Estepona, Málaga: population, climate, prices

Málaga, Andalusia · 79,621 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)

Living in Estepona

Estepona is a town of 79,621 inhabitants on the coast in Málaga (Andalusia), with mild winters and warm summers (January nights 10.0°C, August afternoons 27.0°C). 25.6% of residents are foreign nationals (28.9% among the over-65s), so English-speaking services are common. Winter nights are mild for Spain: 10.0°C on average in January, warmer than 91% of the towns compared. The nearest international school (Queens British Grammar School, British curriculum) is 1.2 km away. Against that, public waiting lists in Andalusia are long (173 days on average for planned surgery); 6.7% of all homes are holiday lets (Spain 1.3%), so summers are busy and rents are under pressure; housing is expensive (3,418 €/m² appraised, 675 € a month for a typical apartment). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 27.6°C and the number of warm nights at 72 a year.

Each sentence is chosen by where the town ranks among the 333 places compared on that measure (top or bottom 20%); the numbers are the ones in the sections below, from the sources named there.

About Estepona

Estepona is a town and municipality in the comarca of the Costa del Sol, southern Spain. It is located in the province of Málaga, part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. Its district covers an area of 137 square kilometers in a fertile valley crossed by small streams and a mountainous areas dominated by the Sierra Bermeja, which reaches an elevation of 1,449 m at the peak of Los Reales.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Read more on Wikipedia →

Buying: appraised price

3,418 €/m²

Last 4 quarters to 2026 Q2, 1,931 valuations. 1 year 17.5%, 5 years 93.5%.

Renting: typical apartment

675 €/month

8.36 €/m² per month for a typical 90 m² (2024 contracts). 5 years 34.3%. Houses: 800 €/month.

Safety: recorded crime

58.9 per 1,000

Conventional crime 2025 (Spain ≈ 41). Home burglaries 2.25, violent robbery 0.77, theft 12.6 per 1,000. 1 year 13.3%.

Sea

0.2 km

Straight-line distance from the town centre to the coast.

Getting there

Nearest airport: Gibraltar Airport (GIB), 35 km, 5 destinations
Direct to Amsterdam: Málaga airport, 64 km (year-round)
Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi): Málaga airport, 64 km (year-round)
Direct to London: Gibraltar airport, 35 km (year-round)
Direct to Paris: Málaga airport, 64 km (year-round)
Direct to Frankfurt: Málaga airport, 64 km (year-round)
Direct to the US: Lisbon airport, 438 km (year-round); summer only from Málaga, 64 km
Train station: no long-distance station within 15 km
Fastest train to Madrid: no direct train
Fastest train to Barcelona: no direct train

Distances are straight-line. Flights as listed in airport route tables on 4 Oct 2026; train times from Renfe's timetable (Iryo and Ouigo not included).

Healthcare

Nearest public general hospital: Hospital de Alta Resolución de Estepona (in town, 422 beds)
Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties): Hospital Universitario Virgen de La Victoria (73 km away, in Málaga, 774 beds)
Nearest private general hospital: Clínicas del Sur Slu (in town, 74 beds)
General hospitals within 25 km: 3
Waiting time for planned surgery (Andalusia): 173 days on average; 32.2% wait more than 6 months (Spain: 121 days)
Waiting time for a first specialist visit: 136 days on average; 57.1% wait more than 60 days (Spain: 102 days)

Ministry of Health, National Hospital Catalogue 2025 (situation on 31 Dec 2024); general hospitals only. Distances are straight-line to the hospital's municipality. Residents registered in Spain use public hospitals; non-EU applicants for some visas must have private health insurance. Waiting times are for the whole region (public health service, 31 Dec 2025), as reported by each region to the Ministry of Health (SISLE-SNS); private insurance usually avoids most of the wait.

International schools

Nearest international school: Queens British Grammar School (British), Estepona, 1.2 km
International schools within 25 km: 22
Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km): British 1.2 km · American 6.0 km · French 24 km · German 30 km · Nordic 1.8 km

Within 30 km (up to five):

School	Curriculum	Levels in the register	Where	Distance
Queens British Grammar School	British	not listed	Estepona	1.2 km
The International School Estepona	curriculum not stated	not listed	Estepona	1.2 km
Swedish International School	Swedish	infant, primary	Estepona	1.8 km
Atlas-American School of Málaga	American	infant, primary, secondary	Estepona	6.0 km
Mayfair International Academy	curriculum not stated	not listed	Estepona	13 km

Ministry of Education, register of non-university schools (RCD), October 2026: every school authorised to teach a foreign curriculum in Spain, without the business, arts and hairdressing schools in the same list and without schools for one nationality (Japanese, Libyan, Iraqi, Russian, Panamanian). Curriculum as labelled in the register or clear from the school's name; levels as listed in the register, which leaves them out for some schools. Straight-line distance from the town centre. We do not rate schools: visit, and ask about accreditation and fees.

Who lives here

Population trend: +18.7% in ten years (67,080 in 2015, 79,621 in 2025)
Age: 16.9% aged 65 or over, 16.8% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
Local income: 12,741 € net per person per year (2023), 85% of the Spanish average; median 16,450 € per adult-equivalent
Foreign residents: 25.6% of all residents; 28.9% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
Largest nationalities: British 6.5%, Moroccan 2.5%, Russian 1.4%, Italian 1.4%, Romanian 1.3%; all EU citizens 8.2% (share of all residents, 1 Jan 2022; the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and the Nordic countries are not published per town)

INE: population register (Padrón) and household income atlas. Local income is a rough guide to local prices and affluence; Spain publishes no official cost-of-living index for towns.

Within a 10-minute walk of the centre

Everyday essentials on foot: 5 of 6 ✗ 15+ food shops ✓ 3+ pharmacies ✓ 25+ cafés, bars or restaurants ✓ 2+ parks ✓ 3+ bus stops ✓ 2+ libraries, theatres, cinemas or cultural centres
Lively centre: 46 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)

12 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
10 pharmacies
5 doctors, clinics or hospitals
54 cafés, bars and restaurants
22 parks and gardens
13 bus stops
3 libraries, theatres, cinemas, cultural centres
1 market places

Counted in OpenStreetMap within 800 m of the town centre, taken as the point OpenStreetMap marks as the town's centre, moved at most 500 m to the busiest nearby spot (for a few spread-out municipalities without such a point: the busiest spot near the official coordinate). OpenStreetMap is kept by volunteers: very complete in most Spanish towns, thinner in some. “Everyday essentials” only asks whether the basics are there, so a small town can score 6 of 6; “lively centre” ranks each count among all 333 places and averages them, so it mostly reflects size. Large municipalities with several centres (Lorca, Oleiros, Ames…) can score low because their official centre is a small village.

Holiday lets and beaches

Tourist apartments: 3,362 (6.68% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 21.1 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
Blue Flag beaches: nearest in Manilva, 10 km; 11 within 30 km

Tourist apartments: INE count of homes listed on Airbnb, Booking and Vrbo. A high share means busy summers and pressure on rents. Blue Flag 2026 (ADEAC): beaches meeting water-quality, safety and service standards; this includes some lake and river beaches. Distances are straight-line between town centres.

Water

River basin: Cuencas Mediterraneas Andaluzas
Reservoirs now: 64.3% full (week of 2026-09-29); the same week in the previous 10 years averaged 39.2%
Worst week 2016-2025: 18.2% full (2024-02-06)
Weeks below 40% full, 2016-2025: 39% of all weeks

Ministry for the Ecological Transition, weekly hydrological bulletin: all reservoirs over 5 hm³ in the basin. Low reservoirs are what led to drought restrictions in Catalonia (2023-24) and Andalusia (2022-24). Some basins (Segura) also rely on transfers and desalination, so their reservoir level alone overstates the risk of taps running dry.

What the rankings say

idealista: best places to retire (2026): listed (source)

Climate

● average daily high ● average nightly low ■ rainy days (1 mm or more). These are 1991-2020 averages, not record temperatures: a hot spell will be warmer and a cold night colder than these values.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Average daily high, °C	17.0	16.9	17.9	19.4	21.8	24.5	26.6	27.0	25.1	22.6	19.5	17.6
Average nightly low, °C	10.0	10.4	11.7	13.6	15.8	18.4	20.6	21.3	19.8	16.9	13.2	11.2
Rain, mm	47	61	82	48	16	1	0	1	23	77	93	92
Rainy days (1 mm or more)	5.0	5.3	6.0	5.4	2.6	0.5	0.1	0.4	2.2	5.4	5.5	4.9
Humidity, %	77	79	79	78	77	76	78	79	79	79	79	80
Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.7	1.2	1.5	0.4	0.1	0.0	0.0

The year in numbers

Köppen climate class: Csa: Hot-summer Mediterranean
Summer mugginess (August average dew point): 19.3°C – oppressive (humidity from a nearby station)
Days reaching 25 °C / 77 °F: 80 a year (estimate)
Days reaching 30 °C / 86 °F: 4 a year
Days reaching 35 °C / 95 °F: 0 a year (estimate)
Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more): 66 a year (estimate)
Frost nights (0 °C / 32 °F or less): 0 a year
Average humidity: 78%

Dew point measures how sticky the air feels: under 13 °C (55 °F) feels dry, 16-18 °C (61-64 °F) muggy, over 18 °C oppressive. For comparison, Davis, California (also Köppen Csa) has a summer dew point of about 11 °C. "Typical hottest day" is the 1991-2020 average of each year's single hottest day. Estimates are counted from daily satellite data adjusted to this place's averages; checked against AEMET's own 30 °C counts they are usually within 4 days a year.

1991-2020 averages, AEMET station MARBELLA, PUERTO (6076X), 18.2 km away; humidity from TARIFA (6001), 61 km; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.

Around 2055 (projection)

August average high: 27.6°C: +0.9 °C compared with today (models range from 0.4 °C to 1.4 °C)
Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more): 72 a year, +14 (models: +9 to +21)
Frost nights: 0 a year (+0)
Rainy days (1 mm or more): 35 a year, -8 (models: -16 to -3)
Rain amount: -10% over the year: summer -33%, winter -6%
Sunlight reaching the ground: +0.4% (models: -1.0% to +1.3%); no official sunshine-hours projection exists

Spain's official climate scenarios (Escenarios-PNACC 2024, AEMET regionalisation of 11 global climate models, ~5 km grid), middle emissions scenario SSP2-4.5: average change from 2011-2040 to 2041-2070, added to today's 1991-2020 values above. The range shows the lowest and highest of the 11 models. Rain: the same models regionalised by CSIC (DeepESD). Sunlight: EURO-CORDEX regional models (RCP4.5). A projection, not a forecast. Read: Spain around 2055, region by region →

Questions people ask

Where is Estepona?

Estepona is in the province of Málaga (Andalusia), Spain, on the coast. The nearest airport is Gibraltar Airport (GIB), 35 km away.

How many people live in Estepona?

79,621 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +18.7% in ten years.

What is the climate of Estepona?

January afternoons average 17.0°C and nights 10.0°C; August afternoons 27.0°C.

Is Estepona safe?

Recorded conventional crime in Estepona was 58.9 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, high for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 2.25 per 1,000.

How hot is Estepona in summer?

August afternoons average 27.0°C (1991-2020), with 66 nights a year above 20 °C and 0 days of 35 °C or more.

How cold is Estepona in winter?

January afternoons average 17.0°C and January nights 10.0°C, with 0 frost nights a year.

Is there a hospital in Estepona?

Yes: Hospital de Alta Resolución de Estepona, a public general hospital with 422 beds. Planned surgery in Andalusia waits 173 days on average.

Can you fly direct from Estepona to Amsterdam or London all year?

Yes. Gibraltar Airport (GIB) (35 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.

What does it cost to rent or buy in Estepona?

A typical apartment (90 m²) rented for 675 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 3,418 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 93.5% in five years.

Nearby and similar towns

Nearest towns in this comparison: Marbella (Málaga, 26 km), San Roque (Cádiz, 32 km), La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz, 34 km), Ronda (Málaga, 35 km), Algeciras (Cádiz, 43 km)
Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size): Benalmádena (Málaga), San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Las Palmas), Mijas (Málaga), Cádiz (Cádiz), Fuengirola (Málaga)

Distances are straight-line between town centres. Similarity is the distance in standardised values of the five measures.