Where to live · UIC
Where to live for Universitat Internacional de Catalunya students
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya splits its teaching between a Barcelona campus above Sarrià and a Sant Cugat campus at the Hospital General. They are 10 km apart, yet both hang off the same FGC line, which is why one shortlist can serve either.
- 2 campuses
- 10.1 km apart at the widest
- 1 off the city network
The short answer
Start with your campus, not with the university.
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.
UIC - Barcelona
Barcelona · Sarrià (FGC)
- Shortest modelled commute
- Sarrià
11 min by metro and bus, rooms around €650.
- Cheapest room within 10 minutes of it
- Vallcarca
15 min, rooms around €480. That is €170 a month against Sarrià, for 4 minutes more each way.
ModelledcommuteEstimatedrent
UIC - Sant Cugat
Sant Cugat del Vallès · Hospital General (FGC S1)
- Shortest modelled commute
- Sant Cugat
11 min door to door, train included, rooms around €600.
- Cheapest room within 10 minutes of it
Also Sant Cugat. Nothing within 10 minutes of this campus is cheaper, which is unusual and worth knowing.
ModelledcommuteEstimatedrent
The campuses
Where they actually are.
Health sciences, medicine, dentistry and education are taught at Sant Cugat; law, business, communication, humanities and architecture in Barcelona. UIC states both on its own campus pages.
UIC - Barcelona
Immaculada 22, 08017 Barcelona
- Station
- Sarrià (FGC)
- Taught here
- Law, business, communication, humanities, architecture.
- Modelled as
- Inside the city transport network, so the ordinary metro, bus and bike model applies.
Address and coordinates: uic.es/en/university/campus/campus-barcelona (address + transit - station is Sarrià, not El Putxet); coords OSM university POI Checked 2026-08-07.
UIC - Sant Cugat
C/ Josep Trueta s/n (Hospital Universitari General de Catalunya), 08195 Sant Cugat del Vallès
- Station
- Hospital General (FGC S1)
- Taught here
- Medicine, dentistry, nursing, physiotherapy, psychology, bioengineering, education.
- Modelled as
- Outside the city transport network. Your journey is three legs: get to a railhead, take the Hospital General train, walk 3 min at the far end.
Address and coordinates: uic.es/en/university/campus/campus-sant-cugat (address + station); coords from UIC's own map widget data-lat/data-lng, corroborated by Wikidata Q27493190 (47 m) 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 UIC - Barcelona
ModelledRanked by metro and bus, fastest first.
| Neighbourhood | Metro and bus | On foot | Bike | Bicing | Car | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarrià | 11 | 15 | 7 | 13 | 16 | €650 |
| Les Tres Torres | 11 | 14 | 8 | 13 | 16 | €700 |
| Sant Gervasi - la Bonanova | 12 | 16 | 9 | 14 | 17 | €680 |
| El Putxet i el Farró | 14 | 28 | 13 | 19 | 20 | €620 |
| Pedralbes | 14 | 34 | 14 | 20 | 21 | €700 |
| Vallcarca | 15 | 32 | 14 | 20 | 21 | €480 |
| La Salut | 17 | 44 | 19 | 25 | 25 | €550 |
| Sant Gervasi | 26 | 30 | 14 | 19 | 21 | €700 |
| 30 more neighbourhoods between these and the slowest three. | ||||||
| Poblenou | 59 | n/a | 39 | 48 | 42 | €750 |
| Diagonal Mar | 63 | n/a | 47 | 55 | 47 | €800 |
| Provençals del Poblenou | 64 | n/a | 42 | 50 | 44 | €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.
To UIC - Sant Cugat
ModelledThree legs: to the railhead, the published train time, then a 3 minute walk.
| Neighbourhood | Total | Via | To the train | On the train | Bike | Car | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sant Cugat | 11 | Sarrià | 38 | 21 | 23 | 28 | €600 |
| Bellaterra (UAB) | 28 | Sarrià | 45 | 21 | 35 | 38 | €420 |
| Les Tres Torres | 33 | Sarrià | 11 | 21 | 31 | 64 | €700 |
| Sarrià | 34 | Sarrià | 9 | 21 | 27 | 62 | €650 |
| Sant Gervasi | 36 | Sarrià | 14 | 21 | 37 | 68 | €700 |
| El Putxet i el Farró | 44 | Sarrià | 15 | 21 | 39 | 65 | €620 |
| Gràcia | 46 | Sarrià | 17 | 21 | 44 | 69 | €700 |
| Sant Gervasi - la Bonanova | 46 | Sarrià | 13 | 21 | 35 | 63 | €680 |
| 30 more neighbourhoods between these and the slowest three. | |||||||
| Poblenou | 69 | Plaça Catalunya | 17 | 34 | 58 | 83 | €750 |
| Diagonal Mar | 73 | Sarrià | 36 | 21 | 65 | 87 | €800 |
| Provençals del Poblenou | 74 | Plaça Catalunya | 20 | 34 | 62 | 83 | €620 |
Scroll sideways for the other modes and the room price.
Train time is FGC’s own published figure, not ours. Walking does not appear because there is no walking route to this campus, and the model says so rather than printing a number.
The honest part
What the numbers say not to do.
Because both campuses hang off one railway, the failure mode is subtle: neighbourhoods that are well connected by metro can still be badly connected to this university.
The default shortlist
The names on every student housing list cost 30 to 42 extra minutes to UIC - 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 Sarrià, the fastest neighbourhood to UIC - Barcelona at 11 minutes:
- The Gothic Quarter41 min (+30)€650 a room
- El Raval42 min (+31)€550 a room
- Fort Pienc44 min (+33)€580 a room
- Poble-sec45 min (+34)€550 a room
- El Born50 min (+39)€680 a room
- Barceloneta53 min (+42)€620 a room
At the far end of that list it is 42 minutes each way, which is 420 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 UIC - Barcelona.
The three cheapest neighbourhoods in the dataset, measured against Sarrià at 11 minutes and €650:
- Vallcarca15 min€480 a room, -20% against that median
- Bellaterra (UAB)50 min€420 a room, -30% against that median
- Santa Eulàlia (l'Hospitalet)54 min€480 a room, -20% against that median
Vallcarca saves you €170 a month and costs you 4 minutes each way. Whether that is a good trade is yours to make, but make it with both numbers in front of you.
One room, two campuses
A room chosen for UIC - Sant Cugat is number 29 of 41 for UIC - Barcelona.
Sant Cugat is 11 minutes from UIC - Sant Cugat and 49 minutes from UIC - Barcelona, a difference of 38 minutes each way from the same front door.
If your degree puts you at both sites, or if you might transfer, pick for the harder one. An average of two campuses describes a commute nobody actually makes.
The train to Sant Cugat
From Sarrià it is 21 minutes on the train. Everything else is how you reach Sarrià.
There is another way in, 34 min from Plaça Catalunya. Every neighbourhood pays the train, and then a 3 minute walk from Hospital General. What varies is the first leg, which is why the totals in the table above run from 11 minutes in Sant Cugat to 74 in Provençals del Poblenou: a spread of 63 minutes created almost entirely by how long it takes to reach the railhead.
It also means the usual instinct is wrong here. Moving further out to save rent only helps if the further-out neighbourhood is closer to the line, and mostly it is not.
The rent
What the recommended neighbourhoods cost.
Room prices are in the picks above. A whole flat goes for €1,638 in Sarrià, €1,062 in Vallcarca and €1,476 in Sant Cugat. 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.