Spain's October 2026 rental decrees: the five-year extension and its price, the two-year bridge, the 2 % ceiling, the end of the seasonal let — and the votes still to come

A Dutch owner has two flats in Los Cristianos. One has been let since 1 March 2022 to a family that lives there all year, for €950 a month, on a contract whose five years run out at the start of March 2027; the other goes every winter, from November to March, to the same retired couple from Hamburg on what both sides have always called a seasonal contract. In two days the Official State Gazette changed the rules of both. On 30 September 2026 it published Real Decreto-ley 26/2026, a housing decree in six titles in force since 1 October: next spring's rent update has a ceiling of 2 %, the family can ask for up to two more years on the same terms, and the seasonal contract, as a legal category, no longer exists. On 1 October it published Real Decreto-ley 27/2026, in force from 2 October, which rewrites what happens when the five years end: the lease extends itself for five more unless the landlord gives notice, and a landlord who gives it without one of the listed reasons owes the tenant a year's rent. Both decrees are provisional in a precise sense: the Congress must still vote on each, and the last rental decree, in March, did not survive that vote. This note reads the parts that change a lease — the five-year extension and its price, the extraordinary extension, the rent update, the new temporary lease, expenses and guarantees, the tenant's right to buy and evictions — and says what stays open. The first decree's tax title is a separate subject. Quotations are in Spanish with the reading in English.

In force on 1 and 2 October, and on probation

A decree-law is the Government legislating alone in a case of urgency, and the Constitution keeps it on a short leash: it must be put to a vote of the whole Congress en el plazo de los treinta días siguientes a su promulgación — within thirty days of its promulgation — and the chamber must expressly convalidate it or repeal it (article 86.2). The Congress's standing orders repeat the thirty days (article 151.1) and say how they are counted: los plazos señalados por días en este Reglamento se computarán en días hábiles — time limits set in days in these standing orders are counted in working days (article 90.1).

Until that vote each decree is law and applies in full. After it, one of two things happens. If the Congress convalidates it, nothing changes, although the chamber may then process it as a bill and amend it. If the Congress repeals it, the decree stops applying and the articles it rewrote return to their earlier wording. Each decree is put to its own vote, so one can survive and the other fall. Spanish tenancy law has been through this twice. In December 2018 a decree-law reformed the Urban Leases Act; it came into force on 19 December, the Congress repealed it on 22 January 2019 and the Gazette's consolidated text restored the old articles, until a second decree brought the reform back from 6 March 2019. And on 21 March of this year the Gazette published Real Decreto-ley 8/2026, with an extraordinary extension and a 2 % ceiling very close to the ones described below; it came into force the next day and the Congress voted to repeal it on 28 April, thirty-eight days after its publication.

That second precedent matters for two reasons. It shows that these votes are not a formality. And it shows what a repeal leaves behind: the first of the new decrees has had to state that the extension requests tenants made while the March decree was alive se tendrán por válidamente formuladas, sin necesidad de nueva comunicación — are deemed validly made, with no need for a new notice (first transitional provision). What was requested in those weeks was not undone by the repeal; it was left in doubt for five months. The practical consequence for a landlord or a tenant today is to act on the law in force, in writing and with dates, and not to build a long plan on a rule that may have a few weeks of life.

When the five years end: five more, or a year's rent

The second decree has a single article, and it rewrites article 10 of the Urban Leases Act: the one that says what happens when the lease of a habitual home has completed its mandatory term of five years, or seven when the landlord is a company. Until 1 October the answer was a tacit extension by yearly periods for up to three more years, which the landlord could prevent with four months' notice and without giving a reason. From 2 October, if neither side has given notice, el contrato se prorrogará obligatoriamente por plazos sucesivos de cinco años, o siete años si el arrendador fuese persona jurídica — the contract is extended, mandatorily, by successive periods of five years, or seven if the landlord is a legal entity (article 10.1). The tenant stops it with two months' notice; the landlord needs six.

The landlord's notice also has a price. A landlord who validly gives it vendrá obligado a indemnizar al arrendatario con una cantidad equivalente, al menos, al importe de doce mensualidades de renta de una vivienda de análogas características a la arrendada — is obliged to compensate the tenant with an amount equal, at least, to twelve months' rent of a home with characteristics similar to the one let. The sum is calculated, where possible, on the State's reference-price system; it can never be less than one month's rent for each year the tenant has lived in the home; and it is paid when the home is handed back. The decree's preamble is explicit that the yardstick is the reference price of a comparable home, not the rent of the contract that ends, although that system returns a range of values and the text does not say which point of the range counts. Nor does a sale shake the obligation off: it passes to the buyer who takes the landlord's place.

Six situations remove the compensation, and all of them deberán hacerse constar de forma expresa, detallada y por escrito en la notificación de preaviso — must be stated expressly, in detail and in writing in the notice (article 10.2). The landlord, being an individual, needs the home as a permanent home for himself, for relatives to the second degree or for a spouse after a final judgment of separation or divorce; if none of them has moved in three months after the handover, the tenant can claim the compensation after all. The tenant has not lived in the home for more than six of the twelve months before the notice, without a justified reason. The tenant has another suitable home in the same municipality, as owner or holder of a right of use, and can occupy it. The parties sign a new lease. The tenant turns down a firm offer of a new lease on the same home for at least five years, or seven from a company, at a rent held to the rules the Act applies in stressed housing markets, which in essence means the previous rent with its yearly update. Or the landlord is in a proven situation of vulnerability that makes his interests prevail. A landlord cannot use the notice as a lever either: if the parties then agree to carry on, the agreed extension cannot be shorter than the five or seven years, and any term that worsens the original contract for the tenant is void (articles 10.3 and 10.4).

There is one more exit, and it joins the two decrees. No compensation is due when, at that expiry, the tenant meets the legal requirements for an extension that the landlord is obliged to accept, aunque no la hubiera solicitado — even if the tenant has not asked for it. The extraordinary extension of the next section is one of those.

The new article 10 reaches leases already signed, for every expiry, of the contract or of any of its extensions, that falls after 3 October 2026 (single transitional provision). Three adjustments soften the landing. Where, on 2 October, less than six months remain to that expiry, the landlord's notice podrá efectuarse con una antelación mínima de cuatro meses a dicha fecha — may be given with a minimum of four months before that date. On the text, a lease with less than four months to run and no earlier notice is extended for the five years. A lease that was already inside the old three-year tacit extension finishes it under the old rule, and the new article applies at its end. And a lease that lives on tacit renewal under the Civil Code comes under the new article at the first expiry that falls four months after the entry into force, with four months' notice for the landlord and the whole time spent in the home counted towards the five years.

The extraordinary extension: up to two more years, if the tenant asks

The first decree carries its own, temporary measure. Its fifth final provision gives the tenant of a habitual home una prórroga extraordinaria por plazos anuales y hasta un máximo de dos años adicionales — an extraordinary extension by yearly periods, up to a maximum of two additional years — on the terms of the contract in force. It reaches the leases that were alive on 1 October 2026 and come to one of three ends: the mandatory term of article 9.1 of the Urban Leases Act (five years, seven when the landlord is a company), when it finishes before 31 December 2028; the tacit and vulnerability extensions of article 10 as it stood before the second decree; or the tacit renewal of article 1566 of the Civil Code, the one that arises when a tenant stays on, with the landlord's acquiescence, after the contract has ended.

Two conditions are the tenant's. The extension works at the tenant's request, and only if the tenant is al corriente de pago del alquiler, y lo haya estado mensualmente durante los ocho meses anteriores — up to date with the rent, and has been so month by month during the previous eight months. The decree fixes neither a form nor a deadline for the request; a dated, written request sent before the term ends is the prudent reading, not a requirement of the text.

On the landlord's side the rule is blunt: La solicitud deberá ser aceptada obligatoriamente por el arrendador — the request must be accepted by the landlord — with three exceptions. The parties may have agreed other terms. They may have signed a new lease. Or the landlord may have told the tenant, in the time and manner of article 9.3 of the Act, that the home is needed for the landlord or the landlord's family; and here the decree goes further than the Act, because it allows that recovery even when the contract did not provide for it, as long as the need is real and proven. The extension does not apply either when the two sides agree a renewal, or a new contract, at a rent at least five per cent below the current one, and it cannot be combined with the three-year extension the Act gives in areas declared stressed housing markets (article 10.6 from 2 October, 10.3 before), which takes precedence where it exists.

The second decree fits the two pieces together (first additional provision). Where the five-year extension of article 10.1 operates, the extraordinary one does not: a tenant whose lease has just been extended for five years has no use for two. It is for the tenant whose landlord has given notice. That lease does not end on its date; it runs for the extra year or two, and then el contrato se extinguirá a la finalización de dicha prórroga extraordinaria — the contract is extinguished when that extraordinary extension ends — unless the parties agree otherwise. The compensation that was not due at the first date becomes due at the last: an ending by the landlord's will, without one of the six reasons, gives the tenant the right to it.

One point is unsettled. The preamble of the second decree says that Las comunicaciones de no renovación ya efectuadas conservan su eficacia y no dan lugar a indemnización — non-renewal notices already given keep their effect and give rise to no compensation — also when the lease is then extended extraordinarily. Its articles say so in terms only for leases on tacit renewal; for the rest, the reading rests on the preamble. A landlord who gave notice before 2 October should keep the proof of its date.

For the family in Los Cristianos the arithmetic has changed twice in two days. Their five years end at the start of March 2027, less than six months after 2 October, so the owner has until the last days of October 2026, four months before, to decide. If he says nothing, the lease is extended to March 2032, at the same rent with its capped updates, and his next chance to end it comes six months before that date. If he gives notice, the family, up to date with the rent, can ask for the extraordinary extension: the lease then runs to March 2028 and, by yearly periods, to March 2029 at the latest, and when it ends he owes them at least twelve months of the rent of a comparable flat, €11,400 if the reference system prices it at the €950 they pay, unless his notice states one of the six reasons. The one most owners will look at is their own need for the home, or a close relative's: properly notified, it stops both the extension and the compensation, but it must be real, it must be written into the notice and someone must actually move in within three months. Everything from here on comes from the first decree.

Rent updates: 2 % until the end of 2027, and the IRAV for every contract

Two different ceilings now sit on the yearly update, and they come from different parts of the decree.

The permanent one is in article 18.1 of the Act as rewritten. An update needs a clause: En defecto de pacto expreso, no se aplicará actualización de rentas a los contratos — in the absence of an express agreement, no rent update applies. If the clause names no index, the reference is the IRAV, the index the National Statistics Institute publishes for this purpose; and whatever the clause says, the yearly increase cannot exceed the variation of the IRAV. Until now that index bound the contracts signed from 26 May 2023 and older ones followed the consumer price index; the decree rewrites a transitional provision of the 2023 housing law so that earlier contracts are updated with the same limit. A clause that says «CPI» in a 2019 or a 2022 contract is still valid; it simply cannot produce more than the IRAV.

The temporary one is the sixth final provision. For every update that falls due between 1 October 2026 and 31 December 2027, the tenant may negotiate the increase with the landlord under two rules. If the rent is above the upper limit that the State's reference-price system gives for that home, no procederá la aplicación de incremento alguno de la renta — no increase of the rent applies at all. In every other case the increase is the one the two sides newly agree and, if they do not agree, el incremento de la renta a aplicar no podrá ser superior al dos por ciento — the increase to be applied cannot be higher than two per cent.

The figures show which rule bites. The IRAV published on 15 September 2026, for August, is 2.47 %; the consumer price index for the same month, according to the Ministry of Housing's own update calculator, stood at 4.3 %. The Los Cristianos contract is from 2022 and its clause refers to the CPI. On August's figures, the update of March 2027 would have added €40.85 a month under the old rule; under the Act's new ceiling it could add €23.47 at most; and under the decree's temporary rule, without a new agreement, it can add €19 at most, taking the rent from €950 to €969. If the reference-price system places the ceiling for the flat below €950, it adds nothing. That system is the Ministry's web application, which returns a range of reference values for a home according to its location and its features; consulting it before sending the update letter is now part of the job.

The seasonal let is gone: the «temporary housing» lease

For thirty years the Act treated a let por temporada — for a season — as a lease for a use other than housing, and left it almost entirely to what the parties agreed. The decree deletes those words from article 3 and creates, inside the housing rules, the arrendamiento de vivienda temporal: the lease that covers the housing need of a tenant who is temporalmente desplazado de su domicilio habitual, por causa justificada y acreditable — temporarily away from the habitual home, for a justified and provable reason (article 2.3).

Four rules define it. The reason must be written into the contract and be real and provable, recayendo sobre el arrendador la carga de la prueba de su existencia — with the burden of proving that it exists on the landlord; a contract without it is treated as an ordinary housing lease from the day it was signed (article 7.2). The term is agreed freely, debiendo ser superior a treinta y un días, y no exceder como regla general de doce meses — but it must exceed thirty-one days and, as a general rule, not exceed twelve months (article 9 bis.1). When the twelve months are passed without a reason, or when there are más de dos contratos de arrendamiento de vivienda temporal de forma consecutiva — more than two temporary-housing leases in a row — between the same parties and for the same home, the first one is deemed an ordinary lease, with its five or seven years (article 9 bis.2). And the tenant's side is lighter than before: the tenant may leave after one month with ten days' notice, the additional guarantee cannot exceed one month's rent, the small repairs of ordinary wear fall on the landlord, and the rent of successive temporary contracts on the same home cannot rise by more than the IRAV in a year.

Contracts signed before 1 October keep their old regime until the end of the term they agreed, and there they stop: quedarán extinguidos sin posibilidad de prórroga — they are extinguished with no possibility of extension — and a renewal is already a temporary-housing lease under the new rules (eighth transitional provision of the Act). Lets of up to thirty-one days marketed to tourists remain outside the Act, under the tourism rules of each region, which on the islands means the Canary holiday-let law we describe in our note on Ley 6/2025.

The winter contract with the couple from Hamburg sits exactly on the questions the text leaves open. A stay of five months away from a home kept in Germany may fit the words of article 2.3, but the decree lists no accepted reasons, requires the reason to be justified and provable and puts the proof on the owner; a contract whose reason does not hold is an ordinary five-year lease from its first day, with the five-year extension and its compensation waiting at the end. And there is the count. With the same tenants, the winter of 2028 would be the third temporary contract signed under the new rules: the decree does not say whether the summers in between break the sequence, nor whether the winters before October 2026 count towards it. Until a court or a regulation answers, a third winter with the same tenant is the one to plan with advice, not with last year's template. The decree also leaves room for regional rules on temporary and room lets (twelfth additional provision of the Act), so the Canary side of this lease may still change.

What a landlord can no longer charge or demand

The decree rewrites the small print of the ordinary lease as well, and five changes will reach every new contract.

Taxes. The parties may still agree that the tenant pays the general expenses of the property, in writing and with the yearly amount stated, but En ningún caso podrán imponerse los tributos asociados a la vivienda a la parte arrendataria — in no case may the taxes attached to the home be imposed on the tenant — unless the tenant is the taxpayer by law (article 20.1). The clause that passed the property tax on to the tenant, which the Act allowed until 30 September, cannot be written into a new lease; nor can the tenant be charged, directly or indirectly, for the agency's fee or for drawing up the contract (article 20.2).

Guarantees. The deposit of one month stays, and so does the cap of two months' rent on any additional guarantee in leases of up to five or seven years; what is new is that En ningún caso podrá exigirse al arrendatario la contratación de seguros de impago de renta — in no case may the tenant be required to take out rent-default insurance (article 36.5). A landlord may still insure the rent at his own cost.

Leaving early. A tenant may withdraw after six months with thirty days' notice, as before; the clause that made the tenant pay a month's rent for each year left is gone, because a withdrawal exercised in that way no generará derecho de indemnización en favor del arrendador — creates no right to compensation in favour of the landlord (article 11).

Repairs and handover. When the home needs a repair that affects its habitability, safety or health conditions, the tenant can send a written request with a reasonable quote; the landlord has fifteen calendar days to accept it, propose another repair or do the work, and after that the tenant may have it done and deduct the cost from future rent (article 21.5). At the end of the lease the two sides must sign a handover document on the state of the home; if there is none, or it records no damage, se presumirá, salvo prueba en contrario, que la vivienda fue entregada en estado adecuado de conservación — it is presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the home was handed back in a proper state of repair (article 36.7). For an owner who lives abroad, that last rule turns the check-out visit into the moment that decides the deposit.

Large homes. Until September the Act let the parties to a lease of a home of more than 300 square metres, or with a yearly rent above 5.5 times the minimum wage, set most of these rules aside by agreement. The decree removes that exception from article 4.2: a large villa let as someone's home is now under the same mandatory rules as a studio.

Do these rules reach leases already signed? The decree gives its own answer for the extraordinary extension, for the two update ceilings and for seasonal contracts, and none for the rest. The general rule of the Civil Code is that Las leyes no tendrán efecto retroactivo, si no dispusieren lo contrario — laws have no retroactive effect unless they provide otherwise (article 2.3) — and the reforms of 2019 and 2023 each carried a transitional provision that left earlier contracts under their own rules. In broad terms, then, a lease signed before 1 October keeps its clauses on expenses, guarantees and withdrawal; a renewal or a new contract does not.

Selling a let home: the tenant's right to buy can no longer be waived

Article 25 already gave the tenant a right of first refusal when the home is sold: thirty calendar days to match the price, counted from a formal notice of the sale and its terms, and, if that notice was missing or wrong, thirty days from the copy of the deed to step into the buyer's place. Two things change. A clause in the lease by which the tenant gave up that right was valid until September; now Las partes no podrán pactar la renuncia del arrendatario al derecho de adquisición preferente — the parties may not agree that the tenant waives the pre-emption right (article 25.8). And the sale of a whole building, or of the flat together with other assets, no longer escapes it: if the home can be legally separated, the notice must state the price attributed to it and the objective criteria used, by preference the Cadastre's reference value or an independent appraisal (articles 25.2 and 25.7). The Land Registry will not record the sale of a let home without proof of those notices (article 25.5).

For a non-resident selling a flat with a tenant inside, the calendar of the sale now starts with that notice, and the buyer who takes the landlord's place takes on the non-renewal compensation as well; the tax side of the same sale is in our guide to selling as a non-resident.

Evictions when the tenant is vulnerable

The procedural part of the decree deserves a note of its own; three points concern any landlord today.

First, a new paragraph 6 of article 22 of the Civil Procedure Act creates an «extraordinary» way of stopping an eviction for non-payment. When the tenant is shown to be economically vulnerable, the court informs the competent public administration, which has two months to offer alternative housing or to pay what is owed; the case is suspended meanwhile. If it pays, the case ends and the lease continues. If it does neither, la administración pública competente quedará subrogada automáticamente en la posición deudora del arrendatario — the competent public administration is automatically subrogated to the tenant's position as debtor — and there is no eviction: the lease stays in force until it expires, for as long as the vulnerability lasts.

Second, where that mechanism does not apply, article 2 of the decree lets the court suspend the eviction of a vulnerable person who has no alternative housing, until 31 December 2030: when the claimant is an entity that buys homes or unpaid mortgage portfolios well below their market value, the decree provides no compensation; in the other cases the suspension is reviewed every year, cannot last more than three years and, when the landlord is an individual, is compensated by the housing administration up to the rent not received.

Third, a limit to that second mechanism: the tenant's vulnerability does not prevail cuando la parte demandante sea una persona física titular de dos o menos viviendas — when the claimant is an individual who owns two homes or fewer (article 2.2). It does not switch off the first one: for a small landlord with a vulnerable tenant in arrears, the route the decree draws is that the administration pays or takes over the debt, and the lease goes on. Both rules reach cases already under way in which the eviction has not yet been carried out. None of this concerns a home occupied without a contract, which follows the routes in our note on okupas.

A landlord's checklist for October 2026

• Date your leases: list every contract with its signing date, the end of its five or seven years and its next update.
• Decide before the notice date: six months before each term ends, four if it ends within six months of 2 October; silence now means five more years, and a notice without a written reason means a year's rent.
• Answer extension requests in writing: if you need the home, say so with the notice article 9.3 requires, and keep the proof of the need.
• Check two figures before the update letter: the reference-price range for the home and the latest IRAV; without a new agreement, 2 %.
• Do not renew a seasonal contract on last year's form: write the reason for the temporary stay into the contract and count the contracts with the same tenant.
• Review your template: no taxes on the tenant, no compulsory rent insurance, no penalty for early withdrawal, a handover document at the end.
• If you plan to sell a let home, start with the tenant's notice, with the price and the criteria behind it.
• Note the votes: two decrees, two votes; if the Congress repeals either, ask again before acting on any of the above.

A decree-law is law from the first morning and may stop being law within weeks. Read what it says today, write down what you do under it, and do not hang a five-year plan on a thirty-day rule.

Our property team at the Costa Adeje and Corralejo offices reviews leases against the two decrees, drafts temporary-housing contracts and the notices of non-renewal, extension, update, need and sale, and acts in eviction proceedings; the consultation is a paid one, quoted in advance. The service is described on our property law page, and the contact page has both offices' hours.

Common questions

Are the decrees in force, and what happens if the Congress rejects them?

The first has been in force since 1 October 2026; the second comes into force on 2 October. The Congress must vote on each within thirty days, which its standing orders count in working days. A decree that is convalidated stays; one that is repealed stops applying and the Urban Leases Act returns to its earlier wording on those points. That is how the March decree ended, on 28 April; the requests tenants had made under it were confirmed as valid only five months later, by the first of these two, which is why anything done now should be written and dated.

My tenant's five-year lease ends in 2027. Can I end it?

From 2 October, doing nothing extends it for five more years. To end it you must give notice six months before the term ends, or four if less than six months remain on 2 October. Even then, a tenant who is up to date with the rent and has paid every month for the previous eight can ask for up to two more years, and you must accept unless you have agreed other terms or signed a new lease with the tenant, or you need the home for yourself or your family and notify it as article 9.3 of the Act requires, with a need that is real and that you can prove. And when the lease ends by your decision you owe at least twelve months' rent of a comparable home, unless your notice states one of the six reasons the Act lists.

My contract says the rent rises with the CPI. Can I still apply it?

The clause is valid; its result is capped. Since 1 October the yearly increase can never exceed the IRAV, also in contracts signed before May 2023, and for updates that fall due until 31 December 2027 the increase without a new agreement cannot exceed 2 %. If the rent is already above the top of the State's reference range for the home, it cannot rise at all. On the figures for August 2026 that means 2 % instead of a CPI of 4.3 %.

I let my flat every winter to the same couple. Is that still a seasonal contract?

Not under that name. A contract signed before 1 October runs to its agreed end under the old rules and cannot be extended. A new one is a temporary-housing lease: it must state why the tenant is temporarily away from the habitual home, a reason you must be able to prove; it must last more than thirty-one days and, as a rule, no more than twelve months; and a third consecutive contract with the same tenant for the same home turns the first one into an ordinary lease. Whether a summer gap breaks that sequence is a question the text does not answer.

Can I still make the tenant pay the property tax and the community fees?

In a new lease, the community fees yes, the property tax no. General expenses such as community fees can be charged to the tenant by a written clause that states the yearly amount, in buildings under horizontal property. The taxes attached to the home cannot be imposed on the tenant unless the tenant is the taxpayer by law. A lease signed before 1 October keeps, in broad terms, the clause it had.

This article is general information as of 1 October 2026, not advice on any particular lease; the texts cited are Real Decreto-ley 26/2026 of 29 September (Official State Gazette of 30 September 2026) and Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 of the same date (Gazette of 1 October 2026), the Urban Leases Act (Ley 29/1994) in its consolidated wording and as amended by the second decree, Ley 12/2023, the Civil Procedure Act, the Civil Code, the Constitution and the Standing Orders of the Congress; the IRAV is the National Statistics Institute's figure for August 2026. Both decrees are pending convalidation by the Congress, which may repeal either; a consultation with our property team is a paid service.