Where to live · IESE
Where to live for IESE Business School students
IESE has one Barcelona campus, split across Avinguda Pearson and Arnús i Garí but contiguous, up behind Sarrià. One campus makes the commute question simple, so this page spends most of its time on the harder one: what living near it costs.
- One campus
- All on the city network
The short answer
The two neighbourhoods the numbers put first.
Two picks per campus, on rules you can check against the tables further down: the shortest modelled journey by metro and bus, and the cheapest room within 10 minutes of it. Room prices are for one person in a shared flat.
IESE - Barcelona
Barcelona · Reina Elisenda (FGC)
- Shortest modelled commute
- Pedralbes
11 min by metro and bus, rooms around €700.
- Cheapest room within 10 minutes of it
- Maternitat i Sant Ramon
14 min, rooms around €570. That is €130 a month against Pedralbes, for 3 minutes more each way.
ModelledcommuteEstimatedrent
The campuses
Where they actually are.
IESE publishes no station for the campus. The nearest interchange is Reina Elisenda on the FGC, which is why the ranking below leans so heavily on the western neighbourhoods.
IESE - Barcelona
Av. Pearson 21 (South) and C/ Arnús i Garí 3-7 (North), 08034 Barcelona
- Station
- Reina Elisenda (FGC)
- Taught here
- MBA and executive programmes. North and South are one contiguous campus.
- Modelled as
- Inside the city transport network, so the ordinary metro, bus and bike model applies.
Address and coordinates: iese.edu/about/campuses/barcelona (both addresses; North is Arnús i Garí, NOT Pearson); coords OSM university POI at Av. Pearson 21. IESE publishes no station. Checked 2026-08-07.
The commute
Every neighbourhood we profile, ranked, by mode.
Door to door, measured from the centre of each neighbourhood. Modelled from published average speeds, not routed: there is no timetable in this and no live disruption, so treat it as a way of comparing neighbourhoods rather than as a departure board.
To IESE - Barcelona
ModelledRanked by metro and bus, fastest first.
| Neighbourhood | Metro and bus | On foot | Bike | Bicing | Car | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pedralbes | 11 | 9 | 7 | 12 | 15 | €700 |
| Sarrià | 13 | 20 | 10 | 16 | 18 | €650 |
| Maternitat i Sant Ramon | 14 | 27 | 13 | 19 | 20 | €570 |
| Sant Gervasi - la Bonanova | 16 | 40 | 18 | 25 | 24 | €680 |
| Les Tres Torres | 27 | 30 | 14 | 20 | 21 | €700 |
| Les Corts | 28 | 33 | 15 | 21 | 21 | €650 |
| Eixample Esquerra | 30 | 61 | 24 | 31 | 29 | €620 |
| Eixample Nova Esquerra | 30 | 52 | 21 | 28 | 27 | €600 |
| Eixample Dreta | 31 | n/a | 32 | 40 | 36 | €750 |
| Hostafrancs | 34 | 59 | 24 | 31 | 29 | €500 |
| Poble-sec | 34 | n/a | 32 | 39 | 35 | €550 |
| Sants | 35 | 48 | 20 | 27 | 26 | €520 |
| Sant Gervasi | 36 | 46 | 19 | 26 | 25 | €700 |
| Sant Antoni | 39 | 74 | 29 | 36 | 33 | €620 |
| El Raval | 41 | n/a | 33 | 41 | 37 | €550 |
| The Gothic Quarter | 41 | n/a | 37 | 45 | 39 | €650 |
| Vallcarca | 41 | 62 | 25 | 32 | 30 | €480 |
| Sagrada Família | 44 | n/a | 36 | 43 | 38 | €580 |
| El Putxet i el Farró | 44 | 55 | 23 | 29 | 28 | €620 |
| El Clot | 45 | n/a | 42 | 50 | 44 | €520 |
| Fort Pienc | 46 | n/a | 39 | 46 | 41 | €580 |
| Gràcia | 46 | 68 | 27 | 34 | 32 | €700 |
| Santa Eulàlia (l'Hospitalet) | 47 | 54 | 22 | 29 | 28 | €480 |
| La Sagrera | 48 | n/a | 45 | 54 | 46 | €500 |
| El Born | 49 | n/a | 39 | 47 | 41 | €680 |
| Camp de l'Arpa | 51 | n/a | 40 | 48 | 42 | €485 |
| Camp d'en Grassot | 52 | n/a | 33 | 40 | 36 | €620 |
| El Baix Guinardó | 52 | n/a | 36 | 44 | 39 | €600 |
| Navas | 52 | n/a | 44 | 52 | 45 | €520 |
| Sant Andreu | 53 | n/a | 51 | 60 | 51 | €500 |
| Barceloneta | 55 | n/a | 43 | 51 | 45 | €620 |
| Poblenou (Llacuna) | 55 | n/a | 44 | 53 | 46 | €700 |
| Vila Olímpica | 57 | n/a | 46 | 55 | 47 | €750 |
| La Salut | 57 | 73 | 29 | 36 | 33 | €550 |
| El Guinardó | 58 | n/a | 37 | 44 | 39 | €520 |
| Horta | 60 | n/a | 38 | 46 | 41 | €480 |
| Sant Cugat | 60 | n/a | 55 | n/a | 55 | €600 |
| Poblenou | 61 | n/a | 47 | 56 | 48 | €750 |
| Bellaterra (UAB) | 61 | n/a | 71 | n/a | 68 | €420 |
| Diagonal Mar | 65 | n/a | 55 | n/a | 54 | €800 |
| Provençals del Poblenou | 66 | n/a | 51 | 60 | 51 | €620 |
Scroll sideways for the other modes and the room price.
n/a means the model does not treat that mode as a real option for that journey: over 75 minutes on foot, or over an hour on a Bicing.
The honest part
What the numbers say not to do.
The trade here is rent against commute rather than atmosphere against commute. The neighbourhoods closest to the campus sit at or above the median room price we hold, and the cheapest rooms in the dataset are half an hour away on the far side of the city.
The default shortlist
The names on every student housing list cost 23 to 44 extra minutes to IESE - Barcelona.
These six have the highest share of international residents of the 41 we profile, which is why they dominate every list of where to live in Barcelona. Measured against Pedralbes, the fastest neighbourhood to IESE - Barcelona at 11 minutes:
- Poble-sec34 min (+23)€550 a room
- El Raval41 min (+30)€550 a room
- The Gothic Quarter41 min (+30)€650 a room
- Fort Pienc46 min (+35)€580 a room
- El Born49 min (+38)€680 a room
- Barceloneta55 min (+44)€620 a room
At the far end of that list it is 44 minutes each way, which is 440 minutes a week if you go in five days. That is the real price of the postcard, and it is worth paying only if you know you are paying it.
The cheap end
Going cheap costs you real minutes at IESE - Barcelona.
The three cheapest neighbourhoods in the dataset, measured against Pedralbes at 11 minutes and €700:
- Vallcarca41 min€480 a room, -20% against that median
- Santa Eulàlia (l'Hospitalet)47 min€480 a room, -20% against that median
- Bellaterra (UAB)61 min€420 a room, -30% against that median
Vallcarca saves you €220 a month and costs you 30 minutes each way. Whether that is a good trade is yours to make, but make it with both numbers in front of you.
The rent
What the recommended neighbourhoods cost.
Room prices are in the picks above. A whole flat goes for €2,210 in Pedralbes and €1,176 in Maternitat i Sant Ramon. The median room across the 41 places we profile is €600.
Estimatedrent
Whole-flat rent and average surface: INCASÒL fiança registry, 2026-Q1, published quarterly as "Lloguers Barcelona per districtes i barris" on habitatge.gencat.cat and re-keyed per barri. Room prices are triangulated from district medians, platform snapshots and press (no public series exists below district level), and are indicative, not measured. Whole-flat rent: the municipal figure from the INCASÒL fiança registry via habitatge.gencat.cat and the Dades Obertes Catalunya municipal series, 2026-Q1. There is no barri-level row outside Barcelona, so no €/m² or average surface is published and none is estimated here. Room prices are triangulated from operator and platform listings, and are indicative, not measured. Figures are for 2026-Q1. Every competitor page we checked states neighbourhood rents without a source or a date; this is ours, and the label above says how far to trust it.
What this page does not know
- These minutes are modelled, not routed. They come from published average speeds: metro at about 27 km/h commercial speed including station dwell, buses at 11.8 km/h across the lines analysed in 2024. No timetable, no service frequency, no live disruption, no interchange modelled inside a rail leg.
- They start from the centre of a neighbourhood. A flat at the far edge is worth about five minutes either way, in both directions.
- Neighbourhood rent is indicative. City-level rent comes from the deposit registry. The neighbourhood figures do not: they are re-keyed by hand from a quarterly publication, which is why they carry an estimated label wherever they appear.
- We profile 41 neighbourhoods, not all of Barcelona. A place that is not in the table is not being judged. It is not in the dataset yet.
- Campus coordinates carry the date we checked them. Every campus here was verified on 2026-08-07. Each campus card above names the source. Universities move buildings, and a stale coordinate is a wrong commute.
That is the commute answered. If you want it narrowed by budget, by how quiet you need it and by what you cannot live without, the quiz does that in 6 questions and shows its working.