Spain introduced new tenant protections — and revoked them within a day: what happens now with evictions
The new rules for tenants in Spain were unusually short-lived. One of the two housing decrees took effect on October 1, and on October 2 parliament refused to endorse it. With it, the special protection of vulnerable tenants from eviction until 2030 and a number of other measures lost force.
The second decree, which was supposed to significantly change the rules for extending ordinary rental contracts, took effect on the morning of October 2 and was revoked the same day.
Such a reversal is possible due to the peculiarities of Spanish legislation: a royal decree-law can take effect immediately after publication, but must then receive confirmation from the Congress of Deputies. This time, parliament voted against both documents.
For tenants, the main consequence is this: they can no longer rely on the rules that had just been introduced — including eviction protection until 2030 and the new system of automatic contract renewals.
What happened in just a few days
On September 29, the Spanish government approved two royal decree-laws on housing.
The first — Real Decreto-ley 26/2026 — was published in the official state gazette BOE on September 30 and took effect on October 1.
It included a broad package of measures: protection of certain vulnerable tenants from eviction until the end of 2030, additional possibilities for extending leases, new rules for temporary rentals and room rentals, tax benefits and restrictions for certain real estate transactions.
The second document — Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 — appeared in the BOE on October 1 and took effect on October 2. Its main goal was longer-term stability of ordinary residential lease contracts.
But already on October 2 both documents were put to an extraordinary vote in Congress.
The first decree received 172 votes in favor and 178 against. The second — 166 votes in favor and 184 against. After that, both norms were officially revoked.
Thus, the first part of the housing reform was in force for about a day, and the second — only on the day of the parliamentary vote.
Eviction protection until 2030 no longer applies
One of the most notable measures of the first decree concerned families and individual tenants who are recognized as vulnerable and have no other place to live.
The new mechanism provided for the possibility of suspending the eviction of such people until December 31, 2030 subject to conditions established by law.
Separate rules applied to situations where the eviction was initiated by companies buying real estate or distressed mortgage assets, as well as to some other categories of owners.
Small owners were exempted. In particular, the protection was not supposed to apply in the same way if the owner himself was in a vulnerable position and owned no more than two residential properties.
An additional mechanism was also provided in case of rent arrears: if the autonomous community authorities did not provide a person with alternative housing, regional bodies in certain cases were required to intervene to prevent eviction.
After the parliament's decision, this new special regime until 2030 lost force.
This does not mean that all tenant rights have disappeared in Spain or that any eviction can now occur immediately. Ordinary tenancy legislation, judicial procedures and other legal guarantees continue to apply. It is the additional protective mechanism introduced by the new decree that has been revoked.
Gone too is the possibility to extend some contracts for another two years
The first decree gave additional protection to tenants whose current contracts were to expire before December 31, 2028.
They could request an emergency extension of the lease for a maximum of two more years — one year at a time, mostly on the same terms.
After the decree was revoked, this new right no longer applies.
This is especially important for people who had been counting on staying in their apartment after the end of the current contract thanks to this new norm.
Automatic lease renewal is also canceled
An even more significant change was contained in the second decree.
Under the ordinary rules of the Spanish Urban Tenancy Act (Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos, LAU), the minimum duration of a lease is five years if the owner is a natural person, and seven years if the housing belongs to a legal entity.
After that, in the absence of notice, the contract can be extended annually — for a maximum of three more years.
The new decree was supposed to radically change this model.
After the end of the five- or seven-year period, the contract was to be automatically extended for new periods of the same length unless one of the parties gave prior notice of termination.
For the owner, the notice period increased from four to six months.
Moreover, if the landlord decided not to extend the contract, in a number of cases he had to pay the tenant compensation of at least 12 monthly rental payments for comparable housing.
Exceptions to this rule were provided for — for example, when the owner as a private individual needs the apartment for his own residence or for close relatives.
After the vote on October 2, this new regime also ceased to apply.
Consequently, for ordinary contracts the previous LAU system applies again: five or seven years of minimum length and then annual renewal for a maximum of three years, unless the parties declare termination within the established deadlines.
It was not only eviction and lease rules that were revoked
The first decree was much broader and affected practically the entire Spanish housing market.
In particular, it introduced stricter rules for temporary rentals and renting individual rooms. For temporary rentals, the owner had to justify the reason for the tenant's temporary stay, and the rental was generally limited to a period from 31 days to 12 months.
For renting individual rooms, a rule was provided under which the total rent for the rooms must not exceed the rental price of the whole apartment.
Also provided were a state tax benefit for some tenants with incomes below about €33,000 per year, additional incentives for landlords reducing rental costs, and a special program for financing the purchase of a first home.
Under the TU CASA program, it was planned to provide financing of up to 20% of the value of a first home — up to €50,000 — at 0% and without fees subject to conditions being met.
All these innovations were part of the revoked package and cannot automatically continue to apply after the Congress decision.
How the rules managed to take effect before the vote
The situation may look strange: a law began to apply, and parliament voted on it only the next day.
But that is exactly how the mechanism of royal decree-laws works in Spain.
In extraordinary circumstances, the government may adopt such a legislative act without going through the full parliamentary process in advance. After publication in the BOE, it can take effect almost immediately.
However, Article 86 of the Spanish Constitution requires the Congress of Deputies to consider the document within 30 days and either confirm or revoke it.
In this case, the government did not wait a month and brought both housing decrees to a vote almost at once.
Congress refused to endorse them, and on October 2 official decisions on their revocation were published in the BOE.
Why deputies did not support the package
The first decree was rejected by votes against from the People's Party (PP), Vox and the Catalan Junts. At the vote on the second document, representatives of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Coalición Canaria also joined in the opposition.
The government presented the package as a way to strengthen tenant protection and respond to the housing crisis, growing rental costs and public protests.
Junts, explaining its decision, said that the proposed restrictions could, on the contrary, reduce the supply of housing on the rental market, and demanded that the government withdraw the documents and prepare a new version.
Other opponents of the decrees also criticized the degree of state intervention in the tenant-landlord relationship.
Thus, the dispute is not so much about the existence of a housing problem — different political forces acknowledge the rise in housing costs — as about the methods to solve it.
What is important for tenants in Spain now
For a person already renting housing in Spain, the main thing is not to rely on news about the new rules of September 29 as current legislation.
Eviction protection until 2030, emergency extension of some contracts for another two years, and the new mechanism of virtually automatic long-term lease extensions have been revoked.
In any specific situation, one must look at the date and terms of the current contract, the status of the owner, provisions of the Urban Tenancy Act and other applicable rules.
This is especially important for tenants whose contract is soon to expire or who are already involved in legal proceedings related to arrears or eviction.
On September 29, Kurs wrote about the government adopting a new package of tenant protections. The vote on October 2 completely changed the situation: parliament did not confirm the two decrees, so the new rights and restrictions they provided lost force.
This has resulted in a rare legal turnaround: in Spain, new housing rules managed to become law, but some of them lasted only one day. To bring back these measures, the government will now need a new legislative act and a new attempt to get parliamentary support.
Based on materials from: Boletín Oficial del Estado — revocation of Real Decreto-ley 26/2026, Boletín Oficial del Estado — revocation of Real Decreto-ley 27/2026, Congress of Deputies of Spain, Government of Spain, Reuters.
