Where to buy a holiday apartment in Albania in 2026: Durrës, Golem, Shëngjin, Vlora or Saranda

If you want to buy a holiday apartment in Albania, no single place on the coast wins on every point. Durrës Beach (Plazhi i Durrësit) and Golem are closest to Tirana, about 40 to 50 minutes by car, and have the lowest prices per m² away from the front line. Of the five places, Shëngjin is the closest to Pristina, about 3 hours 10 minutes. Vlora brought the highest short-term rental income per apartment in the first half of 2026, while Saranda has the Ionian Sea and many foreign buyers, but is about 4 hours from Tirana and calls for the most careful permit checks.

Asking price per m² in the main areas of Durrës, Golem, Vlora and Saranda (agents, Monitor, April 2026)

1,100 to 3,500 €

By car from Tirana, from Durrës Beach to Saranda, without traffic

40 min to 4 hours

Monthly short-term rental income per apartment, from Shëngjin to Vlora (AirDNA, January to June 2026)

510 to 830 €

Average time to sell a home on the coast, first half of 2026 (Bank of Albania)

8.2 months

The figures are those published up to 10 October 2026: the prices agents gave to Monitor magazine, AirDNA data on short-term rentals, the Bank of Albania survey and the distances we calculated on OpenStreetMap. Each place also has its own guide, with the neighbourhoods and checks in detail.

The five places compared in one table

Prices are sellers' asking prices, not transaction prices, and travel times are without traffic.

How much does a square metre cost in each place?

New builds in Golem behind the front line and Durrës Beach are the cheapest, while the front line of the Lungomare in Vlora and seafront properties in Saranda reach 3,500 € per m². These are the ranges agents gave to Monitor magazine in April 2026:

• Durrës. In the Beach area, from 1,200 to 1,700 € per m², compared with 1,000 to 1,300 € a year earlier. In Shkëmbi i Kavajës prices range from 1,200 to 2,000 €, while near the port they exceed 2,500 €.
• Golem. New buildings 300 to 500 metres from the sea cost from 1,100 to 1,500 € per m², 8 to 15% more than a year earlier. There are no new builds on the front line, where the price is from 2,000 to 2,500 €.
• Shëngjin. The Monitor article gives no range for Shëngjin. An analysis of active listings on a property portal, published in July 2026, put the median asking price at about 1,550 € per m² and about 114,000 € per apartment.
• Vlora. On the first line of the Lungomare up to 3,500 €, on the second line from 2,000 to 2,500 €. New builds from Uji i Ftohtë to Radhima are offered at over 3,000 €, Radhima from 2,500 to 3,200 € and Orikum from 1,400 to 1,600 €, both with a rise of about 6% on a year earlier.
• Saranda. From 1,500 to 3,500 € per m², unchanged from a year earlier, according to a local agent who also notes a slight drop in demand.

In July 2026 the same portal also gave the median price for the other towns: about 1,330 € per m² in Durrës, 2,030 € in Saranda and 2,700 € in Vlora. Resorts are a market of their own: according to agents, apartments in a resort in Ksamil are offered at 5,000 to 6,000 € per m².

These are asking prices. According to the Bank of Albania survey for the first half of 2026, most sales in the country close at the asking price or up to 5% below it, and in coastal areas a home took on average 8.2 months to sell, down from 9.9 months in the previous survey. About 20% of the homes sold nationwide went to non-residents, about 85% of them EU citizens. On the coast foreigners carry more weight: according to an agency quoted by Monitor, about half of buyers are foreigners, led by buyers from Kosovo, Czechia, North Macedonia and Poland.

What the purchase and the mortgage cost you

For a 60 m² apartment at 1,500 € per m², so 90,000 €, the notary and the fees of ASHK (the State Cadastre Agency, Agjencia Shtetërore e Kadastrës) are added to the price. The calculator works them out at the day's official exchange rate:

If you buy with a mortgage, the bank treats the holiday apartment as a second home. For loans disbursed from 1 July 2025, the Bank of Albania allows, for a second home or a home that is rented out, a loan of up to 80% of the value in lek and 70% in foreign currency, with instalments on all debts up to 35% of income in lek and 30% in foreign currency (decision no. 25 of 7 May 2025). Banks may exempt up to 15% of each quarter's new loans from these limits. So you need your own savings of at least 20% of the price for a loan in lek and 30% for a loan in foreign currency, on top of the costs. Compare offers at home loans, and see all the costs at property buying costs.

How far are they from Tirana and from Pristina?

From Tirana, Durrës Beach and Golem are less than an hour away, Shëngjin about 1 hour 10 minutes, Vlora about 2 hours 15 minutes and Saranda about 4 hours. From Pristina, Shëngjin is the closest, about 3 hours 10 minutes, while Saranda is almost 7 hours away.

In summer these times can stretch a lot. The head of the Albanian Tourism Union told Monitor magazine that during summer 2026 transfers from Tirana Airport to Golem took as long as 4 to 4.5 hours, while another operator singled out the Milot-Lezha stretch as a bottleneck slowing traffic to the north (Monitor, 19 September 2026), and so also the road to Shëngjin.

For the diaspora arriving by plane, Tirana Airport is about 37 km from Durrës Beach, 48 km from Golem and 52 km from Shëngjin, while reaching Vlora takes about 2 hours 10 minutes and Saranda about 4 hours. Vlora Airport had not started operating by September 2026 and its delay has left plans and contracts for organised tourism on hold (Monitor, 19 September 2026); the story is in the article on Vlora Airport and Zvërnec. For Durrës, the new Tirana-Durrës-Rinas train may improve access once it enters service: the deadlines are in the article on the railway.

Beach and season: what you get in each place

Durrës, Golem and Shëngjin are on the Adriatic. Vlora lies where the Adriatic and the Ionian meet, while Saranda is on the Ionian, opposite Corfu. The descriptions are from the National Tourism Agency (AKT, Agjencia Kombëtare e Turizmit):

Photo: Dmytro Kuzmenko / Unsplash

• Durrës: the largest and best-known beach in the country, about 10.5 km, with sand, shallow water and a gentle entry into the sea, suitable for children.
• Golem: about 10 km south of Durrës, among the best-known sandy beaches of the Albanian Adriatic, with fine sand and shallow water, suitable for families.
• Shëngjin: the beach runs from the town to the mouth of the Drin river, south of Kune island; to the south-west is the Kune-Vain lagoon, the first protected area in the country.
• Vlora: the town beaches have calm, shallow water; about 10 km to the south, Radhima has small coves with crystal-clear water.
• Saranda: known for its beaches and crystal-clear waters, and among the towns with the most sunny days a year in Albania.

The season does not last the same everywhere. According to Monitor's analysis of AirDNA data (15 August 2026), Durrës benefits from its proximity to Tirana and a relatively long season, while Vlora, Saranda and Ksamil rely on strong summer flows: in Vlora, overnight stays rose from about 50 thousand in May to over 110 thousand in June. Shëngjin has a strongly seasonal pattern, with low prices in winter and a sudden rise in June. In 2026, according to tour operators, the season stretched into the first ten days of October, but on the northern coast it remained shorter (Monitor, 19 September 2026).

How much does short-term rental bring in each place?

Per apartment, Vlora and Durrës brought in the most, Golem had the most expensive night, while Shëngjin stayed lower. The AirDNA figures for January to June 2026 include empty nights, but are before costs and tax and do not include July and August. Occupancy in the table is the share of nights on which the apartment was booked.

From these amounts you deduct cleaning, energy, platform commissions and maintenance, as well as tax: income from renting out real estate is taxed at 15%, without deducting any costs (Law no. 29/2023, articles 15 and 24). How to declare it is explained in the article on short-term rental tax, and the comparison with Tirana and Shkodra is in where short-term rentals earn the most.

Supply is growing fast. The infrastructure impact tax is the tax a developer pays the municipality on receiving a permit for a new building, so its revenue is an indicator of permits issued. It rose in the first half of 2026 about 7 times in Saranda, by 301% in Himara, by 58% in Durrës and by 37% in Golem compared with a year earlier (Monitor, 29 August 2026, based on Ministry of Finance data). More permits most likely mean more apartments for rent in a few years and more competition for the same holidaymakers, especially in the south.

What is life like outside the season?

If you want to use the apartment in winter too, or rent it out long term, Durrës and Vlora are the safest choices, because they are towns that live all year round. Golem and Shëngjin are small resorts that depend on summer, while Saranda is a town in its own right, which AKT describes as an important destination for seasonal tourism.

Even in the towns, many homes stand empty. According to the 2023 Census, about 52% of homes in Vlora and about 44% in Durrës were unoccupied, compared with about 22% in Tirana (Monitor, 31 July 2026), some of them second or seasonal homes. The full data are in empty homes according to the 2023 Census.

For everyday services, Golem is about 9 km from Durrës Beach, 13 minutes by car, while Shëngjin is about 7 km from Lezha, 14 minutes. Before you buy, ask:

• how many residents stay in the building in winter and whether the lift, cleaning and caretaker work all year;
• how much the monthly building management fee is and how it is collected when most apartments are empty (the rules are in building management);
• how the apartment is heated and how much heating costs (the comparison is in heating your home in winter);
• whether there are long-term tenants in the area and how much they pay outside summer.

Legal risks: where do you need the most care?

The biggest risk on the coast is not the price but the building permit. In 2026 the state has demolished and seized unpermitted buildings, especially in the south: on 23 September 2026, the State Police announced the seizure in Ksamil, near Saranda, of a 5-storey building and a 1-storey building which, according to the police, had been built without a permit for hotel services. On 30 September, according to Saranda Web, the Saranda Court lifted the seizure of the hotel, on the grounds that it had a building permit and a property number different from the one the Prosecutor's Office had targeted: even when the news speaks of unpermitted buildings, check the permit yourself in the documents. The other cases, from Karaburun to Borsh, and how to check the permit are in how not to buy unpermitted property on the southern coast.

Care is also needed near protected areas. At Shëngjin, the Kune-Vain lagoon is a protected area; north of Vlora, AKT describes the Narta lagoon as a protected natural area, and right there, in Zvërnec, tourism projects have sparked debate (see the article on Zvërnec). For off-plan apartments, the risk grows when you pay before the building has a permit or when your unit is on an added floor. How to check the project is explained in the guide to buying off-plan.

Who is each place right for?

This summary does not replace a visit on site, but it helps you decide where to look:

• Durrës Beach suits families from Tirana who want to use the apartment at weekends all year round and have a large town nearby. The neighbourhoods and prices are in the guide to Durrës Beach, and the listings under apartments for sale in Durrës.
• Golem suits families with small children, for the shallow water, and anyone looking for a new building near the sea on a lower budget; life is concentrated in summer. See the guide to Golem and apartments for sale in Golem.
• Shëngjin suits buyers from Kosovo and from the north who want the apartment mainly for their own holidays; short-term rental brings in less than in Vlora, Durrës and Golem. See the guide to Shëngjin.
• Vlora suits anyone looking for a lively town all year round and the highest short-term rental income, with a bigger budget for the Lungomare. See the guide to Vlora.
• Saranda suits anyone who wants the Ionian Sea and foreign tourists, accepts the long journey and is ready to have the permits checked by an independent lawyer. See the guide to Saranda.

If you are thinking of living on the coast and not just holidaying there, the comparison Tirana or Durrës looks at work, schools and the daily commute. The latest listings along the whole coast are at coastal properties, and you can check the value of a specific apartment with the free property valuation. If you are buying from Kosovo, the steps are in buying property from Kosovo.