Cost of living on the Costa del Sol in 2026: a monthly budget for a couple and a family, line by line

This guide sets out what it costs to live on the Costa del Sol from month to month in October 2026: electricity, water, fibre and mobile phones, the food shop, fuel and public transport, eating out, health cover and school fees. It prices two households, a couple in a two-bedroom apartment and a family of four in a house, and builds each line from a source I opened on 24 October 2026: the energy companies’ and telecom operators’ published prices, Málaga’s water tariff, Mercadona’s online prices, the Ministry’s fuel price service, Renfe’s fares and the national statistics office, the INE. The costs of owning the home itself, IBI, the community fee and insurance, are a separate sum, summarised in one paragraph near the end.

Prices are moving. The INE’s consumer price index for September 2026, published on 14 October, put annual inflation at 4.9% in Spain and 4.7% in Andalucía. Treat every figure here as a reading for October 2026.

The monthly budget at a glance

Health cover and school fees depend on your situation and sit outside that total. A couple with public cover through an S1 adds nothing for health, and a family using the state schools adds nothing for fees. Both are set out below with what the alternatives cost. Each line is explained in turn, with the source linked on the figure.

Electricity

A Spanish electricity bill has two main parts: a charge for the power you contract, in kilowatts, whether you use it or not, and a charge for each kilowatt-hour you use. Setting up the supply and choosing the contracted power are covered in electricity, water and internet in a new home.

The table uses Naturgy’s fixed-price tariff, Tarifa Por Uso Luz, as Naturgy publishes it for new contracts until 30 October 2026: €0.123 a kWh, and €0.123030 and €0.061562 a kW a day for the two power periods, before taxes. On top come the electricity tax of 5.11269632% under article 99 of the excise duties law, the regulated rent of €0.81 a month for a household smart meter under Orden ITC/3860/2007, the regulated charge that funds the social tariff, €0.024688 a day before tax, and VAT at the general rate of 21% under the VAT law.

• The couple, 3.45 kW contracted and 250 kWh a month: €65.68 a month with everything included.
• The family, 4.6 kW and 400 kWh a month: €97.36.

The supplier matters. Endesa’s Tarifa Luz 24h Online, at the standard prices Endesa publishes, €0.185544 a kWh and €2.849 a kW a month for each power period, comes to €85.93 for the same couple and €129.67 for the family. Its first-year discount brings those to €80.03 and €120.23.

The use figures are mine, chosen to show the arithmetic. Air conditioning in summer and heating in winter move them more than anything else. As a cross-check, the INE puts what households in Andalucía spent on electricity, gas and other fuels in 2025 at €1,063.44 a year, €88.62 a month.

Water

Each town has its own water company and its own tariff, so this line depends on the address. The table uses Málaga city’s company, EMASA, whose tariff page publishes the ordinances approved in 2024. A home pays a fixed €3.230 a month for supply and €0.822 for treatment on a 15 mm meter. The water is then billed in blocks per person registered at the address. The first 2 m³ a person each month cost €0.428 for supply, €0.334 for sewerage and €0.246 for treatment, and each further block costs more. VAT on drinking water is 10%. Andalucía adds its own water levy, €1.30 a month and €0.13 a cubic metre between 2 and 10 m³, under articles 86 and 87 of the Andalusian water law.

For the amount, I have used the INE’s figure for Andalucía: households used 140 litres a person a day in 2022, about 8.5 m³ a month for two and 17 m³ for four. That comes to €23.31 a month for the couple and €42.04 for the family.

One rule is worth knowing. When nobody is registered at the address on the town’s padrón, EMASA bills the blocks per home rather than per person, and the couple’s 8.5 m³ then costs €37.50 a month instead of €23.31. Registering, which you will want for other reasons too, is explained in the padrón guide.

Fibre and mobiles

These prices are final, with VAT. O2, which sells on Telefónica’s fibre network, offers 600 Mb fibre with two mobile lines of 10 GB and 40 GB for €35 a month, and extra lines with 40 GB for €5 each, so fibre and four phones for the family come to €45.

Digi is cheaper where its own fibre network reaches, from €10 a month for 500 Mb, and charges €25 for 300 Mb elsewhere. Its IlimiTODO mobile lines cost €5 to €8 each when taken with fibre. Households in Andalucía spent €710.76 a year on communication services in 2025, about €59 a month, on the INE’s figures.

Food and household shopping

The basket is a month’s shop for two adults at Mercadona’s own prices, read from its online shop on 24 October 2026. The online shop’s own postcode check puts Málaga, Marbella and Fuengirola outside its delivery area, so the prices are those of its Seville catalogue. Most items were priced the same in each of the catalogues I compared, while some fresh meat, fruit and vegetables differed by up to 63 cents an item, so treat the basket as a close guide rather than a till receipt. It is mostly the shop’s own brand. For the family I have doubled the food and drink and added half as much again to the cleaning products and toiletries.

A few shelf prices give the scale: a litre of semi-skimmed milk €0.83, a dozen large eggs €3.05, a 250 g barra of bread €0.50, a kilo of round rice €1.15 and a litre of extra virgin olive oil €4.35.

This is a careful own-brand shop. The INE’s household budget survey for 2025, published on 25 June 2026, puts what households in Andalucía spent on food and soft drinks at €2,149.37 a person, about €358 a month for two. A household that buys brands, fresh fish from the counter and more meat will be nearer that figure than the basket.

Fuel and getting about

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition publishes every filling station’s prices on its fuel price service. At 20:23 on 24 October 2026, 301 stations in Málaga province were selling 95 unleaded at an average of €1.781 a litre, and 304 were selling diesel at an average of €1.933. The table assumes one petrol car using 6.5 litres per 100 km, driven 1,000 km a month by the couple and 1,500 km by the family: €115.77 and €173.65. Insurance, servicing and the annual road tax come on top. For scale, the INE puts what households in Andalucía spent on running their own vehicles in 2025, fuel and repairs among it, at €2,238.31 a year.

Without a car, the train is the cheaper route on the stretch it covers. In 2026 Renfe sells a personal monthly pass for €20 with unlimited travel on every Cercanías network, €10 for anyone born between 2000 and 2011, and a free pass for children born from 2012. Two adults on the C-1 line pay €40 a month. The Málaga transport consortium’s travel card, at its fares from 15 July to 31 December 2026, charges €0.83 for a city bus in Málaga and €1.58 for a train journey across two zone boundaries, such as the airport to Fuengirola. Which towns have the train is in the Costa del Sol train guide.

Eating out

Restaurant prices vary from town to town and street to street, so the table uses what households here actually spend. The INE’s survey tables for 2025 put spending on restaurants, cafés and bars in Andalucía at €1,059.79 a person a year, about €88 a month. For two people that is €177, for four €353. It is an average across all households, including those who rarely eat out.

Health cover

There are three routes, and each has its own price. Who qualifies for which is set out in healthcare for residents.

• Public cover through work in Spain, or through an S1 as a UK state pensioner: no premium.
• The state’s own scheme, the convenio especial, open after a year of residence: €60 a month a person under 65 and €157 from 65, under article 6 of Real Decreto 576/2013. A couple under 65 pays €120 a month, a couple over 65 pays €314.
• Private cover, priced by age and quoted to each person. Mapfre publishes a starting price of €36 a month for its full cover with hospital care, and states that its health policies can be taken out up to the age of 75. Private cover is also what the non-lucrative visa asks for, unless you hold an S1.

School fees

State schools are free for children from three to sixteen, and places are given by points, chiefly for how close the family lives, which needs a registered address, as the international schools guide explains. International schools charge by the year, and the same guide lists them all. Two examples from it: St Anthony’s College in Mijas Costa is listed at €5,020 a year at three and four rising to €9,935 for the sixth form for 2025/26, and the British School of Málaga at €9,880 a year at three rising to €13,150 for the sixth form for 2026/27, plus an annual enrolment fee of €1,100. For two children at St Anthony’s that is between €837 and €1,656 a month, spread over twelve months, before lunch, transport and uniforms.

What owning the home adds

The table leaves out the costs that come with owning the home rather than living in it. IBI, the town hall’s property tax, is charged on the cadastral value at a rate each town sets, and IBI town by town gives the rates. The refuse charge is a separate town hall bill. The community fee depends on the building, and on the district pages of this site it runs from €80 to €150 a month in the new blocks of Los Pacos and the town blocks of San Pedro to €250 to €500 in the newer developments on the hill at El Higuerón, as community fees in Spain explains. Cover for the building and contents is in home insurance in Spain, and an owner who lives abroad files the non-resident tax return every year, even on a home that is never let. Each of these is set out with its official source in what it costs to own a home in Spain.

Tax on the income you live on

Once you are resident, Spain taxes your income from everywhere, and the tax on a pension or a salary belongs in the monthly budget too. The rates and a worked example are in income tax in Spain in 2026: a resident of 66 with a €30,000 pension pays about €5,224 a year, roughly €435 a month. Andalucía rebates the wealth tax in full, so for most owners there is nothing to add for it.

Where the money goes further

Most of the lines in the table follow the household rather than the town. The price of the home follows the town. New builds starting under €300,000 are mostly in Las Lagunas and Los Pacos on the edge of Fuengirola, in the eastern towns from Rincón de la Victoria to Torrox, and in Manilva. Both Las Lagunas and Los Pacos are a short drive from the C-1 stations in Fuengirola, which keeps the transport line low as well.

How I handle it

When we draw up a shortlist, I put the running costs of each home next to its price: the community fee from the last accounts, the IBI from the last receipt, which water company serves the address, whether the home cooks and heats on electricity alone, and what its energy certificate says about the bills. For a family I add the school run and the fees, and for a retiree the route to health cover, because those two lines can outweigh everything else in the table.

That way the monthly figure you plan around is the one for the home you buy rather than an average. If you want to work through it for a particular town or budget, book a call. Buying with me sets out how I work.

Common questions