Alicante province is now officially Spain's foreign-buyer capital. Data compiled by pisos.com from the Property Registrars' latest quarterly report (published 22 July) shows that 44.65% of all home purchases in the province are signed by foreign citizens — the highest share in the country, ahead of Málaga (34.30%) and the Balearic Islands (28.89%). If you are planning to buy here, this number is worth two minutes of your time.
The numbers: Alicante ahead of Málaga and the Balearics
Five years ago, foreign buyers accounted for 31.48% of transactions in the province. Today it is 44.65% — a rise of more than 13 percentage points, and comfortably the highest concentration of international demand anywhere in Spain. For comparison, Málaga — home of Marbella and the Costa del Sol — sits at 34.30%, and the Balearics at 28.89%.
Over the same five years, the average asking price on the Costa Blanca has risen from €211,285 to €309,748 — up 46.6%. The two curves are not a coincidence: sustained international demand against limited coastal land is exactly what a textbook says it looks like.
What it means if you are buying here
Competition is real, and it is fastest at the well-priced end. When nearly every second buyer in the market is international, well-priced homes do not wait around. In our own portfolio, correctly priced apartments and bungalows routinely go under reservation within weeks of listing — a direct consequence of this demand structure.
Liquidity works in your favour when you sell. The same statistic that makes buying competitive makes owning safer: whenever you decide to resell, roughly half of the potential audience for your home is the same international market you came from — deep, diverse and not dependent on any single country's economy.
Waiting has a measurable price. The five-year record is +46.6%. Nobody can promise the next five years will repeat it — but the buyers who postponed in 2021 are now paying almost €100,000 more for the same coastal home. That is the honest cost of "I'll wait and see" on this coast so far.
Where the demand concentrates
Alicante city itself is a big part of the story: the provincial capital combines a working economy with beaches and direct flights across Europe, and we looked at its demand profile in detail in our Q1 2026 demand-map briefing. In the city, international buyers overwhelmingly target modern apartments — new projects such as Estela near Parque Central or the PAU II development are precisely the product this 44.65% is competing for.
Along the coast, the pattern splits: northern-European buyers dominate the stretch from Benidorm to Denia, while the south around Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa remains Europe's most liquid entry-level market. You can browse the full picture of what international buyers are choosing on our apartments in Costa Blanca page, or drill into Alicante city specifically.
Our take
A 44.65% foreign share is not a bubble signal by itself — it is a structural feature of this coast, and it has been building for a decade. For a buyer it means two practical things: move decisively when the right home appears, and buy something the international market will want again when it is your turn to sell. For the wider market context, our Spain property market 2026 guide keeps the full picture up to date.
If you want us to do the moving-decisively part for you: tell us your budget and criteria, and we will send a personal selection of homes that fit — usually within 24–48 hours.
Update, August 2026: the Registrars' Q2 2026 report raises the province's foreign-buyer share to 46.43% — 5,710 purchases, up 3.13 percentage points in a year. Full breakdown in our analysis of the Q2 figures.
