A new study has shown the favourite towns chosen by retirees moving to Spain.
Spain has of course long been a popular destination for foreign retirees for obvious reasons, and though many of us might have pre-conceptions about the sorts of places they tend to congregate, survey data has given us the answer.
The study, done by Moving To Spain, took into account several criteria including average temperature, percentage of retired population, rental costs, crime incidence and tax rates, among others.
READ ALSO: The best cities to retire to in Spain, according to Spaniards
The favourite towns for foreign retirees to move to in Spain
Almuñécar, a coastal town of around 25,000 in Granada, took the overall top spot, taking a retirement Hotspot Score of 7.56/10.
Moving To Spain said the following of the Andalusian town: “Almuñécar, on the southwest coast, takes the top spot and is our best place to retire in Spain. The town scores highly thanks to its low rent price index of 108.34 percent and its 0 percent wealth tax rates. It also ranks highly for its proportion of retirees — at 4.47 percent, it’s just inside the top ten for the factor.
Next up was Nerja in Málaga province. Moving To Spain gave the coastal town a Retirement Hotspot Score of 7.50/10, again citing the 0 percent wealth tax rate (Nerja is also in Andalusia) and the high proportion of retirees (25.84 percent) and foreign retirees (10.85 percent) in the area.
A beach in the Málaga town of Nerja in southern Spain. Photo: Dimitar Vichev/Unsplash
Torrevieja, on the Costa Blanca in Alicante province, rounded out the top three with a Retirement Hotspot Score of 7.33/10
The study highlighted Torrevieja’s overall suitability and appeal for retirees: “The city on the southeast coast scores relatively well, placing in the top 10 for four of the seven factors we looked at.”
Torrevieja has a very large foreign community, particularly UK nationals, Russians and Dutch, whether working age or retired.
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The full rankings are as follows:
- Almuñécar
- Nerja
- Torrevieja
- Jávea
- Calpe
- Benidorm
- Denia
- Cádiz
- Cartagena
- Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
For those of you with some geographical sense of Spain, you’ll have noticed that all of these places are, perhaps unsurprisingly, in coastal parts of Spain long popular with foreigners as tourist destinations.
They include the Costa del Sol area of Málaga in the southern region of Andalusia, along with coastal towns up and down the Costa Blanca including Valencia, Alicante and Murcia.
Las Palmas, on the Canary Islands, has also been a popular destination for tourists and retirees alike for decades.
Following news that the Spanish government is going to scrap all types of Golden Visa, an option that allowed foreign retirees to gain residency and perhaps even citizenship rights in exchange for investment, usually via property purchases, the main route for non-EU retirees now moving to Spain is the non-lucrative visa (NLV).
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The non-lucrative visa or NLV as it is often referred to, is an authorisation that allows non-EU foreigners to live in Spain without working or carrying out professional activities, by demonstrating that they have sufficient financial means for themselves and, if applicable, their family.
In Spanish it’s called a ‘visado de residencia no lucrativa’ and is also sometimes referred to as a retirement visa, as this is the best option for retirees from non-EU countries who want to spend their golden years in Spain.
READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of Spain’s non-lucrative visa?
