Update, 2 October 2026: Congress rejected the rental-renewal decree. Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 received 166 votes in favour and 184 against. The official BOE resolution confirms its repeal. Its repeated five- or seven-year renewal rules and new non-renewal compensation provisions are no longer in force.
Congress also rejected Real Decreto-ley 26/2026, the companion housing package, by 172 votes in favour to 178 against. The BOE confirms that repeal too. RTPA reports both vote totals. Our companion article now includes the outcome.
If your rental contract is ending, you cannot rely on this repealed decree as the basis for a new five- or seven-year renewal, six-month landlord notice or twelve-month compensation entitlement. Existing rules and any protections under other legislation need to be checked against your contract. If you received notice, signed an agreement or took another action during the decree's brief period in force, seek advice about that specific situation rather than assuming today's vote automatically reverses it.
Historical explanation below. We have retained our 1 October account of what Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 contained. Its descriptions and practical suggestions reflect the position before today's rejection and should not be used as a guide to the law now in force.
Original report, 1 October 2026: subsequently repealed
Spain rental contract renewal rules change in 2026 under a second housing decree published today, 1 October. Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 introduces repeated five- or seven-year renewals for habitual-home leases and compensation for certain landlord non-renewals. It takes effect on 2 October 2026, with transition rules for existing contracts.
This follows yesterday’s guide to Spain’s housing law changes, which covered the first decree, Real Decreto-ley 26/2026. The second decree has now been published, so the automatic-renewal proposal mentioned in that article has a legal text to check.
I read the original decree in the BOE, including the exceptions and transition provisions. If your lease is approaching its end, the questions are practical: can you stay, how much notice must your landlord give, and could compensation be due if you have to leave?
Original status note, written on 1 October 2026 and superseded by the update above. Publication and the stated start date are verified. This article does not establish a parliamentary validation outcome. Recheck the BOE before acting on a deadline or disputed notice.
Spain rental contract renewal 2026: five or seven more years
The decree rewrites Article 10 of the Urban Leases Act, usually called the LAU. Its renewal rules concern your habitual home, or vivienda habitual. The provision does not make nationality a condition of renewal. For an expat tenant, the type of lease and its timing are what need checking.
Once a qualifying tenancy has lasted at least five years, or seven years where the landlord is a legal entity, it renews for successive periods of the same length unless either party gives the required notice. That means another five years with an individual landlord or another seven years with a company landlord, subject to the transition rules below.
Under the new Article 10.1, the landlord must give at least six months’ notice of non-renewal. The tenant must give at least two months’ notice to prevent renewal at that expiry point. Those deadlines concern non-renewal at expiry; they should not be treated as a complete guide to leaving a tenancy early.
Repeated renewals can give you a longer planning horizon, but they do not guarantee that you can stay forever. A landlord can give valid notice of non-renewal, and compensation may then become relevant. Nor does renewal mean that rent is frozen: annual rent-update rules are a separate issue covered in yesterday’s article.
The five- or seven-year renewal is also separate from the first decree’s extraordinary extension of up to two years for qualifying existing leases. Additional provision one of the second decree says that the first decree’s extraordinary extension does not apply where the ordinary Article 10.1 renewal applies. You should not add both periods together automatically.
When a landlord must pay non-renewal compensation
Where a landlord validly stops renewal under Article 10.1, the starting rule is compensation of at least twelve months’ rent for a comparable home. The decree says to calculate it using the state rental-price reference system whenever possible.
There is a further floor: compensation cannot be less than one month’s rent for each year the tenant has lived in the home, with shorter periods prorated by months and days. Payment is generally due when the tenant hands over the property, subject to the personal-use exception below.
The comparable-home wording matters. Multiplying your current rent by twelve does not necessarily establish the amount owed. I would ask for the calculation and its supporting basis in writing before agreeing to a figure.
Article 10.2 lists exceptions that must be stated expressly, in detail and in writing in the notice. These include an individual landlord needing the home as a permanent residence for themselves, qualifying relatives within the second degree by blood or adoption, or a spouse in the specified final separation, divorce or annulment circumstances. If the stated occupants have not moved in within three months of handover, compensation becomes claimable unless force majeure applies.
Another exception concerns a tenant who has not lived in the property for more than six months during the preceding twelve. The text allows justified absences, including health, work, studies or family care, and situations where the people covered by LAU Article 7.1 remained there. It also excludes compensation where the tenant has another suitable home in the same municipality, through full ownership or a qualifying right of use, and can occupy it.
Compensation is also excluded if the parties sign a new habitual-home contract. Rejecting a properly evidenced offer for a new contract can exclude it too, even through tacit rejection. That offer must provide at least five or seven years, depending on the landlord, and meet Article 17.6 rent-setting rules even outside a declared stressed housing area. A higher-rent offer does not qualify merely because the landlord calls it a renewal.
The final listed exception concerns duly justified circumstances where an accredited vulnerable landlord’s interests prevail. These exceptions need individual assessment; a non-renewal letter alone does not prove that payment is due or excluded.
The overlap with extraordinary extensions needs care
Article 10.1 separately excludes compensation where the tenant qualifies, at the relevant expiry, for a legal extension that the landlord must accept on request. That exclusion applies even if the tenant never requests it.
However, additional provision one, paragraph two, contemplates compensation when a tenancy ends after the first decree’s extraordinary extension following a valid landlord non-renewal, unless an Article 10.2 exception applies.
Those provisions create an interpretive question when both might affect the same tenancy. I would take the contract and notice to a Spanish tenancy lawyer before relying on either a guaranteed payout or an automatic exclusion. The wording is not a sound basis for promising every displaced tenant twelve months’ rent.
The decree also keeps the qualifying vulnerability extension and the stressed-area extension in Article 10, now in paragraphs five and six. It sets coordination rules for extraordinary extensions, including priority for the stressed-area provision. Eligibility for one protection can therefore affect how another operates.
What happens to an existing rental contract?
The transition provision does not renew every existing lease immediately on 2 October.
Its first paragraph applies the new Article 10 to existing habitual-home contracts for expiries occurring after the day following entry into force. With entry into force on 2 October, the literal wording points to expiries after 3 October. A lease ending around those dates deserves a specific legal check.
If less than six months remain before the current contract or extension expires when the decree starts, the landlord may give a minimum of four months’ notice, rather than six. The new notice period should therefore not be used to dismiss every four-month notice as invalid.
Contracts already in the old Article 10.1 extension period continue through that period under the previous wording. Paragraph three says the new Article 10 applies when it ends. This is why your original signing date alone may not tell you when a five- or seven-year renewal begins.
There is a separate rule for tácita reconducción, the Civil Code continuation that can arise after a lease has ended. The new Article 10 applies from the first reconduction expiry after four months have elapsed from entry into force. Until then, duration remains governed by the relevant Civil Code provisions. Time under the original contract and in reconduction counts together towards the five- or seven-year threshold.
For these reconduction cases, the decree expressly preserves valid termination communications made before entry into force and says they do not trigger the new compensation. Its explanatory text also describes preserving earlier non-renewal notices more broadly. If you already received notice, check its legal basis, date and validity before assuming the new rules cancel it.
What I would check before responding to a landlord
I would start with the original contract, every extension agreement and any termination notice. Identify whether the landlord is an individual or a legal entity, then establish the current expiry and whether the tenancy is in its initial term, an LAU extension or Civil Code reconduction.
Keep the notice itself and evidence of when it arrived. If it cites personal housing need or offers a replacement contract, retain the full wording and proposed terms. Avoid rejecting an offer casually before understanding whether Article 10.2.e could affect compensation.
Payment records, utility bills and municipal registration can help document your position, but no single document guarantees the outcome of an occupancy dispute. If you spent time away for work, health or family reasons, keep evidence of that reason too.
These are practical recommendations, not additional statutory conditions. For an expiring lease or disputed payment, take the documents to your regional housing service or a Spanish tenancy lawyer and ask them to assess Article 10 and the decree’s transition provisions together. The answer depends on the stage of your tenancy and the notice you received.
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