Property for rent in Spain

The Spanish rental market can be an exciting and lucrative venture for UK residents.

Renting a property in Spain is currently viewed by many as a risky endeavour, particularly due to the lengthy procedures involved in evicting defaulting tenants.According to José Ramón Zurdo, a lawyer specialising in leasing and CEO of the Rental Negotiation Agency (ANA), in an interview with ideali

On 20 December 2024, the Official State Gazette (BOE) published the methodology for the new Spanish Statistics Institute (INE) index used to update rental prices in 2025: the Housing Lease Reference Index (IRAV).

The number of tourist accommodation places (VUT) in ten Spanish cities now exceeds the total hotel capacity, with Málaga, Valencia and Alicante standing out, according to a report by Exceltur on the 25 cities with the highest number of tourist accommodation places in 2024.

Spanning from the tip of Tarifa to Nerja, the Costa del Sol is one of Spain’s most coveted coastal destinations.

The government aims to amend Article 3 of the Urban Leasing Law (LAU) concerning seasonal rentals. The proposed changes would require landlords to demonstrate and justify the specific circumstances for formalising a seasonal rental contract.

Andalusia is home to four of the ten towns and cities with the highest household effort to rent a home, according to a study published by idealista.

The Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has announced he will introduce the Special Plan for the Protection of Residential Areas in the City of Madrid. This plan will prohibit tourist rentals scattered within residential communities in the historic centre.

The Málaga City Council’s governing team has promoted an amendment to the General Plan (PGOU) to restrict or limit new tourist accommodation in certain neighbourhoods of the city through an urban zoning plan. Specifically, from the amendment’s entry into force, there will be 43 neighbourhoods where

Fifty-five per cent of short-term rental owners in Spain support regulations that benefit residents and hosts, while 8% suggest the need for stricter rules to combat the negative effects of gentrification, and the remaining 20% have not formed an opinion, according to Holidu. In the survey, 74% of

It has been just over five years since interventions in the rental market commenced. The first measure involved approving changes to the Law on Urban Leases (LAU) in March 2019, which extended contracts from three years to five or seven years.

Non-payment of rent can manifest in various ways, not solely the rent itself. For instance, tenants may also be responsible for paying utilities or community fees. So, what happens in these situations? Can I evict the tenant if they fail to pay their utilities or community fees?

Is subletting legal in Spain? Today we're focusing on understanding the legality and conditions under which one can sublet a property in Spain.

The government has declared war on holiday rentals and is preparing a raft of measures to regulate tourist flats, such as amending the Horizontal Property Law (LPH) so that the owners' associations can veto holiday homes or creating a single registry platform for properties rented for this purpose. Although the details of the Executive's plan are still unknown, the experts consulted by idealista/news believe that it will not help alleviate Spain's housing problem, since they will not ensure that supply matches demand. 

Discover essential advice for securing your ideal apartment in Spain, from understanding legal requirements to navigating the rental market and avoiding common pitfalls.

The Consell de Mallorca will now impose €80,000 fines on anyone who illegally rents a property for tourist purposes. Furthermore, the fines established by law for this issue range from €40,000 to €400,000, and until now the lightest sanctions were being imposed.

Five of the 10 most popular locations to find a rental apartment during the second quarter of the year are in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. According to the idealista study, Hospitalet de Llobregat leads the relative rental demand between April and June, followed by Badalona and Vitoria, the first provincial capital on the list. After them, Terrassa, Manresa and Sabadell complete this Barcelona quintet, all of them ahead of Barcelona (8). Still in this 'top 10' the Madrid town of Alcala de Henares and two cities in Tarragona such as Salou and Reus also appear.

Employment is one of the great drivers of rental demand in Spain, along with the creation of homes. An Urban Land Institute (ULI) report shows the strong growth in Social Security registration that the country's main provincial capitals have seen in the last five years, reaching record levels in Alicante, Madrid, Malaga, Bilbao, Seville and Murcia.

Ocaña (Toledo), Alhaurin el Grande (Malaga), Jodar (Jaen) and Riba-roja de Turia (Valencia) are the towns that have seen the biggest rent hikes between 2015 and 2022, according to the INE's Rental Housing Prices Index (IPVA), with increases of more than 27% in all cases. The first provincial capitals that appear on the list are Valencia (23.3%), Palma (21.8%) or Malaga (21.4%).

Volantazo in the Barcelona City Council in terms of housing. Mayor Jaume Collboni has presented his plan to address the problem of access to housing suffered by the Catalan capital, with “rental prices skyrocketing and becoming more expensive every day.”

To rent a house safely, you must pay special attention to two issues: the tenant and the rental contact. Screening the candidate and a well-drafted contract are a good safeguard against future problems. But what happens when you don't take the right precautions?

​​​​​​​Rent an apartment on the beachfront will mean an average expense of about 1,160 euros per week, according to the study carried out by Tecnitasa for the month of August. This price is almost 10% more compared to last summer, and more than 40% if we compare it with the summer of 2020, coming out of the worst of the pandemic.

According to a study published by idealista, the southern European real estate marketplace, 18% of the properties that were rented through idealista during the first quarter had not even been on the market for 24 hours, compared to 16% in the same period in 2023. This immediate rental phenomenon increases in 26 provincial capitals between January and March, where Tarragona (31%) and San Sebastián (29%) stand out. In Barcelona and Madrid, express rentals remain stable and account for 17% and 15% of the supply that has left the market in the first three months of 2024, respectively.

In the dynamic real estate market, the minimum duration of rental contracts is a crucial issue for both tenants and landlords. Understanding the rules and regulations is essential to avoid misunderstandings and ensure a fair and legal agreement.