How Much Is a Flight to Spain? (2026 Data)

So how much is a flight to Spain from the USA? Right now a round trip averages about $747¹, counting every US departure airport and every Spanish arrival airport, based on prices seen over the past month. The month you travel moves that price more than anything else: the median round trip runs from $411¹ in November to $661¹ in June. The Spanish city you land in matters too, and so does the fixed block of taxes and airport charges inside every ticket.

Demand is at a 36-year high. 5.64 million² passengers flew nonstop between the US and Spain in 2025, the most in 36 years of official data and 15.1%³ more than in 2019. Below: fares by Spanish city, month and US state, flight times, the taxes and charges in a ticket, traffic since 1990, and the airports, routes and airlines that carry the load.

The average fare to Spain in 2026

Round trips from the US to Spain averaged $747¹ in fare searches over the past month, as of September 27, 2026. That figure covers all US origins and all Spanish airports, with the cabin mix not stated, so it describes what travelers have been seeing, not a quote for the next search.¹ Over a full year, the four main Spanish airports sit between $747⁴ and $927⁵. Those city figures cover the past 12 months, so they are compared with one another, not with the one-month country average.

How much is a flight to Madrid?

Madrid averages $747⁴ for a round trip from the US over the past 12 months, the lowest of the four cities. By monthly median, February is the cheapest month at $545⁴ and June the most expensive at $1,090⁴, a spread of $545³. Tuesday departures average $725⁴ and night flights $739⁴; booking inside the last two weeks costs about 7%⁴ more.⁴ Madrid is also where most of the nonstop service goes: Madrid-Barajas handled 61.8%³ of all US-Spain passengers in 2025.²

How much is a flight to Barcelona?

Barcelona averages $793⁶, $46³ more than Madrid. January is its cheapest month by median ($543⁶) and June its priciest ($1,132⁶), the widest swing of the four at $589³.⁶ Tuesday is again the cheapest day, at an average of $785⁶. Barcelona-El Prat is the second US gateway in Spain, with 2,054,542² nonstop passengers in 2025, 20.1%³ more than in 2019.

How much is a flight to Malaga?

Malaga, the airport for the Costa del Sol, averages $837⁷, $90³ above Madrid. February is the cheapest month at a median of $601⁷ and June the dearest at $1,128⁷; a last-minute booking costs about 13%⁷ more.⁷ Nonstop traffic is small but growing: 43,431² passengers in 2025, up from 28,542² in 2019.²

How much is a flight to Mallorca?

Palma de Mallorca, the island's airport, is the most expensive of the four at $927⁵, or 1.24³ times the Madrid average. Its cheapest month is January ($683⁵) and its priciest June ($1,158⁵); it is the only one of the four where Wednesday, not Tuesday, is the cheapest day, at $876⁵, and booking late costs about 14%⁵ more.⁵ Palma's nonstop US traffic is new: 23² passengers in 2019 against 30,637² in 2025.² The table sets out the best and worst times to fly to each city.

Two patterns hold for all four cities. June is the most expensive month everywhere and July the second, while the cheapest month is January or February.⁴⁶ Night departures are the cheapest time of day in every city, and the last-minute premium grows from Madrid to the smaller airports.⁷⁵

The cheapest time to fly to Spain

Measured as the median round trip over the past year, November is the cheapest month to fly from the US to Spain at $411¹, followed by October at $421¹ and February at $423¹. June is the most expensive at $661¹, and May comes second at $573¹.¹ A June ticket costs 1.61³ times a November one, $250³ more.

High summer is cheaper than the late spring peak: the July and August medians, $486¹ and $475¹, sit well below June's, and September, at $490¹, is close to them.¹ The monthly medians and the $747¹ average come from different periods and price sets and are not compared with each other.

In 2025, August was the busiest month for traffic, with 624,893² passengers between the US and Spain, and February the quietest, with 253,436²: 2.47³ times as many in August as in February.² June to September together carried 43.1%³ of the year's passengers.

After September, traffic fell every month, to 358,116² passengers in December.² LEVEL's filings from July 2025 repeat Iberia's Barcelona flights and are left out; LEVEL has no August filing. Air Europa filed no December figures, so the December total is slightly understated.

Nonstop routes and how long the flight takes

The flight is shorter than many travelers expect. The shortest nonstop overall, Boston to Madrid, averages 6h 50m¹.¹ From the Northeast, Madrid is about seven hours away; from the West Coast, Barcelona takes more than ten.

New York to Madrid is the fastest in the table at 7h 00m⁴ and Los Angeles to Barcelona the longest at 11h 25m⁶.⁴⁶ Malaga and Palma de Mallorca each have a New York nonstop, of 7h 30m⁷ and 8h 00m⁵.⁷⁵

Official traffic counts show where these flights start. New York JFK was the busiest US gateway to Spain in 2025, with 1,280,856² passengers to and from all Spanish airports, 22.7%³ of the total, ahead of Miami (967,650²) and Chicago O'Hare (443,870²).² Together those three handled 47.7%³.

Several gateways have grown fast since 2019. Washington Dulles carried 2.61³ times as many Spain passengers in 2025 as in 2019 and San Juan, Puerto Rico, 3.16³ times as many; Chicago O'Hare grew 1.45³-fold. JFK, Newark and Los Angeles carried fewer Spain passengers than in 2019, at 0.90³, 0.87³ and 0.74³ times their 2019 levels.²

Taxes and fees inside a Spain ticket

Counting the facility charge at its maximum, a nonstop round trip between the US and Spain carries $75.13³ in US taxes and fees: the international departure and arrival taxes of $23.40⁸ each, a $5.60⁹ security fee, a $7.39¹⁰ customs fee, a $7.00¹¹ immigration fee, a $3.84¹² agricultural inspection fee and a Passenger Facility Charge of up to $4.50¹³ for the one boarding at a US airport.⁸¹¹¹⁴ The return flight boards in Spain, so it adds no second facility charge. Two of the fees rise on October 1, 2026: the customs fee to $7.61¹⁵ and the agricultural fee to $3.98¹² for tickets bought from that date, which lifts the US total to $75.49³.

Spain's side comes from the airport operator. On the way home, each passenger leaving on an international flight pays a passenger service charge of at least €18.96¹⁶ at Madrid-Barajas, about $21.74³, and at least €15.26¹⁶ at Barcelona-El Prat, about $17.49³, at 1.1464¹⁷ dollars per euro.¹⁶¹⁷ These are minimums: they are the passenger component only, and the separate charges for security and for assistance to passengers with reduced mobility are not broken out for those two airports. The 2026 rates include a 6.44%¹⁸ system-wide increase approved by Spain's competition regulator.¹⁸

Malaga and Palma de Mallorca charge much less, €8.37¹⁶ or about $9.60³ per departing international passenger; at Palma the passenger and security charges are 20%¹⁶ lower from November to March. Passengers connecting on the same ticket within 12 hours get a 40%¹⁶ reduction.¹⁶ Added up, a round trip that returns from Madrid carries at least $96.87³ in taxes and charges and one returning from Barcelona at least $92.62³, a gap of $4.25³. The table shows both totals now and from October 1, 2026.

Via Madrid, those charges equal 13.0%³ of the $747⁴ Madrid average fare; via Barcelona, 11.7%³ of the $793⁶ Barcelona average.⁴⁶ Carrier-imposed surcharges are part of the fare, not of these charges.

How many people fly between the US and Spain

Nonstop traffic between the US and Spain reached 5.64 million² passengers in 2025, the highest in 36 years of data and 15.1%³ above 2019.² The route carried 4.90³ times as many passengers as in 1990, when 1,152,294² flew it. Growth came in steps: a first high of 1.89 million² in 2000, a fall of 12.0%³ in 2001, a slow climb through the 2000s, then a steep rise from 2015 to 4.90 million² in 2019. The chart leaves out 2020-2022, when the pandemic cut traffic to 14.0%³ of its 2019 level in 2020.

The straight-line trend through these years, extended to 2050, is our calculation, not a forecast: it shows where the long-run pace would lead, and the recent climb has run above it. From July 2025 the airline LEVEL filed the same Barcelona flights that Iberia files, month by month; those duplicate rows are left out, so each flight is counted once. LEVEL has no August 2025 filing.

The number of flights tells the same story. There were 24,568² nonstop passenger-service flights between the two countries in 2025, about 67.3³ a day across both directions and 20.4%³ more than in 2019.² That is 4.34³ times the 5,656² flights of 1990. All-cargo flights are left out.

Our calculation of passengers per flight divides passengers by flights each year; it does not show how full the planes are. In 2025 the average nonstop carried 229.6³ passengers, below the 2019 high of 240.3³ and above the 203.7³ of 1990.² Where do these passengers land in Spain, and which airlines fly them?

Gateways and airlines

Which Spanish airport handles the most US traffic?

Madrid-Barajas dominates. It handled 3,485,399² passengers on nonstop US flights in 2025, 61.8%³ of the total, and Barcelona-El Prat 2,054,542².² Together the two airports handled 96.5%³ of all US-Spain flights. Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao and Tenerife South shared the rest.

Behind the totals are very different operations. Madrid's 14,995² flights averaged 232.4³ passengers each in 2025 and Barcelona's 235.8³, while Tenerife South averaged 103.7³, a figure that mixes airline flights with small business jets.² Barcelona grew fastest of the big two, up 20.1%³ since 2019 against 10.2%³ for Madrid. The table adds the 2019 baseline.

For travelers the map is more useful than the airport list: it shows what the round trip to Madrid costs from each state's main airport. It runs from $648¹⁹ from New York to $1,335²⁰ from Kansas, a gap of $687³; 16³ of the 45³ states with a published average come in under $800.¹⁹²⁰

Which routes carry the most passengers?

The busiest single route-airline pair in 2025 was New York JFK to Madrid on Iberia, with 351,662² passengers, 6.2%³ of all US-Spain traffic, just ahead of Miami to Madrid on Iberia (343,266²).² San Juan to Madrid on Iberia came third, with 215,319². Only Barcelona joins Madrid among the Spanish ends of the 20 busiest pairs.

Which airline carries the most passengers?

Iberia carried 2,175,067² US-Spain passengers in 2025, 38.6%³ of the total, ahead of American (27.3%³), United (14.4%³) and Delta (13.4%³).² Iberia and American together carried 65.9%³; among the others, Air Europa had 5.6%³.

Four airlines, Iberia, American, United and Delta, carried 93.7%³ of the traffic.² Air Europa filed no December 2025 figures, so its share is slightly understated.

How big are Spain's airports overall

Spain's airport network handled 321.6 million⁶⁴ passengers of all origins in 2025, and Madrid-Barajas alone 68,179,054⁶⁴.⁶⁴ Madrid and Barcelona together handled 39.1%³ of the national total. About 83.2%⁶⁵ of all tourists arriving in Spain in 2025 came by plane.⁶⁵

The network's recovery from the pandemic was steep. Traffic fell to 76.1 million⁶⁶ in 2020, 72.4%³ below 2019, and by 2025 was 16.8%³ above the 2019 level of 275.2 million⁶⁷.⁶⁷⁶⁶

The 2025 total is the highest of the seven years in the table, 4.23³ times the 2020 low.⁶⁴

What these numbers mean for your trip

For a family of four, the calendar alone is worth real money. Four tickets at the $411¹ November median come to $1,644³; four at June's $661¹ median come to $2,644³, $1,000³ more. At the current $747¹ average, four tickets cost $2,988³.¹ Of every ticket, at least $96.87³ per person via Madrid is taxes and charges that no sale removes, $387.48³ for four adults.

Where you start matters as much. The Northeast has the lowest averages to Madrid: $648¹⁹ from New York JFK and $654⁴⁶ from Newark.¹⁹⁴⁶ Kansas is the dearest at $1,335²⁰.

The cheapest combination on this page stacks the patterns: a November or late-winter trip, an early-week or night departure, from a Northeast airport into Madrid.¹⁴ June has the highest monthly median fare, $661¹.¹

How Spain compares with other destinations

Measured the same way, over the past month, Spain's $747¹ is the lowest of six popular European destinations from the US. The United Kingdom ($820⁷²) is next; Italy, at $937⁷³, costs $190³ more.⁷²⁷³

France ($895⁷⁴) and Germany ($891⁷⁵) cost $148³ and $144³ more than Spain on average.⁷⁴⁷⁵

Conclusions

1. The month sets the price. The median round trip runs from $411¹ in November to $661¹ in June, and all four main Spanish cities are dearest in June.
2. Madrid is the cheapest and busiest door. It has the lowest 12-month average of the four cities, $747⁴, and with Barcelona handles 96.5%³ of US-Spain flights.
3. Demand is the highest in 36 years. 5.64 million² passengers flew nonstop in 2025, 15.1%³ above 2019.
4. Two airlines carry most travelers. Iberia and American had 65.9%³ of 2025 passengers.
5. At least $96.87³ of a Madrid round trip is fixed, $97.23³ from October 1, 2026. US taxes and fees and Madrid's passenger charge equal about 13.0%³ of the $747⁴ Madrid average.
6. Your home state moves the fare. The average round trip to Madrid runs from $648¹⁹ from New York to $1,335²⁰ from Kansas.