Cost Of Living in Valencia Spain - Family of 3 Expat Price / Guide 2023
The cost of living in Valencia, Spain is a fraction of the cost of many big cities in the USA. There are so many great reasons to live in here. If you are still on the fence whether it makes sense for your family or not, I want to share with you one of the main reasons why we relocated to Valencia: cost of living is significantly lower compared to Atlanta, GA.
In this post I will contrast the main cost drivers for our family of 3, living off passive income and savings. Given that we are not working abroad, we are not contributing to the Spanish Social Security, and therefore we can’t access healthcare and other benefits.
Hope you can use this breakdown as a guide to know what to expect in regards to prices in Valencia, and that the content on this page help you in your decision making. Keep in mind that it may look different to you and your family based on your lifestyle. Let’s get started!
Cost of living In Valencia Spain Monthly Average Breakdown - Healthcare Price / Expense In 2023
As part of our visa requirement, we had to purchase a full year of private health insurance that will provide full coverage (the equivalent coverage the public healthcare provides), and we had to prepay it.
We shopped around a few private health insurance companies, and we decided on Sanitas.
For a family of 3, the cost for a full year, including basic dental coverage is $1,974 USD. Billing it on a monthly basis (which we will be able to do for our visa renewal), is $55 USD for each one of us, a total of $165 USD a month.
In the US, both of our jobs sponsored part of our healthcare costs, and for me and my son I was paying around $480 USD a month, without taking into consideration the out-of-pocket and copay amounts.
Mario was in a separate policy through his job and he was spending around $200. That’s a total of $680 a month just to have health insurance.
(Worth mentioning: there’s no copayment to our healthcare plan in Spain. The amount we prepaid is our total healthcare cost for the year.)
Our monthly healthcare cost: $165 (in USD)

Is It Cheaper To Live In Spain Than The US?
Short answer: Yes! In general, living expenses are cheaper here than the US. Simple joys like going to a local bar or cafetería to have your morning coffee it’s not something that is not only exclusive to wealthy people. For €1.50 you can seat outside in a nice terrace and enjoy it anytime.
Rent - In General Property Prices Are Lower

Housing prices have increased since we moved to Spain in August 2022. I’ve kept my real estate app, Idealista (the equivalent of Zillow). Its searches are activated and can see that housing costs has increased over the past 6 months since we arrived.
According to a “El Diario” news article, rent prices have increased by 16% in la Comunidad Valenciana in 2022. Saying this, it is still more cost-effective to rent in the city of Valencia than the city of Atlanta, GA.
To give you some context, we live in a 4-bedroom apartment close to the city center, and our landlord charges us €1,350 a month. The average rent for a one bedroom in our area (a neighborhood close to the city center) goes for 900€.
The minimum wage in Spain is €14,000 (source: Ministerio de Trabajo y Economía Social), divided in 14 payments, €1,000. Therefore, the rental cost in the city accounts for 90% of the minimum salary.
The minimum wage in Atlanta, GA is $15,080.00 (source: Minimum-wage.org), divided in 14 payments, $1,077. The average rent for a one-bedroom in the city of Atlanta is $1,880. Renting in the city of Atlanta accounts for 174% of the minimum salary. This makes living complicated.
Our monthly rental cost: €1,350
Food And Groceries - The Average Cost Of Meals / Eggs / Beer / Etc... Is Much Cheaper Than United States
Food prices in Valencia are very affordable compared to food prices in the US and Puerto Rico, amidst inflation. A few months ago I was talking to one of my best friends in Atlanta about how affordable the food in Spain is, and we decided to do a basic shopping cart comparison.
Each shopping cart (hers purchased in Atlanta, mine purchased in Valencia) included:
Chicken (almost 3 lbs.)
Bananas
Raspberries
Pineapple
Special K cereal
Turrón
2 One liter milk
Wheat flour
Cookies
Maple syrup
My shopping cart totaled €27, and my friend paid $50 in Atlanta for the same items.

Grocery Shopping Saving tip: Sign-up to Phenix app, anti food waste platform that connects you to local food shops (fruterías and verdulerías, supermarkets, bakery shops, etc). You can buy products not sold at the end of the day, or products that are close to their “best by” dates at a discounted price.
A few tips to stretch your money when it comes to grocery shopping:
Take advantage of the sales and promotions: some of the supermarkets in Spain will have the buy one, get the second item 70% off.
Fruits and veggies are usually cheaper in MOST “fruterías y verdulerías” than supermarkets.
The same follows when it comes to eating and drinking out. You can enjoy a nice glass of house wine (don’t confuse the price with the quality of the wine, it is great quality) for €3 in any nice bar, tasca or restaurant.
Many restaurants in Spain offer their “Menú del Día.” This is a set Monday to Friday menu available at lunch time (between 1- 4pm). The typical menú costs around €12, and will include your choice of appetizer, main dish, and coffee or dessert. You can’t beat that!
Our food and grocery cost every month: €350
Transportation - Cost Of Living Valencia Spain vs United States (Extremely Low-Cost)

The biggest stressor for me in the US is having to drive everywhere. To transport from point A to point B I had to drive in the multiple-lane highways in Atlanta, which not only traffic would stress me out, but all the accidents and road rages incidents would do as well.
Ever since moving to Valencia, I noticed my stress level dropped significantly, and is not a coincidence that I don’t drive here.
Valencia’s public transportation is superb. EMT Valencia (Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Valencia) includes Metro, buses, and tram, and it is extremely efficient. Mario and I have the SUMA card, and starting Feb 2023, we pay €17.50 per month each for unlimited public transportation.
Starting in 2022, people under 30 years-old travel for free. People 65 and older travel unlimited for €20 for a whole year with the Bono Oro card! That’s less than 2 euros every 4 weeks. Sounds like a dream!
Since we don’t have a car in Valencia, sometimes we’ll use taxis to move quicker to places when we are in a rush. Taxi fares in Valencia are very economic compared to the US. The average taxi fare for a 10 minute ride is around €5-€6.
Our family’s budget changed drastically moving from the US to Europe. Our bills were around $1,200 between car payment, car insurance, and gasoline for a safe and reliable car in the US.
Our transportation cost every month: €35-€50 (depending on cab rides, which we don’t use frequently)
School And Education - Very Reasonably Priced, If Not Free
As part of our initial moving abroad plan, we decided to transition our son during the first year into a Spanish-English bilingual school. Usually a bilingual curriculum is offered at private schools.
Public schools offer “Lengua Extranjera” (usually English) in a smaller proportion (around 18-25%) to their curriculum. We found a great bilingual school, and between school program and lunch we paid every €600 every month. Not too bad when comparing to private schools in the US, right?
Due to us joining a great fútbol club for our son, we met 2 wonderful families (one of them being Aubrey’s and Mike’s family), and we learned through their experiences that public schools in Valencia help kids transition into the language.
With this new information, we decided to enroll our son in a public school, which is FREE. You only have to buy lunch, but our son loves to come home for lunch, so this is not a service we are currently adding into our budget.
Both, private and public school have the one-time payments for books in the beginning of the year. In our experience, we spent €600 for books in the private school and €300 for the books in the public school.

Additionally, we spent an extra €250 for enrollment in the private school.
Important fact worth sharing: Schools in Valencia teach in Spanish and Valenciano.
Extracurricular Activities
After schools activities are widely available in Valencia. Fútbol culture is big in Europe, and our son is loving it. As I mentioned above, we enrolled him in a fútbol club, where he practices twice a week. It costs €60 a month.
Tutoring
To help our son thrive in school we have hired a very professional tutor that comes home for one hour a day, 3 days a week. Her hourly fee is €10.
This is something we couldn’t afford in Atlanta, as private tutoring is very expensive. It costs my friend, $55/hr for tutoring services for her son. We spend €120 a month for this service, and will never remove from our monthly budget. Lol!
Our monthly education cost (including extracurricular): €180
Utilities - Typically Lower Than The US

Some utilities costs are lower in Valencia, others are about the same in the US.
- Electricity: During the winter months (December and January 2023) it cost €150 a month. Note: our heating is electric, so we expect during the Spring this bill will be lower given the change in the weather. In Atlanta our heating used natural gas, so comparing electricity prices in the winter in Valencia vs Atlanta won’t be accurate. A better season to do this will be the summer.
- Internet/Wifi: Internet is very stable and inexpensive in Europe. Our service is with Movistar and it provides 600MB for fixed amount of €30 a month. This offer is good for 1 year, and once it expires we will have to update to a different plan. Back in the US we used to spend $80 USD for 1G.
- Cellphone: We use Lobster for our cellphone service. The Big Easy plan includes unlimited calls and texts in Spain,
to the UK, US, and other countries for a monthly charge of €25 per line. - Gas: Our landlord has not connected the natural gas line on our apartment, so we consume gas the very traditional way. We buy butane gas from Repsol, and every time we need a new bottle we call the company and they deliver our bottles to our door. The price per bottle is €19, and it lasts about a week and a half.
- Water service: Given our building shares the water meter, the cost of the water is split evenly between all units. Our share is usually €30 a month.
Our monthly utilities expense: €320
Cost To Retire In Valencia
Whether you supplement your social security income or not, living in Valencia will allow you stretch your retirement income. A single person can live off €1,700 a month comfortably.
As part of your research, I suggest contacting a “gestor” in Valencia that can prepare a “dummy” income tax return to consider taxes you will owe Hacienda (Ministry of Treasury).
How Much Money Do You Need To Live A Comfortable Life In Spain?
For a family of 3, it is safe to say that you will need €2,500 every month to live comfortable in Spain. This is one of the main reasons why people move international to be able to retire and live a decent life.
Again, it all comes to lifestyle, and this breakdown does not include leisure and entertainment. If this is a major driver for you, it is worth the adventure to come for a visit and try it yourself to have a realistic reference. You can also use cost of living database websites like Numbeo, when setting up your budget.
I hope this post gives you a better idea about living costs in Valencia.