€495per m² to buy, residentialOMI · 2025H2 · comune

5,372residents at the last countISTAT · comune

2.74%hold a foreign citizenshipISTAT · citizenship

1.28%hold one of the 41 citizenships we trackISTAT · citizenship

7% pensioner regime appliesSee the eligibility belowOur curation · comune

Price, against every other comune · cheaper ← → dearercheaper than 89% of comuni

All things you need to know about living in San Donato di Lecce

Lecce, Puglia · Population 5,372 · Median age 48 · Indice di vecchiaia 200 (2019)

Data as of 2026-10-13· ISTAT

The well-being figures below are for the province, not the town. The rest of this page is comune-level.

Nationality

San Donato di Lecce, in the province of Lecce, is home to 2 Germans: 0.04% of its 5,372 residents.

That is the 2468th-highest concentration of Germans among the 5,872 Italian comuni with at least 1,000 residents.

Within Puglia it ranks 85th.

ISTAT counts 147 residents with a foreign citizenship in San Donato di Lecce, 2.74% of the population. The largest groups among the nationalities we follow most closely are Germans (2), Brazilians (1), Finns (1).

San Donato di Lecce qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime.

On ISTAT's well-being measures, the province of Lecce scores in the top quarter of Italian provinces for intentional homicide rate and hospital beds in high-care wards.

It scores in the bottom quarter for urban green and overall Fixed Very High Capacity Network (VHCN) coverage.

These figures describe the province, not the town. A comune can sit some way from its province's average.

Summers average a high of 33.0°C (91°F) and winters a low of 7.2°C (45°F), measured over 2015 to 2024.

San Donato di Lecce sees about 73 days a year above 30°C (86°F).

It gets about 648mm of rain a year, spread across roughly 92 days.

These come from ERA5-Land reanalysis at the comune itself, not from the nearest weather station.

OMI puts residential purchase prices in San Donato di Lecce at about €495 per square meter in the second half of 2025.

San Donato di Lecce population over time

2002–2025. ISTAT’s intercensal population reconstruction (2002–2018) and resident-population registry (2019 onward).

By nationality

Nationality	Citizens	Share
Albania	27	0.50%
Romania	25	0.47%
Bulgaria	5	0.09%
Poland	5	0.09%
Germany	2	0.04%
Brazil	1	0.02%
Finland	1	0.02%
Japan	1	0.02%
Mexico	1	0.02%
Russia	1	0.02%
Argentina	0	0.00%
Austria	0	0.00%
Australia	0	0.00%
Belgium	0	0.00%
Canada	0	0.00%
Switzerland	0	0.00%
Cyprus	0	0.00%
Czechia	0	0.00%
Denmark	0	0.00%
Estonia	0	0.00%
Spain	0	0.00%
France	0	0.00%
United Kingdom	0	0.00%
Greece	0	0.00%
Croatia	0	0.00%
Hungary	0	0.00%
Ireland	0	0.00%
South Korea	0	0.00%
Lithuania	0	0.00%
Luxembourg	0	0.00%
Latvia	0	0.00%
Malta	0	0.00%
Netherlands	0	0.00%
Norway	0	0.00%
Portugal	0	0.00%
Sweden	0	0.00%
Slovenia	0	0.00%
Slovakia	0	0.00%
Ukraine	0	0.00%
United States	0	0.00%
Venezuela	0	0.00%

“Citizens” counts residents holding that country’s citizenship, from ISTAT’s population registry.

Country of birth

Group	Residents	Share
Born in Italy	5,147	95.81%
Born elsewhere in the EU	85	1.58%
Born outside the EU	140	2.61%

From ISTAT’s census data. Broad groups only — ISTAT does not publish comune-level population by specific country of birth, so this isn’t comparable per-nationality to the citizenship table above. See about the data.

Germans over time

Quality of life in Lecce

Province-level well-being (BES), by domain — percentile rank against Italy’s other provinces. Higher is always better here, regardless of the underlying indicator’s direction.

Safety56

Quality of services44

Environment42

Health40

Landscape and cultural heritage28

Social relationships22

Education and training20

Work and life balance18

Economic well-being16

Full BES profile for Lecce →Lecce on cost vs quality of life (province-level) →

Tax regimes

San Donato di Lecce qualifies for the 7% pensioner regime. Comfortably below the 30,000-resident ceiling.

Qualifying is about the town. Whether it applies to you depends on criteria no map can check — where you were tax-resident before, and where your income comes from.

How the 7% pensioner regime works, and every qualifying comune →

This lists the regimes we’ve published. Others exist that we haven’t encoded yet — we add one only once it has been checked against the legislation — so this isn’t a complete account of what might apply to you.

Property prices

To buy

€495 /m²

To rent

€2.25 /m²/month

Buying in San Donato di Lecce is well below the Lecce average of €739/m². Averaged across 2 OMI micro-zones, which can differ substantially within the same town.

Buy or rent

18.3 years of rent here equal the purchase price — below the national median of 22.2 years.

A ratio between two OMI prices, not a return on investment. It leaves out purchase taxes, IMU, maintenance, financing and the months a place sits empty — all of which push the real figure up. Useful for the question it does answer: whether this town looks expensive to buy relative to what renting in it costs.

House or apartment

A detached house here averages €558/m², against €495 for an apartment.

Compared street for street — houses and flats priced in the same neighborhood — a house costs 25% more per square meter.

OMI prices “Ville e Villini” separately from the apartments every other figure on this page describes. Nationally a house costs about 14% more per square meter, but in 450 comuni it costs less — worth checking rather than assuming.

Compare every comune on the map →

Agenzia delle Entrate — Osservatorio del Mercato Immobiliare (OMI), semester 2025 H2. Figures are midpoints of OMI’s surveyed ranges for “Abitazioni civili” in normal condition — a guide to the market, not a valuation of any particular property. OMI is Agenzia delle Entrate’s official range of market values per m², built from recorded sales and appraisals. Asking prices on listing sites are what sellers hope for, and usually run higher. Source.

Seismic zone

San Donato di Lecce is in seismic zone 4. Of the four zones, zone 1 is the highest hazard and zone 4 the lowest. The Department of Civil Protection describes zone 4 as the lowest-hazard zone, where a strong earthquake is very unlikely.

This is the legal classification the Region gave the comune, used for planning and for control of building works. It is not a forecast, and it says nothing about the building you are looking at: since the 2018 building code the design load of a new building comes from site-specific hazard, not from the zone. Have any specific property checked by a qualified engineer.

Not to be confused with the “seismic” routes of the 7% pensioner regime. Those turn on whether the comune was in the 2009 L’Aquila or 2016–17 central-Italy earthquake areas, not on its zone, and being in zone 1 does not make anyone eligible for that regime, or for any tax treatment.

See every comune on the map →

Fonte: Dipartimento della Protezione Civile-Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, classification updated to 31 May 2025 (CC BY 4.0). Source table. Each Region classifies its own comuni by its own act, so a Region’s change shows up here only after the Department updates its table.

Hospital, airport and daily-needs distance

Nearest hospital: Casa di Cura Villa Bianca, about 9.7 km / 10 minutes by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest hospital with inpatient beds in the Ministero della Salute's 2023 list. A hospital with beds is not necessarily one with an emergency department. Ministero della Salute (2023); positions and roads © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

Nearest emergency department: Ospedale Lecce 'V Fazzi' (DEA level II), about 9.1 km / 12 minutes by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest hospital the Ministero della Salute lists in its emergency network (31 December 2025) as DEA level I or II or Pronto Soccorso. A Pronto Soccorso is not the same as a DEA: a DEA is a larger emergency department with more specialties on site. It is not a service guarantee; confirm with the local health authority. Ministero della Salute (emergency network, 2025); positions and roads © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

That hospital is a DEA level II, so it is also the nearest DEA (level I or II). See the nearest DEA for every comune

Nearest airport: Brindisi Airport (BDS), about 61.8 km / 43 minutes by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest of the airports where ENAC recorded at least 4,000 passengers in 2025; this leaves out two airports that carried almost none (Taranto-Grottaglie, Brescia-Montichiari). It says nothing about flights or routes. ENAC (2025); OurAirports; roads © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

Nearest supermarket (OpenStreetMap): EuroSpin, about 3.9 km / 5 minutes by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest supermarket as OpenStreetMap volunteers have mapped it. There is no official national list, so a store missing from the map is missing here. Small grocers and corner shops are not counted, so a village with a local alimentari but no supermarket shows a longer time than its real food shopping. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

Nearest pharmacy: Farmacia Benincasa S.R.L., about 1.5 km / 2 minutes by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest pharmacy in the Ministero della Salute's open register (ordinary and branch pharmacies; dispensari with limited hours are left out). It says nothing about opening hours or night and Sunday duty. Ministero della Salute (open register of pharmacies, IODL 2.0); roads © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

Nearest railway station (OpenStreetMap): San Donato di Lecce, about 0.4 km / 1 minute by road from San Donato di Lecce (the main town).

The nearest railway station with passenger service as OpenStreetMap volunteers have mapped it (metro, tram, funicular and heritage lines are left out). RFI publishes no national open list. It does not say how often trains stop there or where they go. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). See every comune on the map

Measured by road from the main town of the comune (its OpenStreetMap place point; the geographic center for the few comuni with none), at free-flow speeds with no traffic. It is approximate. For San Donato di Lecce, a trip from your own address can take longer or shorter. Drive the route before you rely on it, and ask the local health authority which hospital serves the town. Shops, pharmacies and stations are the nearest to the main town, not to your address.

Nearby comuni

← See San Donato di Lecce on the interactive map

This page, as data

Every figure above sits behind the page as a value with its source, its date and its coverage attached. Your assistant reads the same record, gaps included.

/api/v1/comuni/075069