The Council of Ministers approved both decrees on 6 October, and both appear in BOE no. 249 of 7 October 2026. Real Decreto-ley 28/2026 (BOE-A-2026-20822) rewrites Article 10 of the Urban Leases Act (Ley 29/1994), on renewal of habitual-residence leases. Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 (BOE-A-2026-20823) covers purchases, evictions, leases, taxes and housing finance.

They replace Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 and Real Decreto-ley 26/2026, which Congress agreed to repeal in its session of 2 October under resolutions published that day in BOE no. 245 (BOE-A-2026-20526 and BOE-A-2026-20527). The earlier texts are covered in Spain's Congress repeals both housing decree-laws. What the texts provided for landlords, SOCIMIs and short lets while they applied.

When each decree takes effect

Real Decreto-ley 28/2026 sets a fixed date in its final provision two, "El presente real decreto-ley entrará en vigor el 15 de noviembre de 2026". The text attaches no condition to that date and does not link it to convalidation.

Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 takes effect on 8 October 2026, the day after publication, under its final provision eleven, "salvo que alguna de sus disposiciones establezca otra cosa". The provisions that set their own dates are these:

  • 1 January 2026, backdated. The 1.1 per cent imputed income rate where cadastral values were revised from 2012, for tax years 2023 to 2026 (Article 6, part one).
  • 1 December 2026. VAT on short lets at the reduced 10 per cent rate, the 10 per cent rate for renovation of homes let as a habitual residence and the 4 per cent rate for certain protected homes and for homes bought by companies under the special rental regime (Article 7). New maximum coefficients for the municipal capital gains tax on urban land, the plusvalía, ranging from 0.11 to 0.30 depending on years of ownership (Article 10).
  • Contracts signed after 1 December 2026. The new landlord income tax reductions. Leases signed between the 2023 Housing Law and 1 December 2026 keep the reduction as worded on 31 December 2025 (Article 6, transitional provision thirty-eight of the income tax law).
  • 1 January 2027. A progressive scale for imputed income on urban property that is neither let nor the owner's habitual home, from 1.1 per cent of cadastral value on the first €100,000 to 3 per cent above €1 million (Article 6, part three).
  • Tax periods. The property tax (IBI) surcharges apply to tax periods beginning from 8 October (Article 8). The higher SOCIMI levy applies to tax periods that began in 2026 and have not closed by 8 October (Article 9).
  • End dates. The purchase limit and the eviction suspensions run to 31 December 2030 (Articles 1 and 2). The two-year lease extension covers leases in force on 8 October whose mandatory term ends before 31 December 2028, or whose tacit extension ends (final provision five). The 2 per cent cap covers rent updates from 8 October to 31 December 2027 (final provision six).

Real Decreto-ley 28/2026 and the return of lease renewal

The renewal rule of the repealed Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 returns. Once a habitual-residence lease has run at least five years, or seven where the landlord is a company or other legal person, it renews "tácita y obligatoriamente" for further periods of five or seven years at each expiry, unless one side gives notice, at least six months ahead for the landlord and two months for the tenant.

A landlord who validly declines to renew owes the tenant an indemnity on handover, now the greater of 12 monthly payments, or one monthly payment for each year the tenant has lived there, with both valued at the upper end of the individual range the state rental reference system gives that home. Without an individual value, the rent in force at the date of the notice is used. Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 had set at least 12 months' rent of a comparable home, calculated on the reference system where possible.

No indemnity is due where the written notice states one of five causes. The first is an individual landlord who needs the home for themselves, for relatives up to the second degree or for a spouse after a final separation, divorce or annulment ruling, with the indemnity due if the home is not occupied within three months. The others are a tenant absent for more than six of the previous 12 months without justified cause, a tenant with another suitable home in the same municipality, a new lease between the parties, and a tenant who rejects a formal offer of a new five or seven year lease at a rent within the Article 17.6 limits. The sixth cause in the repealed text, a landlord whose own proven vulnerability should prevail, has been removed.

Other changes from Real Decreto-ley 27/2026 are these:

  • Statutory extensions. A tenant who qualifies for a mandatory statutory extension and does not ask for it loses the indemnity. A tenant who asks for it keeps the right, which becomes payable when the extension ends. The repealed text denied the indemnity whenever the tenant qualified.
  • End of an extraordinary extension. When the one-year extension for vulnerable tenants of large landlords or the three-year extension in stressed market zones ends, the lease now ends under the original notice, and any indemnity falls due then.
  • Own-use exception in stressed zones. The exception to the three-year extension for a landlord's own or family use now covers first-degree relatives only, not second degree.
  • Notices already given. Non-renewal notices validly given before publication on 7 October keep their effect and carry no indemnity, even if a statutory extension later applies.
  • Tacit renewal under the Civil Code. These leases come under the new Article 10 from the first expiry of the tacit period after 15 November, counting the whole time toward the five or seven years, without the repealed text's four-month offsets.

The new Article 10 applies to leases in force on 15 November for expiries after that date. Where fewer than six months remain, four months' notice from the landlord is enough. Leases already in an annual tacit extension under the earlier Article 10.1 finish it under that wording first. Reading the two decrees' start dates together, from 8 October to 15 November Article 10 stands as rewritten by Real Decreto-ley 29/2026, which keeps annual extensions for up to three years with four months' notice and limits them to habitual-residence leases.

The two-year extension in final provision five of Real Decreto-ley 29/2026 does not apply where the new renewal does. A landlord who gave valid notice and ends a lease after that extension without an Article 10.2 cause owes the indemnity, subject to the transitional rules.

Real Decreto-ley 29/2026, what returns unchanged

Most of Real Decreto-ley 26/2026 returns with only its number and typography changed, though periods counted from entry into force now start on 8 October. That includes the 2 per cent cap on rent updates through 2027 and the two-year extension for tenants up to date with eight months' rent (final provisions six and five), the rules on temporary and room lets, the revised definition of a large holder (more than ten residential properties or 1,500 square metres), VAT on short lets, the IBI surcharges, the SOCIMI levy, the plusvalía coefficients and the whole of Article 6.

VAT applies at the reduced 10 per cent rate to furnished lets with hotel-type services, or of 30 nights or less for the same tenant, unless in the landlord's own habitual home.

Councils in stressed market zones may add an IBI surcharge on homes used as tourist accommodation of up to 50 per cent, 100 per cent for owners of two or more and 150 per cent for four or more. Separate surcharges on homes left empty for over two years also return.

A SOCIMI's special levy on profit it keeps rather than pays out rises from 15 to 25 per cent where that profit comes from letting homes, short lets included. It is halved where more than 80 per cent of its rented homes are affordable, and cancelled if that profit is also reinvested in affordable rentals within three years, with lower thresholds of 60 per cent for 2026 and 70 per cent for 2027.

What is new or changed in Real Decreto-ley 29/2026

  • Purchase limit (Article 1). The limit now runs to 31 December 2030 rather than 2028. It covers entities that buy property or defaulted mortgage portfolios at prices clearly below appraisal value, and legal persons that are large holders, with their groups, in place of any entity whose corporate purpose included buying property. A home may not be acquired free or for less than 70 per cent of its market value, now set at the date of the binding agreement by an independent appraiser registered with the Banco de España. The affordable-housing exemption requires that use until at least 31 December 2030, and the exemptions for a code of good practice and for court and mortgage enforcement apply only once the Council of Ministers has approved that code.
  • Court costs. Where a court suspends an eviction of a vulnerable tenant without alternative housing, the housing authority's compensation to an individual landlord, or a company letting at affordable or social rents, now includes court costs (Article 2.2). In non-payment evictions of economically vulnerable tenants, an authority that offers no alternative housing must pay, or deposit with the court, all sums claimed and those falling due up to payment, together with court costs. Interest runs if it pays late after the court has ordered payment (Article 22.6 of the Civil Procedure Act).
  • Rental advertising (Article 20, new). Every rental offer or advertisement must include the reference rent index where the home is in a stressed zone, the applicable rent limit where one applies, the home's registration number or code where there is one, and the landlord's large-holder status where relevant.
  • TU CASA first-home loans (Article 19). The loans are now open regardless of age. They cover the lower of 20 per cent of the home's value and €50,000, at zero interest and without fees, as a complement to a private mortgage. An extraordinary credit of €10 billion funds the ICO line, with €5 million for ICO's financial costs. Homes bought with it must be a habitual residence and, if let, rented below the reference index limit. The resale cap at the purchase price updated by consumer prices was already in the repealed text.
  • Social Impact Housing Fund (Article 13). Created without a figure in the repealed text, the fund now receives an initial €400 million through an extraordinary credit.

Landlords' income tax under Article 6

Article 6 is identical in substance to Article 6 of Real Decreto-ley 26/2026. It rewrites the reduction that landlords who are Spanish tax residents apply to positive net income from letting homes, in Article 23.2 of the income tax law (Ley 35/2006). As currently worded, that reduction is 90, 70, 60 or 50 per cent.

Under the new wording, a landlord who is not a large holder signing a new lease at a rent more than 5 per cent below the previous one gets 100 per cent where the new lease is with the same tenant after the minimum term or last extension, or with a new tenant at a rent below the reference index limit. Otherwise the reduction is 95 per cent in a stressed zone with a tenant aged 18 to 35, 90 per cent in a stressed zone, 85 per cent with a tenant aged 18 to 35 and 70 per cent in other cases. A new rent no higher than the last one earns 50 per cent. A higher rent earns between 40 and 15 per cent, falling as the increase grows. A first let earns 100 per cent at a rent below the index limit. At or above the limit, the same 95, 90 and 85 per cent steps apply, and 50 per cent where none of those conditions is met. Lets to public bodies or non-profits for social housing earn 70 per cent, and lets after a renovation finished in the previous two years earn 60 per cent.

Large holders do not qualify for the new-lease and first-let reductions. A landlord who is not a large holder gets 80 per cent while a lease runs on in tacit extension at a rent within the index limit, where the five-year minimum term ends after 1 December 2026.

Convalidation

Both decrees still need convalidation, a vote by the Congreso to validate or repeal them, within 30 days of their promulgation under Article 86.2 of the Constitution. Real Decreto 806/2026, published in the BOE on 6 October, dissolved the Cortes and called elections for 29 November, so the Congreso's Diputación Permanente decides on convalidation and acts until the new chambers meet on 23 December.

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Sources

Sources read 7 October 2026 (SGT).