Spain’s rental market is at the heart of the country’s housing crisis, with tenants facing eyewatering prices, very little choice and undesirable short-term contracts. We asked The Local Spain’s readers what their rental experience has been like.
Housing is the biggest worry Spaniards have currently, according to the country’s Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), with 40 percent saying it’s the most serious problem the country faces.
It’s also a huge concern for foreigners in Spain, a study by La Caixa Foundation has found.
Even though affluent buyers from overseas are snapping up more Spanish homes in recent years, when it comes to the rental market, foreigners of all income levels confront the same if not more obstacles than Spaniards when finding a place to stay here.
Has this been the case for you as a foreigner in Spain?
Perhaps you can’t afford rents in your area because they’ve grown more than your salary has, maybe there simply aren’t enough long-term rentals on the market where you are, or maybe you’ve had bad experiences in the past and you’re looking for a way to stop the same happening again.
To really understand how bad the situation is for many tenants, we turned to you, our readers, and asked you about the problems you’ve come across trying to rent a long-term home in Spain.
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The results of our survey are very telling. There are many different issues when it comes to renting here, depending on your situation.
Furthermore, it’s not just the big cities like Madrid and Barcelona where the rental problems are, the issues seem to be in many other cities in Spain, as well as smaller coastal towns.
First, there are those who simply can’t afford the rents and the deposits, which are totally above their means.
Amanda Steinhauer in León told The Local Spain: “Landlords want extremely high deposits or a full year’s worth of rent in advance”.
“I’m having a nightmare right now,” wrote another. “I found a good job with above average salary and it’s almost impossible to find accommodation. I had to opt for a short-term rental instead”.
Another reader on Facebook labelled the situation is a “disgrace” – “The apartments that come up are more than what we get in wages. I’ve been looking for two years and finally found a place. We’re grateful, but, the kids have had to change schools”.
A reader in the Canary Islands told us that he’d “worked in Gran Canaria for years now and I’m looking for another apartment, the rentals have gone through the roof, far too expensive”.
One reader has even had to resort to extreme measures because he couldn’t find anywhere to rent: “I’m living in a camper van for the past four years as long-term rental has become impossible in the area where I live. Or the rent they ask is way out of proportion for someone who earns a normal Spanish salary. Or they only rent from September to June and kick you out during summer as they want to use it themselves or rent via Airbnb to make even more profit”.
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Others have decided to leave Spain altogether because rent has become too expensive.
“Spain is outpricing itself. I moved here 16 years ago from the UK because it was cheaper and offered a better lifestyle. Now it doesn’t. Costs are on a par with the UK, but wages aren’t. I’m now planning to relocate to Thailand in the next year. Such a shame,” one reader revealed.
Another foreigner in Spain agreed, saying: “I know people at work moved back to their native countries because they can’t find a reasonable long-term rental”.
Even if you can afford the monthly rent, many people end up being priced out because they cannot afford the multiple months of deposit upfront.
One lady explained that even with a good wage, they can’t find somewhere: “Many places are asking for four months or more upfront…. Don’t get me wrong, I get paid a good wage, but only so much goes in bank… I still can’t get an apartment for me and family”.
A reader who has lived in both Valencia and Alicante explained that “My experiences with renting have been brutal in both cities. For the first rental I had to pay one year in advance plus deposit. Alicante was the worst. I paid a year in advance plus agency fees plus two months deposit and I had to leave because of major security issues with the apartment… Back in Valencia more bad experiences, scams etc”.
READ ALSO: How to avoid being scammed when looking for a property to rent in Spain
Then there are the people that can’t find a long-term apartment even if they could afford them, because there aren’t any available. And those with pets who are finding it even more difficult.
Reader Val Buttress explained: “There are very few properties for long-term rent, we have been trying to move to a bigger flat for a year, but we have only been able to view two properties (both not suitable).
Another reader explained that “In the Torrevieja area, housing stock for rent is almost non-existent. Look online and either the places to rent are a scam, don’t exist or were already rented a year ago… Go to the letting agents’ sites and they all have the rented badge on them or the section is blank”.
One survey respondent living in Andalusia also had the same problem: “Here in Cádiz there are only rents from September to June, hence many are unoccupied until July and August because of Airbnb!”
“There is extremely limited availability, especially if you have a dog, overpricing and poor-quality flats. The only options we have had in the last years were through contacts, and even then, it didn’t work out,” another wrote of his experiences.
The next group of people we asked were foreigners who have come to live in Spain on the Digital Nomad Visa (DNV) or Non-Lucrative Visa (NLV), for example.
They might be able to afford the rent, but even if there is availability, no one is renting to them because they don’t have a Spanish salary and many landlords are not willing to take the risk on the self-employed.
One reader explained the situation very well when writing: “People don’t want to rent to someone without a Spanish employment contract allegedly because they can’t pursue you in a Spanish court if you don’t pay. So even if you have a DNV with a high income, they’re not interested…. So essentially, I paid a three-month deposit – one month deposit and two months’ non-payment deposit. And I’m one of the lucky ones”.
Another one agreed saying that “DNV holders like any other arriving immigrants can’t show a Spanish income track record which many landlord insurance providers demand”.
Someone else believes the situation is insane for everyone, as well as those on the DNV “Inflated prices and agency fees (typically 1 month of the rent plus 10 percent tax) that is charged to the incoming tenant; discrimination from a few that want your salary to be local supposedly because this is required for the insurance. So essentially, they want the tenant to pay higher rent, PLUS the agency fee, on a local salary?!”.
“They don’t want to rent to autónomos, even if we have a lot of money saved up, and have regular monthly income” one agreed.
Another reader on the DNV explained the paradox of having a government trying to attract remote workers and then landlords and agents those won’t rent to those without local work contracts.
“You cannot have a Spanish work contract on this visa, which makes renting almost impossible in this country. In Madrid in early 2025 it was challenging to find a rental without a Spanish work contract, in Barcelona in early 2026 it was literally impossible despite my more than sufficient earnings… in Sevilla it wasn’t that hard, but I ended up signing a contract with abusive terms because I needed a place to live… I have lived in 4 countries, and never had such a hard time finding places to live”.
While the housing crisis is affecting cities across Spain, the truth is that there is also the issue of Empty Spain – huge swathes of the country where properties remain empty and people are leaving the villages for better opportunities in the cities.
This means that not everyone has been finding it difficult to rent long-term, it just depends on where you live or where you choose to move to.
One person summed it up well: “Rent is cheap and there is a lot available, the problem is everyone wants to be in the same place. Remember Spain is big and a lot of it is empty”.
“A lot of places are empty, there’s no one living in them, even the long-term rentals. Where we live, many apartments are empty,” another agreed.
A third person confirmed that “There are thousands and thousands of properties at giveaway prices in rural districts”.
We’ll soon publish the answers from landlords and property owners in Spain, providing the other side of the coin, so stay tuned.
