How to See the ISS from Spain

Published October 12, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026

All of Spain lies under the ISS's path

The International Space Station sweeps over a band of the Earth that runs from 51.6° north to 51.6° south. All of Spain falls inside it: the mainland stretches from 36° at Tarifa to almost 44° at Estaca de Bares, the Balearic Islands sit around 39–40°, and the Canary Islands lie between 27° and 29°. Ceuta and Melilla are at about 35–36°. There isn't a single corner of the country where you can't see it.

The northern half of the mainland also sits close to where the ISS bunches up the most: as the orbit reaches its highest latitude, it “turns around” and lingers over those latitudes. In practice, Bilbao or A Coruña get a few more passes than Seville, and the Canaries a few fewer, but the difference is small. Every part of the country gets good weeks every few months.

Good viewing comes in runs of one or two weeks

To see it with the naked eye, two things have to be true at once: you have to be in the dark, and the station, 400 km (250 miles) up, has to still be lit by the Sun. That only happens in the hour and a half to two hours after dusk and in the same window before dawn.

Because the orbit slowly shifts relative to the Sun, visible passes come in runs: several days in a row in the evening, then a stretch with nothing to see, then another run before dawn, and the cycle starts over. A week with no passes doesn't mean the ISS has stopped flying over. It still does, but during the day or in the middle of the night, when it's in Earth's shadow and can't be seen.

Summer is special. Around the June solstice, the Sun barely dips below the horizon at the highest latitudes of the orbit, so the station can stay sunlit all the way around. On those days you can see it several times in one night from the mainland, an hour and a half apart.

Direction: almost always west to east

The ISS orbits the Earth in the same direction the planet spins, so from Spain it always appears somewhere in the west (northwest, west or southwest) and disappears in the east (northeast, east or southeast). You'll never see it move from east to west.

What changes from one pass to the next is how high it climbs. Sometimes it crosses almost straight overhead; other times it barely clears the northern or southern horizon by a few degrees. If it stays low, buildings and mountains can block it, so find a spot with a clear horizon on the side it will cross. In our guide on how to read an ISS pass, we explain what the degrees mean and how to measure them with your hand.

Regions and time zones: what changes depending on where you are

The time of a pass depends on your exact position, so two cities 300 km (190 miles) apart can see the same pass a couple of minutes apart, with the station higher in the sky for one than for the other. This table sums up what to expect in each part of the country:

A word on time zones: mainland Spain, the Balearics, Ceuta and Melilla run on Central European Time (UTC+1 in winter and UTC+2 in summer), and the Canaries are one hour behind. Our calculator shows passes in your device's time, so you don't have to convert anything. Just be careful around the clock changes if you write down a pass ahead of time: clocks go back one hour on the last Sunday in October and forward one hour on the last Sunday in March.

Light pollution: no need to head for the countryside

The ISS is the third-brightest object in the night sky, after the Moon and Venus. On its best passes it reaches magnitude −3.5 or brighter, far outshining any star, and you can see it perfectly well from Madrid's Gran Vía, Barcelona's Diagonal or any brightly lit square. You don't need a dark sky to see the station.

Where a clean sky does make a difference is with low or faint passes, and when you want to photograph the station over a landscape. If you get the chance, Spain has some of the best stargazing sites in Europe: La Palma, protected since 1988 by a law that limits outdoor lighting, Mount Teide, the Sierra de Gredos, Montsec, Sierra Morena and Monfragüe, with dark-sky certifications such as Starlight.

Your first sighting, step by step

1. Check when it passes. Open the tracker, allow location access and look for a pass after dusk or before dawn with a maximum height of at least 30°.
2. Note the direction. Write down where it appears (for example, “W”) and where it leaves (“E”). If you're not sure where west is, it's where the Sun went down.
3. Find an open spot. A park, a rooftop terrace or a beach. What matters is a clear view of the horizon on the side it comes from.
4. Give it a few minutes. It may show up a minute before or after the listed time, especially in the first few degrees.
5. Follow it. A full pass lasts between two and six minutes. Often it fades out suddenly before it reaches the horizon: that's the moment it enters Earth's shadow.

If you want to take it further, we have guides to photographing it and to observing it with binoculars or a telescope. And if you're curious why it can be seen from some countries and not others, we explain it in where the ISS can be seen from.

Frequently asked questions

Can you see the ISS from any city in Spain?

Yes. All of Spain, including the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, lies inside the band the station flies over. Every city gets several runs of visible passes a year.

Do I need to leave the city to see it?

No. It's so bright that you can see it from the center of any city. All you need is a sky without clouds and no building blocking the part of the sky it crosses.

Why are there weeks when there's nothing to see?

Because the ISS is only visible when you're in the dark and it's still in sunlight, which happens shortly after dusk or shortly before dawn. When its passes fall during the day or in the middle of the night, it still flies over, but you can't see it.

Does it look the same from the Canary Islands?

Yes, although the islands get a few fewer passes than the mainland because they're farther south. In return, the skies over La Palma and Tenerife are among the darkest in Europe. Remember that clocks there are one hour behind.

What time zone are your pass times in?

Your device's. If your phone is set to mainland time, you'll see mainland time; if it's set to Canary Islands time, you'll see Canary time. There's nothing to convert.