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REVEALED: The cheapest supermarkets in Spain in 2026

Alex Dunham and Esme Fox
Alex Dunham and Esme Fox - news@thelocal.es
REVEALED: The cheapest supermarkets in Spain in 2026
Alcampo is one of the cheapest supermarkets in Spain. Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP
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Did you know that you could save €1,310 a year on grocery shopping if you pick the right supermarket in Spain? Here are the most affordable options in the country in 2026, and the most expensive.

Spain’s Organisation of Consumers and Users (OCU) has revealed its list of the cheapest supermarkets in Spain for this year.

The difference between the cheapest and the most expensive ones is significant. The average savings have been estimated at around €1,310 depending on whether you choose the more affordable options or the pricier ones.

To work out which supermarket offered the best value, OCU looked at 244 food and household products, including fresh foods, popular packaged foods and household products, both name brands and supermarket own brands.

They gathered more than 101,000 prices from establishments throughout Spain, as well as online.

READ ALSO: How much does it cost on average to live in Spain in 2026?

The results revealed that the average annual cost of the OCU shopping basket in 2026 is €6,602, which higher than the previous year. This is not surprising as prices continue to climb for most costs.

Grocery shopping in Spain is 39.5 percent more expensive today than in 2021, according to OCU's findings, mainly due to an increase in the cost of fresh foods and common items such as coffee, eggs and chocolate, which have risen by over 100 percent. 

In 2026, most supermarket chains have kept price increases below the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and several have even lowered their prices compared to last year, such as Aldi, Carrefour Market, Consum, E. Leclerc, Familia, Lidl, Mercadona, and Supeco.

Dani named Spain's cheapest supermarket

The cheapest supermarket chain overall is, once again for this year, the local chain Dani, where the OCU shopping basket costs €5,788.18 per year. This supermarket can mostly be found in Andalusia, particularly in Granada, Jaén, Almería and Málaga. 

However, it's worth noting that Lidl stores are the cheapest option in 60 of the cities analysed by the Spanish watchdog, but as you'll see now their prices aren't as good as those of smaller regional chains.

READ ALSO - IN STATS: Is Spain really that 'cheap' anymore?

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Dani is followed by Family Cash in second place, where the shopping basket costs €5,902.65 per year. There are 8 branches in Andalusia, 3 in Murcia, 18 in the Valencia region, 3 in Madrid and 2 in Galicia, as well as a handful of other stores in smaller towns across the country.

The third cheapest was Tifer, a chain of low-cost stores which started in Salamanca and are now found mostly in the northern half of the country. Here the shopping basket costs €5,930.73 per year.

When it comes to national chains, Alcampo has retained its top position as the cheapest and also came in fourth place overall. The annual grocery shop here costs €5,941.55 per year.

Supeco came in fifth place with €5,979.94, followed by Lidl in sixth place at €6,054.32 and then Mercadona in seventh at €6,094.12. 

Deza supermarkets (in Córdoba) and Consum (found throughout Spain's Mediterranean regions) completed the top 10 with €6,138.42 and €6,168.47 respectively. 

Aldi just missed on the top ten spot, coming in 11th place.

Carrefour, which has both small city supermarkets and hypermarkets across Spain, came in a not very impressive 17th place.

READ ALSO: How much money you need to achieve financial freedom in your city in Spain

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El Corte Inglés supermarkets among Spain's most expensive

The most expensive supermarket chains this year were Spar where the yearly shopping basket would cost €6,392.03, as well as Mi Alcampo (Alcampo's smaller city supermarkets) at €6,389.91 and Tambo at €6,359.71.

Other well-known supermarkets that ranked among the priciest in Spain were department store chain El Corte Inglés, its city supermarkets Supercor and its hypermarkets Hipercor.

The study also included independent supermarkets, which came somewhere in the middle of the list with a yearly shopping basket there costing €6,251.32.

READ ALSO: Americans in Spain: How the Spanish cost of living compares to the US

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