Every home in this city is a choice

Would you choose community and Catalonia over personal enrichment?

Fair housing for everyone who lives here enriches all.

Most owners in Barcelona aren't funds. They're families: a flat inherited from grandparents, a second home bought with a lifetime of savings, a pension in bricks. About 2% of landlords hold about 36% of the city's main-residence rentals (El Salto). The rest are people like you.

Right now you're being asked to take a side. Owners' associations, including one whose members include large international funds, say many owners won't put flats back on the long-term market until parliament votes (Público). Agencies are offering to relabel your flat as "temporary" or "holiday". Selling is in the air.

Before you choose, ask who it serves. A flat held empty to pressure a vote is a home taken from your neighbours. A fake holiday lease turns a newcomer into a tool against them. A sale ends your income for good and, if many owners sell at once, they compete with one another for the same buyers.

A city where teachers, nurses, shopkeepers and their children can live is a city where your property keeps its value, your street keeps its shops, and your own grandchildren can stay. Choose community. Choose Catalonia.

The fake lease is the riskiest lease in Barcelona.

Agencies sell the "temporary" or "holiday" contract as the safe option. Read what it actually exposes you to.

Fines up to €900,000.
Catalonia can fine a false lease purpose, or rent more than 30% over the cap, up to €900,000 (idealista).
The burden of proof is yours.
Since 1 January 2026 the contract must state the temporary purpose and the tenant's permanent home elsewhere, and you must file proof of the temporary reason with the deposit. If none is on file, the law presumes the flat is the tenant's permanent home (idealista).
5 to 7 years at a capped rent.
If a court finds the flat was really the tenant's home, the lease is a housing lease: extendable every year up to 5 years, or 7 if the owner is a company (OCU). Courts have done it (OCU).
The "holiday" label won't save you.
Holiday leases must say so, and courts look at the real purpose. A family with children in a Barcelona school is not on holiday.
Your agent can't shield you.
Agents who take part in fraudulent temporary contracts can be sanctioned too (Don Porqué), but the contract carries your name.
Enforcement has started.
The first rent-cap fines came in July 2026, with 654 cases open (idealista). Tenants can complain about contracts signed since 30 January 2025 (Generalitat).
A second contract can lock it in.
Sign a new contract with the same tenant for the same flat and the duration rules of a permanent lease apply, unless you prove the temporary reason still exists (idealista).
Tenants are learning the law.
This website exists to teach every newcomer in Barcelona what you've just read. You can't tell which tenant knows it.
Every request is in writing now.
This website tells every tenant to keep every message, and to ask in writing whether a temporary reason is a condition for renting. A message asking your tenant to produce a fake reason is evidence of a false purpose, in a contract with your name on it.
This isn't squatting. It's your lease.
A tenant who stays after a fake end date and keeps paying the rent is using the law, not breaking it. You won't be facing a squatter. You'll be facing a judge who reads the lease for what it really was (OCU).

A fake lease is a bet that your tenant never finds out. Regularise before it's regularised for you.

Already have a tenant on a "temporary" or "holiday" contract who lives in the flat? Offer a regular housing lease at the legal rent. Talk to a housing office first: they advise owners too.

There's a loophole in the loophole.

Don't buy the line that a fake lease protects you.

Owners are sold the fake “holiday” lease as the safe option. It isn't. If the flat is really the tenant's home, the law can treat it as a regular housing lease, and tenants are organizing to make that happen.

The label won't protect you.
Courts look at the real purpose of a lease, not its title, and have turned disguised temporary leases into housing leases (OCU). Since January, if no proof of a temporary reason is filed with the deposit, the law presumes the flat is the tenant's home (idealista).
A signed “reason” isn't a shield either.
Courts look at the facts, not the label (Captain Legal). In February 2026, the provincial court in A Coruña ruled that an 11½-month lease was really the tenant's home, and rejected the reason written into the contract because the owner couldn't show a real temporary cause (Que.es). Tenants now keep the proof that a “reason” was demanded as a condition of renting, and screenshots of a market where 72% of listings were “temporary” (OCU).
The numbers don't add up.
In 2019, with no cap to dodge, seasonal leases were about 2% of new contracts (Ara). By mid-2025 they were 28% (Ara), and the jump came right after the rent cap (Ara). A wave of “reasons” that appeared the moment the cap did is exactly what organized tenants are looking at. The Generalitat already has 654 cases open (idealista).
Tenants are organizing.
The tenants' union's Ens Quedem (“We stay”) campaign has helped tenants stay in their homes since 2018 (NacióDigital). This website teaches every newcomer in Barcelona how a fake lease can be challenged, and to keep every message as evidence. Newcomers are joining the We Stay group.
A loophole cuts both ways.
The lease written to dodge the cap can become a 5-to-7-year lease at the legal rent (OCU). And the agency that sold you the trick won't be the one in court.
Tenant law protects everyone.
A clear, legal lease protects you too: guaranteed rent and insurance through the city's rental pool, a 50% property-tax rebate (city leaflet), and a tenant who wants to stay and look after the flat. Don't set yourself up by skirting the law.

The trick only works while tenants don't know. They're finding out.

Rent legally, with guarantees

Two choices: rent fairly, or sell to us.

Some owners say they'll sell rather than rent under the rules. Go ahead.

Neighbours and newcomers are pooling their money into housing co-ops, to buy homes and rent them at cost, for good. People put €2 million into co-op housing through one Catalan co-op lender in thirteen hours (El Salto). Every flat pulled off the rental market to make a point is a flat a co-op can buy.

So the threat doesn't work any more. Rent fairly, and you keep neighbours who stay. Sell, and the neighbours may be your buyers. Either way, Barcelona gets fair housing.

Your two choices: fair housing, or fair housing.

Sign the Fair Rent Pledge How neighbours buy homes

“We'll sell instead.” Good. We'll buy, and rent to ourselves.

Holding your flat back until 12 November?

Whatever parliament decides, Catalan law on temporary leases stays in force (idealista), and the national decree itself says it doesn't override regional rules (OCU). The vote won't bring back the fake temporary lease in Catalonia.

Meanwhile, an empty flat still costs you property tax (IBI), community fees and upkeep. Lawyer and researcher Manuel Gabarre calls the threat to keep flats empty "un farol", a bluff (Público). Every month empty is a month's rent you won't get back, and a family that can't move in.

Rent it now, fairly, and keep your income.

Rent fairly, and safely

The fair option comes with public guarantees the fake one never will.

Barcelona's rental pool

Rent through the city's Borsa d'Habitatge de Lloguer and the Ajuntament guarantees rent collection. It includes multi-risk home insurance, legal defence, mediation, a 50% rebate on your property tax (IBI) while the flat is let, and, subject to each year's call, up to €20,000 for renovation on 5-year contracts or €1,500 if the flat was empty (city leaflet).

Ask at a housing office

Avalloguer

Generalitat insurance, through INCASÒL, that covers unpaid rent on regular housing leases, subject to its conditions (idealista). Check the current terms with INCASÒL.

incasol.gencat.cat

Know your legal rent

Set the rent with the Generalitat's calculator and you're covered.

habitatge.gencat.cat/preuslloguer

Long-term tenants cost less

Fewer empty months, no new furniture every year, and fewer agency fees, which on housing leases are yours to pay (idealista).

Rent to newcomers on the same fair terms

A newcomer who can register, enrol their children and plan a life is a tenant who stays and looks after your home. Treat them as neighbours, not as a premium.

What future are you building for your city, and for your children?

Every rent you set is a vote for the Barcelona your children will inherit.

Affordable rents mean more euros spent in local shops and businesses. In Barcelona province, the average rent takes 76% of an average gross salary (Euronews); every euro of that is a euro the forn, the bar and the bookshop never see. Catalonia's small businesses say it too: 98% say their area is a tense housing market, and 63% have trouble hiring (Moncloa.com).

A thriving city is a city where families can afford to live: where the teacher at your grandchildren's school lives nearby, where the shop on your corner has customers, and where your own children can rent a flat in the barri they grew up in.

A thriving city is a city where families can afford to live.

Sign the Fair Rent Pledge

What fake leases build

A new stranger every eleven months
Families who can't put down roots
Shops that lose their regulars
Your own children priced out of the city

What fair rents build

Neighbours who stay and know your name
Children who stay in the same school
Shops with regulars, streets with life
A city your children can afford to live in

The Fair Rent Pledge

Sign it here, in real time. Every signature shows up on the live count the moment it's made, so other owners can see where Barcelona's owners stand.

I rent homes as homes: regular leases for the people who live in them.
I never ask a tenant to sign that they're a tourist, on holiday or have a home elsewhere when it isn't true.
I respect the legal rent.
I rent to newcomers and locals on the same fair terms.
I settle disagreements in writing and, if needed, in court. Never by pressure.

The live count appears when the site goes live.

Share it with other owners

Your family, your building's owners' association, your friends with a flat to let. Images, stickers and posts for owners.

PDF guideCracking the fake holiday leaseHow to stay lawfully, build your file, and what owners may not do.Poster: PDF and imageYour “holiday” lease may not be legalOne page to print, post and share.PDF guideOrganize your building and neighbourhoodFind your local group, welcome newcomers and act together.Images to postCards for Instagram and FacebookReady to post, including the pledge in six languages.Stickers to printStickers for expat spacesBlunt messages for the bars, coworkings and groups where expats gather.Poster: PDF and imageHow we got hereThe timeline on one page: who decided each step.

Also: the poster as an image (PNG)

Rent through people who rent fair.

Owners, agents and tenants who refuse the game can find each other.

Fair agents

Ask your agent whether they've signed the Fair Agent Pledge. The live count is on the agents' page.

The agents' page

Tenants who stay

The city's rental pool finds tenants for your flat and guarantees the rent. Newcomers and locals are waiting for regular leases at legal rents.

The rental pool

Your neighbours

See why the fight for fair housing is also a fight for the city you'll leave your children.

A thriving city

Every home in this city is a choice.