International School Fees on the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca

Published September 2026 · Data verified September 2026

International school fees on these two coasts run from €2,000 to €28,255 per child per year, and the extras add €4,000 to €6,000 on top of tuition. For a family relocating with two children, schooling is usually the largest recurring cost of the move — several times the annual cost of holding the property itself.

Choose the school before the house. The catchment, the bus route and the admission date decide where you can live.

What it costs, by stage

Indicative tuition on the Costa del Sol, excluding extras:

The costs that are not tuition

One child, one year, in full

A Year 7 place at a mid-range Costa del Sol school:

Two children at that level cost roughly €39,000 a year. A €400,000 apartment costs about €4,000 a year to hold. Settle the schooling figure before the property search starts.

Costa del Sol: schools that publish their fees

Costa Blanca: schools that publish their fees

What a range like that actually contains

A single figure such as "€9,840 to €28,255" spans nursery to the IB Diploma. Fees roughly double or triple between the youngest year and the oldest, so a whole-school range tells you the tier and little else. Three published schedules, one from each tier:

Ask each school for the figure for your child's specific year group.

What is included differs, and it moves the comparison. Sotogrande includes lunches and compulsory curriculum trips in the tuition. King's College Alicante includes lunches, textbooks, materials and the technology fee. Lady Elizabeth charges lunch separately at €1,550–1,700 a year. Two schools quoting the same tuition are not charging the same amount.

One-off charges vary as widely. Sotogrande charges €3,000–4,000 registration plus a €350–550 membership fee. King's College Alicante charges €1,550. Lady Elizabeth charges €1,650 to register and a further €1,100 to re-enrol each year.

What the two coasts cost, side by side

The two coasts separate at the top of the market. The Costa Blanca has no equivalent of Sotogrande International, and its most expensive school costs less than the top of the Costa del Sol's mid-market. For a family with two children at the upper end, the gap between the coasts runs to €20,000 a year or more, which moves the property budget as much as the price per square metre does.

At the lower and middle of the market the two are closer than the headline suggests, and both coasts have Scandinavian, German and French schools alongside the British ones.

Why the best-known schools are missing from those tables

Aloha College, Swans International, Laude San Pedro, English International College and the British International School of Marbella do not publish fee schedules. Neither do around 25 other schools in Málaga province.

Fees are issued on request, usually after an enquiry or a visit. The stage bands at the top of this guide are the planning figure for them, and the established Marbella schools sit in the upper half of each band.

Ask for the full schedule in writing, including the enrolment fee, the capital levy, the sibling discount and the notice period for withdrawal. A term's notice is common, and leaving mid-year without it costs a full term's fees.

The four types of school in Spain

Education is compulsory from six to sixteen. Public schools are free, well regarded in both regions, and the fastest route to fluent Spanish for a young child. They teach in Spanish from the first day, which suits a six-year-old and rarely suits a fourteen-year-old.

Choosing the curriculum

British. IGCSE at sixteen, A-levels at eighteen. The most common option on both coasts, and the simplest route back into the UK system if the move turns out to be temporary.

International Baccalaureate. Broader, harder to join late, and the strongest currency for applying to universities in several countries at once.

Spanish national. Bachillerato and the university entrance exam. The right choice for a family staying permanently, and a hard one for a child arriving at fifteen with no Spanish.

American. High school diploma and Advanced Placement, offered by a small number of schools.

Answer two questions first: where the child will apply to university, and how likely the family is to move again before then. Switching systems at sixteen is disruptive; switching at eleven is manageable.

Choose the school before the house

Apply a full academic year ahead. The established schools run waiting lists, particularly at entry years and for September starts.

Visit in term time. An empty campus in August tells you nothing about the school.

Map the commute. Bus routes define a practical catchment more tightly than distance does. A school twenty minutes away with no route from your urbanisation means an hour of driving twice a day.

Confirm the place before you commit to the property. Offers on a house and offers of a school place both carry deadlines, and the school's is the one you cannot move.

What to ask each school

1. The full fee schedule in writing, including every one-off charge.
2. Whether a place exists in the specific year group, and the current waiting list.
3. Which bus routes serve the areas you are considering.
4. The proportion of pupils by nationality, and how many are Spanish.
5. What support is given to a child arriving with no Spanish, and with no English where that applies.
6. Exam results by subject, and where leavers go.
7. The notice period for withdrawal, and what a mid-year departure costs.

How Directimo works

Directimo represents the buyer, never the seller. Listing agents in Spain are contracted by the vendor and paid to protect the vendor's price.

We work on both coasts, so a family can compare the total cost of a move — property, schooling and living — before committing to either. We map the shortlist against the actual school run, bus route included, and sequence the search so the place is confirmed before the offer. The properties we source average 13.5% below area market prices. We have completed more than 1,000 transactions since 2011, totalling over €300M in property sold.

Plan a relocation around the school: directimo.com/advisory-call

The full annual cost of living on both coasts is in our cost of living guide, the areas and their access in our Costa del Sol geographic guide and Costa Blanca geographic guide, and the residency routes in our non-EU buyers guide.

Sources. Sotogrande International School — official fee schedule 2026/27. King's College Alicante — published fee schedule 2025/26. Lady Elizabeth School — published fee schedule 2025/26. International Schools Database — published annual tuition ranges, curriculum and location for schools in Málaga and Costa del Sol and in Alicante and Costa Blanca, 2026/2027. Published fee guidance for Costa del Sol international schools, 2026, for the stage bands and the schedule of non-tuition costs. Ministerio de Educación — the structure of Spanish schooling and the compulsory age range.

Method. Fee ranges in the two coast tables are the lowest and highest published annual tuition at each school — youngest year at the bottom, oldest at the top — and a range therefore indicates the tier rather than the cost of a particular year group. What tuition includes varies by school: some cover lunches, books and trips, others charge them separately, so two identical tuition figures are not identical costs. The three stage schedules are taken from each school's own published fee document and cover the academic years stated. Around 25 schools in Málaga province and a number on the Costa Blanca publish no fees at all; the stage bands are the planning figure for those. The worked example uses mid-range assumptions and is illustrative. Fees are set annually and rise most years.

This guide is market research, not educational or financial advice. Fees, places and admission requirements are specific to each school and should be confirmed directly before any commitment.