Rental Observatory finds rents rose 5.9% in 2025 to an average €1,184 as 33,418 homes left the market. Tenants face an affordability ceiling and tight supply.
Spain’s rental market has reached a turning point, driven less by increased supply and more by tenants’ dwindling ability to pay, according to the 2025 Rental Barometer published by the Rental Observatory (Safe Rental Foundation with Rey Juan Carlos University). After double-digit growth in 2024, rental prices rose 5.9% last year — a marked slowdown from the 11.3% jump seen the year before.
Average rent and demand pressure
The national average monthly rent closed 2025 at €1,184. While prices continue to climb, the pace of growth has slowed because more households simply cannot assume higher rents. In large cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, tenants are now spending almost 40% of their income on rent, a level that the report identifies as a practical ceiling for further increases.
“The market has reached a turning point where prices have stopped rising at the rate of previous years…not because of a greater supply, but because of the impossibility of tenants to assume higher rents,” the report concludes. As a result, when relatively affordable units do appear, they are snapped up immediately.
Supply collapse and regional hotspots
The Observatory documents a sharp contraction in the homes put on the rental market. At the end of 2025 there were 683,920 marketed rental homes — 33,418 fewer than a year earlier, a 4.7% drop from 717,338 in 2024. Most of the lost supply is concentrated in areas under regulatory intervention or in the process of intervention.
Barcelona stands out as the most strained market: the province recorded 462 interested parties per flat — the highest figure in the Observatory’s historical series — and lost 11,594 properties, representing 34.7% of the national decline. Other provinces with significant reductions in marketed supply include Seville (-3,139), Valencia (-2,218), Asturias (-2,217), Vizcaya (-1,588), Cádiz (-1,573), Cantabria (-1,458), Castellón (-1,292) and Alicante (-1,074).
Some provinces bucked the trend, with Salamanca (+9.3%), Cáceres (+9%) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (+6.3%) stabilizing or recovering supply. Madrid and Malaga also show signs of recent stabilization after earlier falls.
Market dynamics and consequences
The Rental Observatory warns that the moderation in the loss of supply — the fall in marketed homes is smaller than the 95,216-unit decline between 2023 and 2024 — should not be confused with a recovery. The cumulative reduction in supply remains deep, meaning any new property entering the market is absorbed almost immediately by high, persistent demand.
Interest per listing remains high: the report notes around 135 interested parties per advertised property in the first ten days in 2025 (slightly down from 136 in Q3 but well above 124 in 2024). The imbalance between scarce supply and robust demand is reshaping where demand concentrates: as prices and pressure in big cities increase, demand is expected to shift toward metropolitan outskirts and bordering areas — an “expulsion effect” from large capitals.
Outlook for 2026
Looking ahead, the Observatory forecasts a slowdown in national average rent growth in 2026. However, this slowdown will mainly reflect affordability limits rather than a true easing of market pressure. Structural factors — constrained supply, more single-person households, delayed homeownership among young people and rising demand — mean the rental market will remain tilted toward scarcity. Policymakers, landlords and tenants will face continued tensions as the market adjusts to these limits.
