in regions waiting 90 days or less; private insurance avoids most of the wait anywhere. Healthcare. |
| Housing | The median town's typical apartment rents for 536 € a month; local net income is 14,034 € a person a year. | Prices rose 44% in five years in the median town (rents 23%); 69 towns rose 60% or more. | 28 towns rose 25% or less. Where to buy. |
| Safety | The median town records 35.6 offences per 1,000 residents; 93 towns are under 30. | 17 towns, mostly resorts, record more than 70, partly crimes against visitors. | Safest places. |
| Daily life | 166 towns have all six everyday essentials within a 10-minute walk of the centre; 311 are within 100 km of an airport flying to Amsterdam all year. | 19 towns have 5% or more of their homes as holiday lets: crowded summers, pressure on rents; 51 towns lost population in ten years. | Holiday lets; walkable towns. |
| Water and climate | Spain publishes reservoir levels weekly and official climate scenarios per 5 km grid: you can check both before choosing. | 204 towns are in river basins whose reservoirs fell below 30% at some point in 2016-2025; 80 towns have 20 or more frost nights a year. | Water; Spain around 2055. |
The ones no table shows
Language: outside the resort coasts English gets you through the shop, not through the town hall or the hospital; the nationality figures show where you will and will not hear it. Bureaucracy: residence registration, the NIE, the padrón, the health card and a Spanish bank account each take an appointment, and appointments are scarce in Madrid, Barcelona and the resort towns. Distance from family: the year-round flights article shows which airports fly home in January as well as July. Taxes: Spain taxes worldwide income once you are resident 183 days, with treaties deciding where pensions are taxed; take advice before, not after.
Make your own list
The compare tool turns these columns into a ranking with your weights, and every place page says in words which pros and cons apply there.
How we did this
All figures are the ones on the place pages, counted across the 333 towns: AEMET 1991-2020 (sun, January highs, warm nights, frost), Ministry of Health (hospitals 2025; regional waits 31 Dec 2025), Ministry of Housing (appraised values to Q2 2026, SERPAVI rents 2024, five-year changes), INE (income 2023, holiday lets May 2026, population 2015-2025), Ministry of the Interior (crime 2025), OpenStreetMap (essentials), route tables 4 Oct 2026, Boletín Hidrológico (lowest weekly reservoir level 2016-2025 per basin). "Median town" = the middle town of those with data. Built 2026-10-18.