The Costa del Sol in winter: the weather, and the towns that stay open all year

This guide covers the Costa del Sol from November to March. It sets out the winter weather, from the state weather service’s averages for Málaga airport, and which towns stay lived in once the summer visitors have gone, from the 2021 census, the population register for 2025 and the hotel survey for January and August 2026. The last sections cover what winter means for the home you buy and for how long you can stay. Each figure is linked to its source.

The winter weather in figures

AEMET, the state weather service, publishes long-run averages for its station at Málaga airport, seven metres above the sea. Its published table covers 1981 to 2010.

Three things stand out. The days are mild, with an average high of 16.8°C in January, the coldest month. The rain is concentrated: November and December bring 100 mm each, but on six or seven days, so most winter days are dry. And frost is almost unknown, at 0.2 days a year, with no snow in the averages. The cool part of the winter is the night, at 7°C to 9°C, and relative humidity averages 68% to 72% from November to February. December’s 160 hours of sun come to about five hours a day, and January averages 7.9 clear days.

The newer averages for 1991 to 2020, which AEMET supplies to the agriculture ministry’s statistical yearbook, put the annual mean at 18.9°C against 18.5°C in the older series, and the annual rainfall at 512 mm against 534 mm. The coast has become a little warmer and a little drier.

Which towns stay lived in

The clearest measure of a year-round town is how many of its homes are someone’s main home. The 2021 census counts it for every municipality, in the INE’s census table. The rest are second homes, holiday lets and empty homes. The residents are those on the population register at 1 January 2025.

The pattern follows the shape of the coast. In Málaga, the towns on the train line between it and Fuengirola, and Rincón de la Victoria and Vélez-Málaga to the east, most homes are lived in all year as main homes. Marbella, Estepona and Mijas sit in the middle: each has a working town and large urbanisations around it, and the census figure is the mix of the two. Benahavís, Casares and Manilva in the west, and Torrox in the east, have more homes that are nobody’s main home than homes that are.

The quieter municipalities are also among the fastest growing. Between 2021 and 2025 the registered population of Casares rose by 22.7%, Benahavís by 21.0% and Torrox by 16.3%, against 3.8% in Málaga. The census shares above were counted in 2021, before that growth.

What stays open: hotels and flights

The INE’s hotel survey counts the hotels open in each tourist town every month. Its figures for January and August 2026 show where the visitors’ year stops and where it does not.

Málaga had more hotels open in January than in August. Torremolinos closed about four in ten of its summer hotels for the winter and Benalmádena about half, but Benalmádena’s open hotels were two-thirds full in January. Marbella kept 54 of its 80 summer hotels open, a quarter full. The survey published no January 2026 figure for Estepona. In January 2025 it had 19 hotels open, against 33 in August 2025.

The flights keep running. Aena counted 1,440,294 passengers at Málaga airport in January 2026, 5.1% more than a year before, with the British market the largest at 254,263. Over the whole of 2025 the airport handled 26,760,549, an average of 2.23 million a month, so January runs at about two-thirds of the average month.

The coast in winter, stretch by stretch

Málaga. A working city of 599,063 people, with 83% of its homes lived in as main homes and more hotels open in January than in August. On these figures, Málaga city changes least with the season.

Torremolinos, Benalmádena and Fuengirola. The three towns on the C-1 train line between the airport and Fuengirola have between 61% and 69% of their homes as main homes. Torremolinos kept 47 hotels open in January. In Benalmádena, Arroyo de la Miel is the town part, with the station and the schools, and Benalmádena Costa, on the sea, is the resort. Fuengirola is the most lived-in of the three, at 69%.

Mijas. The municipality is 54% main homes, but its parts differ. Las Lagunas, the town beside Fuengirola, is where most of the municipality lives. The large urbanisations on the coast, Calahonda, Riviera del Sol and Miraflores, were laid out from the 1970s onwards.

Marbella. The municipality is 56% main homes, and 54 of its hotels stayed open in January. Inside it, Nueva Andalucía is kept busy through the winter by golf, as its page sets out, and San Pedro de Alcántara is a town first and a resort second. In the hills behind, Benahavís has the lowest share of main homes on this list, 36%.

Estepona and the far west. Estepona is 55% main homes. West of it, the municipalities of Casares and Manilva are about 40%, and their coast is on the Casares Costa and Manilva pages. On the hills of La Resina, the district page warns that buyers are sometimes surprised by how quiet an urbanisation on a hill is at nine in the evening in November.

The east. Rincón de la Victoria and Torre del Mar and Vélez-Málaga are mostly main homes, at 68% and 64%. Nerja is half and half, at 51%, and kept 36 hotels open in January. Torrox, at 42%, is quieter.

What winter means for the home

Winter is when a home’s heating and insulation are tested, and the humidity figures above are why damp is worth checking in an older one. On a resale, the energy certificate is the first clue to what heating it will cost. On a new build, the specification says how the home is heated. Of the 264 new developments on file on this site in October 2026, 210 list an aerothermal system, a heat pump that draws warmth from the outside air for hot water and, where fitted, heating, and 99 list underfloor heating. What a new build includes explains both, and what the electricity costs a month, on the tariffs published in October 2026, is worked in the cost of living guide.

A home that will stand empty for part of the winter still carries its standing charges for water and electricity, and the community and the town hall bill as usual. If it will be empty for months at a time, the guide to the law on occupation sets out calmly what the law says and what owners actually do.

Spending the winter here

A citizen of an EU country needs no visa to stay the winter. A visitor from the United Kingdom or elsewhere outside the EU may stay 90 days in any 180 across the Schengen area, which allows a long winter but not all of one, and owning a home adds no days. How the count works is in the 90/180-day rule, and the usual route to living here without working is the non-lucrative visa.

For anyone thinking of moving here for good, retiring to the Costa del Sol makes the same point this guide does: a winter rented in the town you are considering shows you the place as you would live in it, and buying after that winter is done with knowledge rather than hope.

How I handle it

For a buyer who will be here in winter, I look at the shortlist in winter, on a weekday evening, and report back what I find: which shops, bars and pharmacies near the door are open, how many windows in the block are lit, and whether the walk to the shops still works when the beach kiosks are shut. I check how the home is heated, what the energy certificate says, and where damp shows in an older building.

Inside a development, I ask the community’s administrator how many owners live there all year, because that decides what the place is like in February. Book a call and tell me which months you plan to spend here. Buying with me sets out how I work.

Common questions