Altea
An old town on a hill, the blue dome of the parish church at the top, the harbour and promenade below. Nearly two in five residents are not Spanish nationals, and no single nationality makes up even a tenth of them.
Source: INE, Censo Anual de Población 2025 · accessed 2 November 2026
Altea lies in the Marina Baixa, on the Costa Blanca north of Benidorm, in the province of Alicante. This page covers the old town, who lives in the municipality and what the official figures show.
The old town on the hill
The old town is a tangle of narrow lanes and steps that climb to the church of the Mare de Déu del Consol, with the mountains rising behind it.
If you are looking in the old town, you are buying on a slope. Access, parking and the steps up to the front door should be checked before the purchase, not after it.
Who lives here
The census of 1 January 2025 counts 24,731 residents in Altea. 9,659 of them do not hold Spanish nationality, which is 39 per cent.
What stands out is how widely that figure is spread. Russians (953), the Dutch (920), Romanians (886) and the British (868) are almost level, and no nationality accounts for even a tenth of the foreign residents. Next come Ukrainians (543), Colombians (522), Belgians (485) and Germans (409).
The official population figure from the municipal register rose within a year from 23,963 to 24,592, an increase of 2.6 per cent. The census is a separate count and arrives at a slightly higher number for the same date. We use it because it gives both the total and the breakdown by nationality from the same survey.
Both counts include registered residents only. Anyone who owns a second home in Altea without being registered here does not appear in them. The figures describe the municipality, not the market.
The market in the province
In 2025, according to the notarial statistics of Spain’s housing ministry, 635 residential purchases were signed in Altea. For the province of Alicante as a whole, the land registries recorded 53,385 purchases in the same year. 43.3 per cent of them went to foreign buyers, the highest share of any Spanish province. The two figures come from different statistics and cannot be set against each other.
The resident figures above describe who already lives in Altea, not who is buying there.
On holiday letting
In the Valencian Community this is decided by the individual property, not by the town alone: it needs a favourable report from the municipality on its compatibility with planning rules and an entry in the Registro de Turismo de la Comunitat Valenciana. Since April 2025, where there is an owners’ community, a new holiday let also needs that community’s express approval. We check this for the specific property before anything is signed. A listing that says letting is “possible” is not a registration.
Guide to holiday lettingSee new properties first
Buying on the Costa Blanca rarely takes just a few weeks. Tell us what you are looking for — we get in touch when something fitting comes up, and no more often than that.
Thank you — you will hear from us when something fitting comes up.
Population figures are official, from the INE. Market observations are our own and are not statistics.