According to the latest Statistical Report on personal income tax payers, covering 2021, the average annual income of residents of the province of Alicante rose by 4.8% to €23,976. This means that over this period they recovered all the purchasing power lost in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and even exceeded the 2019 figure (€23,348).
However, the average income in Alicante is still lower than in the Valencian Community and in Spain as a whole, where it stands at €26,346 and €29,014 respectively. Within the province of Alicante, wealth is concentrated in its capital and in the Marina Alta area, while the population with the lowest declared incomes lives in the inland areas of Vega Baja and Vinalopó.
The main news, though, is the remarkable jump made by Aigües, a town that did not even appear in the statistics until 2019, because its population was below the 1,000 people needed to be included in the study. It first appeared in the report in 2020, when the average income of local taxpayers was €25,019. That figure was already above the provincial average and put the municipality in sixth place on the list of the wealthiest.
A year later the figure had risen by 85% to €46,093, making the town one of the wealthiest in the whole country (24th place), competing with towns in the Community of Madrid and the province of Barcelona, where the highest-income groups are concentrated. The mayor of Aigües, Emilio Solbes, puts this down to a large influx of high-income families during the pandemic, many of them foreigners. Besides a wide choice of property, mainly townhouses and chalets, they were attracted by the town’s school and fully equipped health centre.
The town with the second-highest declared income is Sant Joan d’Alacant, with €29,412, which previously held first place. It is followed by El Campello (€29,200), Mutxamel (€29,200) and Alicante (€28,086), reflecting the large amount of economic activity concentrated around the provincial capital, as well as Jávea (€26,365) and Dénia (€25,744), home to some of the most luxurious urbanisations on the Costa Blanca.
At the other end of the scale, the towns with the lowest incomes are in agricultural areas. Residents earn least in Formentera del Segura, at €17,817 per taxpayer, Algorfa (€17,963), Hondón de los Frailes (€18,242), San Fulgencio (€18,420) and Dolores (€18,427).
