Marbella, Málaga: population, climate, prices

Málaga, Andalusia · 159,786 inhabitants (1 Jan 2025)

Living in Marbella

Marbella is a mid-sized city of 159,786 inhabitants on the coast in Málaga (Andalusia), with mild winters and warm summers (January nights 10.0°C, August afternoons 27.0°C). 27.3% of residents are foreign nationals (22.8% 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 (Svenska Skolan I Marbella, Casa De Los Niños, Swedish curriculum) is 0.6 km away. Against that, public waiting lists in Andalusia are long (173 days on average for planned surgery); housing is expensive (4,361 €/m² appraised, 800 € a month for a typical apartment); recorded crime is high (75.7 per 1,000 residents; Spain about 41, inflated by crimes against the many visitors). Around 2055, Spain's official climate scenarios put August afternoons here at about 28.0°C and the number of warm nights at 81 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 Marbella

Marbella is a city and municipality in southern Spain, belonging to the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is part of the Costa del Sol and is the headquarters of the Association of Municipalities of the region; it is also the head of the judicial district that bears its name.

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

Buying: appraised price

4,361 €/m²

Last 4 quarters to 2026 Q2, 2,842 valuations. 1 year 17.8%, 5 years 71.9%.

Renting: typical apartment

800 €/month

9.63 €/m² per month for a typical 89 m² (2024 contracts). 5 years 26.8%. Houses: 1,050 €/month.

Safety: recorded crime

75.7 per 1,000

Conventional crime 2025 (Spain ≈ 41). Home burglaries 2.58, violent robbery 1.72, theft 23.4 per 1,000. 1 year 0.9%.

Sea

0.6 km

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

Crime is counted where it happens, so places with many visitors (airports, resorts, big tourist centres) score worse than daily life there feels for residents.

Getting there

Nearest airport: Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP), 39 km, 26,760,549 passengers in 2025, 168 destinations
Direct to Amsterdam: Málaga airport, 39 km (year-round)
Direct to Brussels (Zaventem or Charleroi): Málaga airport, 39 km (year-round)
Direct to London: Málaga airport, 39 km (year-round)
Direct to Paris: Málaga airport, 39 km (year-round)
Direct to Frankfurt: Málaga airport, 39 km (year-round)
Direct to the US: Lisbon airport, 451 km (year-round); summer only from Málaga, 39 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 Costa del Sol (in town, 422 beds)
Nearest large public hospital (500+ beds, most specialties): Hospital Universitario Virgen de La Victoria (48 km away, in Málaga, 774 beds)
Nearest private general hospital: Hospital Quironsalud Marbella (in town, 75 beds)
General hospitals within 25 km: 6
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: Svenska Skolan i Marbella, Casa de los Niños (Swedish), Marbella, 0.6 km
International schools within 25 km: 22
Nearest by curriculum (within 100 km): British 2.1 km · American 30 km · French 0.6 km · German 6.8 km · Nordic 0.6 km

Within 30 km (up to five):

School	Curriculum	Levels in the register	Where	Distance
Svenska Skolan i Marbella, Casa de los Niños	Swedish	not listed	Marbella	0.6 km
École Française Internationale de Marbella	French	infant, primary	Marbella	0.6 km
Svenska Skolan	Swedish	not listed	Marbella	2.1 km
Swans International Primary School	British	infant, primary	Marbella	2.1 km
The British International School of Marbella	British	not listed	Marbella	2.1 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: +14.5% in ten years (139,537 in 2015, 159,786 in 2025)
Age: 16.2% aged 65 or over, 16.0% under 16 (2022; Spain: 20.0% and 14.9%)
Local income: 13,384 € net per person per year (2023), 89% of the Spanish average; median 17,150 € per adult-equivalent
Foreign residents: 27.3% of all residents; 22.8% of residents aged 65+ (2022)
Largest nationalities: British 3.5%, Moroccan 2.9%, Russian 1.6%, Ukrainian 1.6%, Italian 1.4%; all EU citizens 8.1% (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: 6 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: 71 out of 100: how much there is compared with the other 332 places (big cities score highest)

23 food shops (supermarkets, bakeries, greengrocers…)
17 pharmacies
7 doctors, clinics or hospitals
126 cafés, bars and restaurants
108 parks and gardens
28 bus stops
4 libraries, theatres, cinemas, cultural centres
2 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: 6,987 (6.97% of all homes; Spain 1.28%), 22.8 tourist beds per 100 residents (May 2026)
Blue Flag beaches: 8 in town; 17 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)
MySpainVisa: 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, %	67	66	65	62	58	56	57	59	63	70	69	71
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): 18.2°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: 64%

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), 6.5 km away; humidity from MÁLAGA AEROPUERTO (6155A), 40 km; temperatures adjusted to the town's altitude. © AEMET.

Around 2055 (projection)

August average high: 28.0°C: +1.0 °C compared with today (models range from 0.3 °C to 1.6 °C)
Warm nights (low of 20 °C / 68 °F or more): 81 a year, +15 (models: +7 to +27)
Frost nights: 0 a year (+0)
Rainy days (1 mm or more): 35 a year, -9 (models: -16 to -4)
Rain amount: -10% over the year: summer -35%, winter -6%
Sunlight reaching the ground: +0.5% (models: -1.1% 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 Marbella?

Marbella is in the province of Málaga (Andalusia), Spain, on the coast. The nearest airport is Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP), 39 km away.

How many people live in Marbella?

159,786 registered residents on 1 January 2025 (INE), +14.5% in ten years.

What is the climate of Marbella?

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

Is Marbella safe?

Recorded conventional crime in Marbella was 75.7 offences per 1,000 residents in 2025, high for Spain (national rate about 41). Home burglaries: 2.58 per 1,000. Part of it is crimes against visitors, which count against the residents.

How hot is Marbella 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 Marbella 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 Marbella?

Yes: Hospital Costa del Sol, a public general hospital with 422 beds. Planned surgery in Andalusia waits 173 days on average.

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

Yes. Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP) (39 km away) has year-round direct flights to Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Paris and the US.

What does it cost to rent or buy in Marbella?

A typical apartment (89 m²) rented for 800 € a month in 2024 contracts. Homes were appraised at 4,361 €/m² on average over the last four quarters, 71.9% in five years.

Nearby and similar towns

Nearest towns in this comparison: Coín (Málaga, 20 km), Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga, 22 km), Fuengirola (Málaga, 23 km), Mijas (Málaga, 24 km), Estepona (Málaga, 26 km)
Most similar towns (summer heat, winter nights, rainy days, home prices, size): Benalmádena (Málaga), Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona), Cádiz (Cádiz), Badalona (Barcelona), L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona)

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