Where Remote-Worker Demand Moves Next
With remote and hybrid work now the default across much of Europe rather than the exception, the question for a growing number of people has shifted from whether they can work from home to which city they want to call home while they do it. For operators, that turns into a different question: where does coliving demand go after Madrid and Barcelona, and is Málaga, Valencia or another secondary city the right next opening? In my role as Head of Living at UrbanPay I hear that question more every quarter, and the answer keeps landing on the same kind of place: somewhere sunny, well connected and cheaper than the capital.
Spain: the demand is already leaving the two capitals
Spain is the clearest example. A 2025 Global Citizen Solutions ranking named it the world's best destination for digital nomads, helped by roughly 300 days of sun a year on average and up to 320 along stretches of the Costa del Sol. That is showing up in where people actually choose to live.
Beyond the Madrid coliving market and Barcelona, two cities stand out for operators:
- Málaga has become one of the country's fastest-growing tech and remote-work hubs, and the operators I talk to increasingly treat it as the third Spanish city on their list rather than an afterthought.
- Valencia keeps appearing on 2026 city rankings for its combination of sunshine, beaches and a lower cost of living than the bigger capitals, which is exactly the trade-off a remote worker on a foreign salary is optimising for.
Smaller coastal towns along the Costa Blanca, Jávea among them, are pulling in the same crowd looking for something quieter than a big city but still built around an international community.
Portugal and Italy follow the same pattern
Portugal follows a similar pattern. Lisbon and Porto both rank among the top ten European cities for digital nomads in 2026, and the mild climate is one of the reasons Portugal keeps showing up near the top of every list of this kind. Porto plays a role for Lisbon similar to the one Valencia plays for Barcelona: the same international demand, one step outside the capital. The Lisbon coliving market covers how operators there already run locations in both cities.
Italy is earning a place in the same conversation, on the back of the same basic appeal: warm winters, an established international community, and a lifestyle that is hard to replicate in Northern Europe from November to March.
What a secondary city means for the operator
What this means for operators is that the map keeps expanding. Demand is no longer concentrated in two or three capital cities; it is spreading into secondary and coastal markets, sometimes in a new country entirely. That is a good problem to have, but it does create a real operational one. Opening in Málaga or Valencia after Madrid tends to mean:
- A new legal entity or SPV, often required by the investor or lender behind the asset, with its own bank account and its own accounting.
- A new local process: different notaries, different utility providers, a different tourist-rental and residential rulebook in each region.
- Payment and verification flows that have to work regardless of where the member banks, because a member paying rent in euros from a Spanish account and a member wiring the first month from abroad before they arrive both need to land in the right ledger for the right building.
- A team that is not yet on site, so the first months of collection, onboarding and signing run remotely from head office.
The mistake I see most often is standing up a separate stack for each city: a new payment account, a new verification vendor, a new contract template, a new spreadsheet. By the third city the finance team is reconciling three sets of everything.
That is exactly the kind of expansion UrbanPay's multi-entity structure is built for. An operator runs account-to-account collection with automatic reconciliation, KYC verification and eIDAS-compliant contract signing for every project and city under one account, rather than standing up separate infrastructure each time it opens somewhere new; the flex living solution page shows how that works across a multi-city portfolio.
Choosing the next city
The demand side is well documented; the operator's decision is about timing and supply. A useful test before committing to Málaga, Valencia or Porto is whether the international remote workers already arriving there can find flexible, furnished housing with a community at a price that undercuts a serviced apartment. Where the answer is no, the gap is the opportunity. Where the visa pipeline is strong, and I cover that in digital nomad visas for coliving operators, the gap tends to widen rather than close.
FAQ
Why are remote workers moving to Málaga and Valencia rather than Madrid?
Sunshine, coast and a lower cost of living than the capitals, combined with an international community that already exists in both cities.
What is the main operational risk of opening in a second or third city?
Duplicating infrastructure: a separate payment account, verification vendor and contract process per city, which multiplies reconciliation work as the portfolio grows.
Do coastal and secondary cities suit coliving as well as the capitals?
Increasingly, yes. Málaga, Valencia and smaller Costa Blanca towns attract the same international remote-worker community, often looking for something quieter than a capital. The operational difference is that each new city can mean a new entity and a new local process, which is why running every project under one account matters more outside Madrid and Barcelona.
Talk to Óscar
If you run a coliving, flex living or student housing operation and want to see how collection, verification and contract signing fit together on your volumes, book 20 minutes with me or write directly.
Book 20 minutes with Óscar · [email protected] · Contact UrbanPay