Spain rental law: 12 months of compensation from 15 November 2026
From 15 November 2026 a Spanish landlord who validly gives notice not to extend a home lease owes at least 12 monthly rents, unless one of five cases is exempt.
The facts
- Royal Decree-Law 28/2026, of 6 October, appeared in Official State Gazette number 249 on 7 October 2026 and takes effect on 15 November 2026.
- A landlord who validly gives notice of the intention not to extend a lease of the tenant's main home must pay the greater of 12 monthly payments or one monthly payment per year the tenant lived there. Selling the let home does not affect that right.
- The base is the upper value of the dwelling's individualised band in the state reference system for residential rental prices, or, where no individualised value can be obtained for it, the contract rent in force when notice is given.
- Leases extend tacitly and compulsorily for successive five-year periods, seven where the landlord is a legal person; notice runs at least six months for the landlord and at least two months for the tenant.
- Article 10.2 lists five exempt cases, among them the permanent need of a landlord who is an individual for himself or relatives to the second degree by blood or adoption, each to be stated expressly, in detail and in writing in the notice.
- For scale, idealista put the price of rental housing in Spain at 15.1 euros per square metre a month in September 2026, 5.6% above a year earlier on a series whose methodology changed in July 2026.
What it means for your money
- Validly giving notice not to extend costs at least 12 monthly payments, unless one of the five exempt cases applies.
- A below-market rent does not reliably cap that bill: the band value applies first, and the contract rent is used only where the dwelling has no individualised band value.
- For an owner already letting there, the obligation passes to a buyer with the property, and from the first renewal date after 15 November 2026 the five-year or seven-year extensions delay the earliest date it can be recovered.
What to watch
- Where the lease or the extension running has less than six months left when the decree takes effect, notice may be given at least four months in advance; a lease already in its statutory extension finishes that period under the old rules first.
- Notices validly served before publication keep their effect and create no right to compensation, and for a given property the number to establish is the upper value of its own individualised band in the state reference system.
Sources: Boletín Oficial del Estado https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2026-20822; idealista https://www.idealista.com/sala-de-prensa/informes-precio-vivienda/alquiler/