How much can rent increase in Spain in 2026? What applies now the 2% cap is gone

Published 20 March 2026 · Updated 14 August 2026

Updated 11 August 2026. This article was rewritten after Real Decreto-ley 8/2026 was repealed. Every rule below is linked to its primary source so you can check it yourself.

The short answer

There is no 2% cap on rent increases in Spain today. There was one, briefly, between 22 March and 30 April 2026. It died when Congress refused to ratify the decree that created it.

What governs your rent update now depends on one thing: the date you signed the contract. Contracts signed from 26 May 2023 update by a state index called the IRAV. Contracts signed before that date update by whatever the contract says, which is usually the CPI.

What happened to the 2% cap

Real Decreto-ley 8/2026 was approved on 20 March 2026 and published in the BOE on 21 March. It capped annual rent updates at 2% and gave tenants the right to ask for an extraordinary extension of up to two years, in one-year periods, on habitual-residence contracts due to end before 31 December 2027.

A decree-law of this kind has to be ratified by the Congress of Deputies within thirty days. Congress rejected it on 28 April 2026, and it was repealed with effect from 30 April. The BOE entry for the decree, BOE-A-2026-6545, is now headed Disposicion derogada: a repealed provision.

So the cap applied for roughly six weeks. If your update anniversary fell inside that window, the 2% ceiling applied at the time. From 29 April 2026 onwards, updates go back to the ordinary rules with no extra ceiling beyond what your contract itself agrees.

Which index applies to your contract

The dividing line is 26 May 2023, when the current housing law came into force.

• Signed on or after 26 May 2023: if the contract provides for an annual update, it uses the IRAV, the reference index for housing rental updates published monthly by the National Statistics Institute. You cannot substitute the CPI for it, even by agreement, and you cannot exceed it.
• Signed before 26 May 2023: the contract governs. Most refer to the CPI. If the contract sets no update mechanism at all, there is no automatic right to raise the rent during the term.

The IRAV is published by the INE and moves every month. Use the figure for the month your anniversary falls in, not today's figure. You can look it up on the INE website.

How to apply an update without getting it wrong

Three things trip landlords up, and all three are avoidable.

• It is not automatic. You have to notify the tenant in writing, and the increase applies from the month after you notify, not retroactively.
• The notice has to show its working: which index you applied, the percentage variation, and the resulting new rent. A vague "the rent goes up by the index" is not enough.
• The index is a ceiling, not a floor. Nothing obliges you to apply the full figure, and in a competitive letting market many owners apply less to keep a reliable tenant.

What did not change

The repeal only removed the cap and the extraordinary extension. Everything else in the Urban Leasing Act stands:

• Minimum term of five years when the landlord is a private individual, and seven years when the landlord is a company, extended year by year at the tenant's option.
• Tacit extension of up to three further years if neither side gives notice in time.
• The deposit for habitual-residence lettings remains one month's rent, plus any additional guarantee agreed.

Andalucia and the Costa del Sol

Most national coverage of rent control is about stressed market areas, the zones where a region can impose real rent limits on new contracts. That regime only operates where the regional government declares it.

Andalucia has not declared any. No Andalusian municipality appears in the Ministry of Housing register of stressed areas, and the Junta de Andalucia has both declined to activate the mechanism and challenged the national housing law before the Constitutional Court. Andalucia's own housing law, Ley 5/2025, published in the BOJA on 24 December 2025, has applied since 24 January 2026 and takes a different route, through subsidies rather than caps.

In practice, if your property is in Malaga province, the rent-control headlines that dominate the national press do not describe your situation. Your update is governed by your contract date and the index above.

What to do this week

• Find the signature date on each of your contracts and sort them into pre and post 26 May 2023. That single date decides which index you use.
• Check whether you applied a 2% cap to any update between 22 March and 30 April 2026. That was correct at the time and stays correct: the repeal is not retroactive.
• Diarise each anniversary, so you notify in writing before it passes rather than after.
• If a tenant asked for the extraordinary two-year extension while the decree was alive, take advice before treating that request as void. How the repeal affects extensions already requested is the one genuinely contested question here.

Sources

• BOE-A-2026-6545, Real Decreto-ley 8/2026, showing its repeal.
• INE, for the monthly IRAV figure.
• Ley 12/2023 for the housing law, and Ley 29/1994 (LAU) for lease terms.

This is general information for landlords and agents, checked against the BOE on 11 August 2026. It is not legal advice, and rental rules change. Check your own contract and take professional advice before acting on anything here.