Santo Tomás Fair 2026 in San Sebastián

Why this fair exists

Santo Tomás did not begin as a party but as a payday. On 21 December the baserritarras — the tenant farmers from the surrounding farmhouses — came down into the city to settle their rent with the landowner. Since they were already in Donostia, they took the chance to sell whatever they had left over from the year: cheese, beans, hens, cider, winter vegetables. What started as paperwork turned into a market, and the market turned into a festival.

That history explains what you will find today, and it also explains what you will not find. Santo Tomás is not a Central European-style Christmas market: there are no decorated wooden chalets, no mulled wine, no Ferris wheel. It is a farm-produce fair, eaten standing up in the street.

When and where

It is always 21 December, whatever day of the week that falls on: in 2026, a Monday. It does not move to the weekend, so plenty of locals simply take the morning off.

The fair was born in the Plaza de la Constitución, in the old town, which is still its sentimental centre. But it has long outgrown it: stalls now also fill the Gipuzkoa, Okendo and Zuloaga squares, the Boulevard and several pedestrian streets. In the 2024 edition 162 stalls were allocated: 42 selling txistorra, 26 crafts, 17 talo, 15 cheese and dairy, and 12 pastries. That breakdown tells you exactly what the day's priorities are.

What to eat

The dish of the fair is talo con txistorra. Talo is a thin unleavened corn flatbread cooked on a griddle in front of you; txistorra is a thin fresh sausage grilled over coals. One is wrapped around the other and eaten by hand, standing up, burning your fingers slightly. Washed down, as tradition demands, with cider or txakoli.

Beyond that, the cheese stalls are the place to buy real Idiazabal straight from the shepherd, and you will usually find Tolosa beans, honey, quince paste and pastries.

Practical advice

• Bring cash. Many stalls are small producers and not all of them take cards.
• The txistorra queues are the worst, and between 1pm and 3pm they are impossible. Early morning or mid-afternoon you eat just as well in half the time.
• There is no single spot. If the Plaza de la Constitución is unbearable, the stalls on the Boulevard or in Plaza de Gipuzkoa are the same ones with more room to breathe.
• You will see a lot of people dressed as baserritarras, in blue smocks, neckerchiefs and berets. It is not a costume laid on for tourists: locals wear it, and children go to school dressed like that on the day.
• Leave the car. The old town is pedestrian and the centre seizes up.

If you cannot get to Donostia

Bilbao holds its own Santo Tomás fair on the same day, at El Arenal and the Plaza Nueva, and several towns across Gipuzkoa and Biscay hold theirs. It is not a lesser fallback: it is the same feast day in a different square.

Exact opening times and the programme of events are published by the city council in the weeks beforehand. As soon as our sources pick them up, you will see them at the top of this page.