Dogs in Restaurants, Shops and Beaches: What Spain’s Law Allows

Watch two restaurant terraces on the same village street for an afternoon and you'll see it. One server greets a dog with a water bowl already in hand, the next points at a non-existent sign and shrugs. Both reactions are common and both come from the same source. A law that changed the rules in 2023 without notifying the businesses affected by it. That inconsistency is the whole story of dogs in shops, restaurants and beaches in Spain. This post will save you an awkward moment or two once you're settled in Spain.

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Home Security Systems In Spain: How To Avoid Getting Fined

There's a lot more to consider with home security systems in Spain than in the US. Home security systems in Spain are common in new home construction. Expats who buy an existing home usually install a system if it doesn't already have one.

There are many professional firms that you can purchase systems from, but if you're thinking about doing it yourself, it's not as simple as just ordering some cameras or a video doorbell, installing them wherever you want, and forgetting about it. Real planning is required to make sure you don't run afoul of Spain's privacy laws.

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Relocating To The EU? Save Money On Airfare

Going back and forth to the EU to plan for a move is a significant part of relocation costs. We've tried to plan our move related trips to coincide with vacation trips to save money on airfare. While airfare to Europe has never been cheap, prices keep rising due to all of the current things going on in the world.

One day while getting ready to book a flight, I accidentally reversed the airport codes on the website, going from Spain to the US and back to Spain. The surprise? The exact same transatlantic flight can cost noticeably less if the round trip starts in Europe instead of the US. Same route, same plane, even the same airline — different price depending on which end of the ocean the ticket originates.

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Hard Water In The Costa Blanca: The Hidden Cost

If you've never given a second thought to the water coming out of your tap, the Costa Blanca will change that. Hard water in the Costa Blanca region is a given since a large part of it sits on limestone bedrock. As water travels through it, it picks up dissolved calcium and magnesium along the way. The result is what's called hard water. It's one of those small daily-life differences that catches a lot of newcomers off guard.

You'll find more about the basics of what hard water is and how it shows up on your utility bill on our Utilities page. Here we talk about what it means in day to day life and what to check before you buy a home.

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Gardening In The Costa Blanca

Here in Portland the challenge with gardening is too much rain and not enough sun. Gardening in the Costa Blanca flips that completely.

Over 300 sunny days a year, summer highs that sit in the 30s C (80s F) for weeks at a time and barely 500mm (19 in) of rain a year, most of it arriving in short autumn downpours rather than a gentle drizzle.

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The Risk Of Wire Fraud When Buying Property in Spain

Somewhere between agreeing on a price and signing at the notary, real money has to move, often hundreds of thousands of euros, wired across an ocean to a bank account we've only ever seen typed in an email. That single moment is exactly where wire fraud when buying property in Spain does its damage and it cost American buyers $275 million in 2025 alone.

It has nothing to do with someone hacking an account or stealing a password. It's about someone convincing you to send the money yourself, to the wrong place, at the one moment you're not expecting to double-check.

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How Safe Is Your Money In Spain Vs The US?

Bank deposit insurance and card liability rules discussed here aren't Spain-specific, they're harmonized across the entire EU by directive. That means the figures below apply the same way whether the account is in Spain, France, Germany or anywhere else in the EU.

Investor compensation is the exception. The EU only sets a €20,000 floor there and each country decides whether to go higher. Spain chose to go well above that floor, which matters if you ever end up comparing a Spanish brokerage to one elsewhere in Europe.

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Heating and Cooling Systems in Spain: What’s Different From the US

Heating, cooling and hot water all work differently in a Spanish home than they do in the US. It's worth understanding how, before you're standing in a property trying to figure out what you're actually looking at.

There's usually no central furnace and ductwork. Air conditioning often does double duty as the heating system. Hot water frequently comes from a small unit that heats on demand rather than a tank quietly keeping 50 gallons warm in the garage. None of it is worse, it's just different. Each one affects how you'll budget for and evaluate a property.

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230 Volts Will Fry Your Hair Dryer: What to Know Before You Move To Spain

If you've traveled to Europe before, you've probably dealt with a plug adapter and not thought much more about it. Moving to Spain permanently is a different equation. This isn't about getting your phone charger through a two-week trip—it's about deciding what from your kitchen, bathroom and closet is actually worth moving and what you're better off buying once you arrive in Spain.

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The $10,000 Mistake: Moving With Your US Car to Spain

.For a very short, fleeting moment this was one of the first questions we asked ourselves: could we just ship our car? The answer, once we started digging into it, was a hard "NO". Here's why.The answer, once we dug into it, was a clear no. Here's why.

The Cost Stack Adds Up Fast

Shipping is only the first cost line item and it's not even the biggest one. Getting a US car to a Spanish port runs somewhere in the $2,000 to $2,500+ range depending on which US port you're leaving from and whether it lands in Valencia or Barcelona.

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Negotiating Home Prices In Spain

Negotiating home prices in Spain when you're ready to purchase a home isn't easy. One of the first things Americans notice when they're ready to make an offer on a property in Spain, is that the familiar comparison pricing information isn't there.

No Zillow. No Redfin. No Zestimate telling you whether the asking price is reasonable or wildly optimistic. No public database of what the house next door sold for last spring. If you've spent any time shopping for real estate in the US, the opacity can feel disorienting at first.

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UPDATED: Cost Of Living Comparison

We just did our quarterly refresh of the numbers on our Cost of Living in Spain page. No surprises that the results haven’t changed: the cost of living in Spain vs USA is significantly cheaper across nearly every category we track and the gap is still wide. Using our home base of Portland, Oregon compared to Valencia, the average daily cost of living in Spain runs about 37% lower, with groceries nearly 50% lower and restaurant prices over 25% lower. A few numbers that jumped out to us in this update: We pull this data from Numbeo and refresh it quarterly, so the comparison reflects current prices rather than numbers from a few years back. The full breakdown covers restaurants, groceries, transportation,…

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