Choosing a region

Costa Blanca or Costa del Sol: which one is actually right for you?

Both are a direct flight away and both will sell you an apartment near the sea. They are not the same proposition, and the differences turn up in places people do not think to look.

Hispan Estates · published 12 September 2026 · 7 minute read

It is the first real decision most Irish buyers have to make, and it usually gets made for the wrong reason: somebody had a good fortnight somewhere once. Both coasts are a direct flight away, both have long-standing Irish communities, and both will sell you an apartment near the sea. They are not, however, the same proposition, and the differences show up in places people do not think to look until they own the place.

Here is how they actually compare.

Where they are

The Costa Blanca is the coast of Alicante province, in the Valencia region. It runs roughly from Denia in the north down through Javea, Altea, Benidorm and Alicante city to Torrevieja and the Mar Menor in the south. Alicante airport sits in the middle of it.

The Costa del Sol is the coast of Malaga province, in Andalusia. Malaga city anchors the east end, then Torremolinos, Fuengirola, Marbella and Estepona run west towards Gibraltar, with Nerja and the quieter Axarquia to the east.

The tax difference nobody mentions

This is the one that catches people, because it has nothing to do with the property and everything to do with which side of an administrative line it sits on.

Transfer tax on a resale property is set by the autonomous community, not by Spain. In Andalusia the general rate is 7%. In the Valencia region, which includes the whole Costa Blanca, it is 10%.

On a property at €300,000 that is a difference of €9,000, payable within thirty days of signing. On €450,000 it is €13,500. It does not change which coast is right for you, but it should be in the sum before you start comparing asking prices, because an apartment advertised at €280,000 on the Costa Blanca and one at €290,000 on the Costa del Sol can end up costing you almost exactly the same.

Money, and what it buys

Broadly, the Costa Blanca is the cheaper coast, and by a noticeable margin once you are south of Alicante. Around Torrevieja and the Orihuela Costa, budgets that would get you a small one-bedroom flat in Marbella will get you a two-bedroom townhouse with a communal pool, sometimes with change.

The Costa del Sol runs more expensive nearly everywhere, and considerably more expensive in the Marbella and Estepona stretch. What you are paying for is partly the address and partly genuine scarcity: the coastal strip there is narrow, built up, and has very little land left.

The exception is Malaga city itself, which over the last decade has become one of the more interesting places to own an apartment in Spain, and prices have moved accordingly. If you want a city rather than a resort, the Costa del Sol has one and the Costa Blanca really does not.

Winter

If you are buying somewhere for August, this hardly matters. If you are buying somewhere to spend the Irish winter, it matters more than anything else on this page.

Both coasts are mild by Irish standards. The Costa del Sol is the warmer of the two in January and February, and the difference is real rather than marginal. The Costa Blanca is drier, with less rainfall across the year, and around Alicante the winter days are bright and cool rather than warm.

People who plan to spend November to March in Spain tend to be happier further south. People who plan to come out for long stretches in spring and autumn find very little to choose between them.

Flights, which is not a small point

Alicante and Malaga are both served directly from Dublin, and both have direct routes from Cork and Shannon, though the regional routes thin out in winter. Check the specific months you actually intend to travel rather than the summer timetable, because a coast you can reach in three hours in July and only via a connection in January is a different proposition.

This is one of the genuine advantages of buying on either of these two coasts rather than somewhere quieter. It is also the single thing that most determines whether people use the place four times a year or twice.

Community

Both coasts have large, long-established Irish and British communities, but they feel different. The southern Costa Blanca, around Torrevieja and the urbanisations inland of it, is where you will find the densest concentration of Irish owners, Irish bars, and people who have been coming out for twenty years. For some buyers that is the entire appeal. For others it is precisely what they are trying to get away from.

The Costa del Sol's foreign community is larger but more international and more dispersed, and there are whole stretches, particularly east of Malaga, where you would not notice it at all.

Neither is better. But it is worth being honest with yourself about which one you actually want, because it is very difficult to tell from a fortnight's holiday and very obvious after six months.

Reselling

Most people do not want to think about this at the point of buying, and it is exactly the point at which thinking about it is useful.

Property near the sea, in a town with year-round life and an airport within an hour, sells. Property on an inland urbanisation that empties out in October, forty minutes from anywhere, takes longer and takes a discount. That is true on both coasts, and it has far more to do with the specific location than with which coast it is on.

So which one

If your budget is the binding constraint, or you want space rather than an address, look at the Costa Blanca first. If you intend to spend the winter there, or you want a real city with an airport attached, look at the Costa del Sol first.

And if neither of those descriptions fits, it is worth knowing that the two of them are not the whole of Spain. Plenty of our clients end up somewhere else entirely, usually because nobody had ever shown them the alternative.