Spain

Many remote workers base themselves in the larger cities and on the coast, where cafés, coworking spaces and airports are close. Popular cities have become pricier, and short-term rental rules differ from one city to the next.

• Likes: A time zone that suits Europe, cafés with long hours and an easy evening social life.
• Dislikes: Rents in popular cities, short-let rules that differ by city and residence and tax paperwork that takes effort.

Many high earners look at Madrid, Barcelona, Marbella and Palma, where private clinics, international restaurants and prime residential districts are concentrated. Income tax is the main consideration, and wealth and inheritance rules change by region. Spain's golden visa, which gave residence in return for a property investment, stopped granting new permits in April 2025.

• Likes: Private clinics and good restaurants, residential districts in Madrid, Barcelona, Marbella and Palma and housing with sea or city views.
• Dislikes: Marginal income tax rates, regional wealth tax where it applies and the end of the golden-visa route.

Students usually rent a room in a shared flat, and the demand for rooms is highest in Madrid, Barcelona and the coastal cities.

• Likes: Lively student cities, Erasmus communities in the main university cities and weekends on the beach or in the mountains.
• Dislikes: Competition for rooms in Madrid, Barcelona and the coast, landlords who often ask for a guarantor and an expat bubble for those who never learn Spanish.

Start-ups, accelerators and corporate clients cluster in Madrid and Barcelona. Companies that qualify as start-ups under Spain's start-up law pay a reduced corporate tax rate in their first profitable years.

• Likes: Start-up communities and events in the big cities, universities that feed them and a graduate pool to hire from.
• Dislikes: Self-employed contributions, paperwork and formalities that take time and a funding scene concentrated in two cities.

Retirees tend to settle on the south-east coast, in the Balearic and Canary Islands, or in mid-sized cities close to a large hospital. Doctors per head stand at 464 per 100k people (2024).

• Likes: Mild coastal winters, markets and lunch at the bar, and town centres that can be crossed on foot.
• Dislikes: Hot summers in the south and interior, cold uninsulated homes in winter and paperwork in Spanish.

Children are welcome almost everywhere and public life is built around them. Education comes out above average against similar countries. Space, school places and regional language rules decide how it works for a particular family.

• Likes: Children welcome in restaurants late at night, plazas full of families and Sunday lunches with three generations.
• Dislikes: Small flats in the big cities, a long summer break that is hard on working parents and school language rules that differ by region.

Coast, mountain ranges, long-distance paths, surf in the north and diving in the islands: outdoor life is a way of living here. Summer heat and the dry-season wildfire risk set the limits.

• Likes: Sea on three sides, the Pyrenees, Picos de Europa and Sierra Nevada, and a country full of marked long-distance walking routes.
• Dislikes: Midday heat in the interior and south in summer, dry-season wildfire smoke and the best trails often having no public transport.

Inland towns and the north-west are where budgets tend to stretch furthest, and they are also where jobs are scarcest. This works best with income that comes from elsewhere.

• Likes: Set lunches at the bar, inland towns with everything on foot and neighbourhood markets and bakeries that open early.
• Dislikes: Cheap rents mostly where jobs are weakest and heating or cooling bills in poorly insulated homes.

Young people starting out tend to cluster in Madrid and Barcelona, where employers are concentrated, and often share flats well into their thirties. Youth unemployment stands at 24.9% (2025).

• Likes: A long and social evening life, a wide choice of employers in Madrid and Barcelona and easy moves between cities.
• Dislikes: Entry-level contracts that are often temporary, shared flats and a job search that tends to run through two cities.

Museums, regional kitchens, music and festivals in every town. Madrid and Barcelona have the biggest programmes; smaller cities have the deepest local traditions.

• Likes: Regional cooking everywhere, a patron-saint festival in every town and big museums and theatres in Madrid and Barcelona.
• Dislikes: Noise on streets that are alive past midnight, tourist pressure in historic centres and a quiet August in smaller cities.