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How did one couple spend €51,000 to move to Spain while another spend €18,000? And just because it cost one real couple €51 grand doesn't mean that's what it'll cost you. From visas to flights to insurance and more, you may be wondering what exactly it will cost you to move here.
So, in this video, I'm going to give you the framework and the actual numbers to calculate the cost of your move, plus give you an idea of your cost of living once you're here. And I'm using real move costs of the generous people who I've helped to move to Spain, plus official data from Spain's National Statistics Institute that I've analyzed with the help of an economist. And all figures are updated for 2026. And don't worry, we'll talk about tax, too.
So, to make this concrete, I'm going to work through the numbers for a fictional couple. I'll be using this Spain cost calculator, which I'll share with you in a bit. So, let's call our couple Jenny and Mike. They're both 55 years old and let's say they're moving from Los Angeles to Malaga. So first step their visas and a common route for many people in this audience is the non-lucrative visa. So we'll work with that. But all visa routes come with application fees and usually some form of financial requirement. For the non-lucrative visa specifically for a couple you need to show a minimum of €36,000 in savings and or passive income. Passive income means a pension, social security, dividends, or rental income from a property. In other words, not income based on doing actual time for money based work. So, let's assume Jenny and Mike have the funds.
Now, they apply for their visa. And I mentioned I'm using real costs from people I've helped move to Spain. Those people are alumni of my move to Spain masterclass. And they've generously allowed me to share anonymously the cost of their moves with you in this video. And based on what masterclass alumni actually spend applying for the non-lucrative visa in the US, you're looking at around €400 for the visa application and related fees as a couple. Then there are the supporting documents, FBI background check, apostilles of your marriage certificate, birth certificates if necessary. Budget around €500 for that. And those documents need to be officially translated by a certified Spanish translator. Not Google Translate, not a friend who speaks Spanish, somebody who can put their professional stamp on it. Budget around €200 for that. So, total visa costs excluding the savings you need to show around €1,100.
Next, health insurance. One of the conditions of many visa routes is that you have private health cover. Keep in mind, if you're going to be working in Spain, you'll have access to public health care, but even so, it can take a while to get that set up in the system. So adding in private insurance for your first year at least can be a smart move. If your immigration route does require private health insurance, you'll need a full cover policy in place at the time of your application. And it needs to be paid up for the entire year upfront, not monthly. That means the whole year is paid at the point of the application. I asked Janice, the health insurance broker I recommend, to give me a ballpark figure for fictional Jenny and Mike. He said €238 a month for both of them combined. That's €2,856 for the full year paid in one go. And to be clear, that's total for both of them and it includes comprehensive full cover private health insurance. Now, the cost does vary depending on your age and where in Spain you're moving to. Different regions have slightly different health care costs, but that gives you at least a ballpark. And if you want to get a quote from Janice, his contact information is in the description.
Okay, next up, flights. So, one of my masterclass participants flew from LA to Madrid economy with checked bags for $1,800 for two people. So, I think that's a solid real world benchmark for Jenny and Mike. So, I've put $1,540 in the budget. Now, that covers checked bags for both of them, but not a huge amount of luggage. And how much stuff you bring is going to matter a lot, which brings us to shipping. So, Jenny and Mike are going to bring some things. Not everything. They are planning to downsize obviously. They know Spanish apartments are smaller than the home they're leaving in LA, but they'll bring a few extra bags and a few boxes, and that's a pretty typical scenario that I see based on the cost submitted by the Masterclass alumni. I've budgeted around €2,000 for that. That could cover excess luggage on the flight or a service like Send My Bags that ships bags and boxes by air. But shipping is the single biggest lever on your total move cost. And I'm going to come back to this with some real numbers from alumni because the cost gap between shipping nothing and shipping a container is serious.
Okay, Jenny and Mike haven't even flown to Spain yet and we've got a whole lot of numbers floating around. It's also very hypothetical. So, I've made you this free tool, the Spain cost calculator 2026. It's a Google sheet to calculate your own move budget and your baseline cost of living for life in Spain. Part one is your move budget. Every cost category I talk about in this video, visa, flights, shipping, rental deposit, all of it laid out so you can fill in your own numbers and give you a baseline cost of living for all the 17 regions in Spain with the latest figures from the National Statistics Institute. I've pulled this data with the help of an economist and step-by-step calculation so you can build your own monthly baseline cost of living, whether you're moving alone or as a couple or with kids. It's completely free. Scan the QR code on the screen or access it via the link in the description.
Okay, back to Jenny and Mike who have just arrived in Malaga. And of course, they kick off with a fantastic long Spanish lunch in the sun, but they don't have an apartment yet. And you might wonder, why not just contact a real estate agent from back home or real estate agents and rent somewhere before you arrive? The problem is that the rental market in Malaga, like in many places, is really competitive. People see a place on Idealista, the main property portal in the morning, they visit that day and they rent it by the evening. No real estate agent is going to bother with someone who's emailing from LA when they have someone standing in front of them with cash. So, you really need to be on the spot. There is one workaround. You can work with a local relocation agent from back home and they will view places and can rent on your behalf. This is especially popular for those moving with pets or kids. But assuming you want to actually be here and visit the actual place you're going to rent before you do so, you're going to need what I call a landing pad. So, book an Airbnb or similar for your first month, possibly up to 2 months, and use that time to hustle to find your actual home, your rental. So, for Jenny and Mike, let's assume they need the landing pad for a month and a bit, and we'll put in €3,000 for that. And don't forget any specific costs back home. Temporary accommodation before you fly if you sold your place, storage if you haven't decided what to do with all your stuff yet, and practical things like a mailbox service to keep a home address for banking.
Now, after about a month, where did Jenny and Mike end up? So, I had a look on Idealista and found an apartment in WIN, a neighborhood just west of Malaga city center. It's right on the sea. It's a 5-minute walk to the train station, so it's a really good spot. It's 100 square meters. It's got three bedrooms, two bathrooms. It's on the second floor with a lift. It's fully furnished and right opposite a big lovely park. The rent €1,900 a month. Now, the place is furnished, but furnished doesn't mean fully kitted out necessarily. From the survey data that I've collected, even in a furnished place, you're typically spending maybe $1,500 or €2,000 on the things that aren't there. Maybe a TV or bedding, kitchen basics, that kind of thing. So, I've added €1,500 to their budget for that. And if you land in an unfurnished place, that number can jump up to 3,000 on the low end or up to 10,000 depending on how much you want to spend. Now, when you move into a rental in Spain, you pay 1 month's deposit upfront by law. And a landlord can charge up to 3 months deposit. I'd say about 2 months is standard. So, that's 2 months deposit plus 1 month's rent in advance, 3 months total, €5,700 to get into the apartment. Though I think it's worth pointing out that in tight rental markets, especially for foreign residents who don't have a job contract in Spain, sometimes Spanish landlords are asking for up to about 6 months rent in advance. This is because it's easier for a landlord to ensure a tenant who has a Spanish job contract. So, they can be a bit wary of foreign renters, even if you do have a lot of cash. That's another topic, and I will do a video on renting at some point soon. But just know that a relocation agent, I mentioned them before, can be a huge asset, even if you don't work with them until you're actually in Spain. They can help present you to local landlords, which can help your case, and it can mean you rent faster, which is less money spent on that landing pad.
Okay, let's add up the hard costs for Mike and Jenny. So, we've got visa costs, €1,100. Health insurance, year 1, paid upfront, €2,856. Flights, €1,540. Shipping €2,000, landing pad and moving costs, including 2 months deposit and the first month's rent, plus kitting out the place, which comes to a total of around €18,000. If Jenny moved alone, some costs would have been half, others would have stayed quite similar, and so you could estimate maybe around €13,000.
Now, these figures are a baseline, a real minimum. Remember when I surveyed my masterclass alumni on their costs, one couple spent €18,000 on the move, but another spent €51,000. So why such a difference? Well, there are case-by-case costs that we haven't included yet. And some of them can be significant. I've already mentioned shipping. Ship a lot of belongings and the cost of your move can rise significantly. Some couples from the data spend zero on shipping beyond what they take on the flight. Another couple, the one that spent €51,000 on their move costs, spent €14,000 on shipping, including insurance. But also be aware of false economies. If you don't ship certain belongings, you may have to buy them again in Spain.
Another key cost which can inflate the move is the professionals you hire to help you. We've talked about a relocation agent to help finding a rental, and they can also help with schools and doing your paperwork to help you get set up in Spain. So, if you decide to work with one, estimate around €2,000 to €3,000. Then there's a visa consultant to help you get your visa, which makes a lot of sense if you're busy and don't have time to get into the minutia of applying for a visa. For a couple, that's going to run to somewhere between €2,000 and €3,000. You might also want to talk to a tax advisor before the move, someone who can help you understand what your tax situation will look like as a Spanish tax resident. So, I would budget for around 500 for that. And that cost can rise depending on the complexity of your finances. And then there are pets. About half the people in my move to Spain masterclass move with animals. If that's you, build this into your budget. So moving with a dog or cat, you're looking at around €300 to €650 for the vet appointment and the official health certificate that you need to bring with your pet to Europe. And then there's transportation. If they're small enough to go under the seat in front of you in the cabin, it'll cost you a couple hundred. As excess luggage in a crate in the hold, it'll be around €450. And shipped cargo, which is popular with some dog owners, can be anywhere from €3,500 all the way up to €5,000 for a big dog. So, the range here is really, really wide.
Okay, back to Jenny and Mike, our wonderful fictional couple who are living their best life in Malaga. They settled into their apartment in WIN and they're very very happy with their decision of moving to Spain and to Malaga, which begs the question, what does this wonderful life they're building cost? Now, there's no single cost of living number that applies to everyone because everyone has a different lifestyle. But you need a baseline, something objective to work from. And the most objective source we have is Spain's National Statistics Institute, the INE. They publish annual data on what Spanish households actually spend broken down by region. I've worked with an economist to strip out housing costs from that data because you can look up rents on Idealista yourself to get a more accurate number for your situation and then we've adjusted the figures to reflect 2026 prices. So using the Spain cost of living calculator that you can access for free for Jenny and Mike as a couple in Andalusia, we get €21,220 a year. That covers groceries, transport, utilities, leisure, everything except rent. Now, let's add the rent back in. Jenny and Mike are paying €1,900 a month. That's €22,800 a year. Add those together. 21,220 plus 22,800, and you get a baseline annual cost of living of €44,020, around €3,670 a month.
Now, that's a baseline. And it's what an average Spanish couple in Andalusia spends on day-to-day life, plus a good rent in Malaga. But Jenny and Mike want to travel. They want to fly back to LA once a year to see family. They want to explore Europe. Maybe they want to eat out a bit more than the average. So what happens if we double the cost of living portion, not the rent, just the day-to-day spending to give some headroom for that lifestyle? So 21,220 doubled is 42,440. Add back in the 22,800 for rent and you get 65,240 a year, around €5,440 a month. That's a comfortable, well-traveled lifestyle in a 3-bedroom apartment right by the sea in a great part of Malaga. But one more thing on health care. The INE data does include some health care spending because Spanish people spend money on health, but it doesn't fully account for private health insurance, which Jenny might need and which not every person in Spain has. So, you might want to add that €238 a month on top of whichever scenario feels right for you just to make sure your budget has some headroom.
Now, Jenny and Mike are in Malaga, but you might be thinking about moving to Madrid or Valencia or Galicia or the Basque Country. And obviously, the numbers for cost of living do change across Spain's 17 regions. And that's exactly what the free calculator covers every region, the 2026 figures, and the step-by-step calculation so you can build your own baseline cost of living number for wherever you're headed. So, grab it via the link below or via the QR code.
But there's one more piece I want to flag, and it's a piece that people most consistently leave out of their budget. Tax. Look, it's very easy to look at all of these numbers and feel like you've got your plan sorted, but tax is the piece that can obviously change the picture quite significantly. If you move to Spain and live here for more than 6 months in a calendar year, you're very likely going to become a Spanish tax resident. And as a tax resident, Spain taxes you on your worldwide income and potentially your wealth. Don't listen to those fearmongers on social media who say you're going to pay double taxation. For most countries, there's a double taxation treaty with Spain. So, yeah, you're very likely or potentially going to be paying more tax, but you're not going to be paying double tax. Plus, there is a special tax regime, the so-called Beckham law, that you may be able to take advantage of to reduce your tax burden. In short, your total tax burden once you're living in Spain may well be higher than what you're used to back home. Though keep in mind health care and other costs may be lower. The key is that you need to understand how your tax bill is likely to impact your actual cost of living. So before you finalize your budget, talk to a Spanish tax advisor. They can run a simulation and let you know what your Spanish tax bill would likely be depending on the region you're going to be living in. That €500 conversation before you move can save you a lot of headaches and potentially save you a lot of money of trying to fix it down the line.
But finances are just one piece of your move. There are also other critical pieces like visas, healthcare, housing, and more. And you can learn all about them in this ultimate move to Spain video that I made over here. So, I'll see you over there in a moment.