The Government has extended the rental cap for another year and updated the list of municipalities with a tense residential market. Sant Boi de Llobregat is one of the 22 towns that are removed from the declaration, while 53 new municipalities are added.
The Government of the Generalitat has approved a one-year extension of the declaration of tense residential market zones in most Catalan municipalities that already had rental price caps. The annual review, which will come into effect in the coming days, brings significant changes to the list of affected towns: 53 new municipalities are added to the regulation, while 22 are removed. Among those leaving the declaration is Sant Boi de Llobregat, which until now was part of the group of municipalities with an intervened rental market.
The decision, announced by the Minister of Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition, Sílvia Paneque, responds to the mandatory review established by the state law on the right to housing. According to data from the Catalan Executive, the municipalities that are removed from the list have improved their housing accessibility indicators, which demonstrates, in Paneque's words, that "the rental price cap mechanism works to contain price increases."
Specifically, the 22 municipalities that are no longer considered tense zones have a combined population of 634,171 inhabitants. Among them, in addition to Sant Boi de Llobregat, are towns such as Granollers, Mollet del Vallès, Figueres, Lleida, Reus, and Tortosa. In contrast, the 53 new municipalities added to the list, mostly small towns, have a total population of 255,751 people. The final network of tense municipalities increases from 271 to 302, although the affected population decreases from nearly six million to 5.5 million people.
For the residents of Sant Boi de Llobregat, leaving the list means that, from now on, rental prices in the municipality will no longer be subject to the limit set by the tense zone declaration. This means that new rental contracts can set prices without the ceiling that prevented exceeding the rent of the last valid contract from the past five years, updated according to the CPI. However, the Government emphasizes that the measure is not definitive and that the situation will be reviewed annually.
Minister Paneque has defended that rental regulation is part of a broader strategy of housing policies that includes promoting new public housing, rental payment assistance, and measures to facilitate youth emancipation. "Price containment, promoting the construction of more public rental housing, assistance to continue paying rent or for young people to emancipate... all are tools to ensure that citizens can access housing," she stated.
The first declaration of tense zones, approved in 2024, expires in March 2027, as the state law establishes an initial validity of three years. From that moment on, administrations must review annually whether municipalities continue to meet the conditions to maintain this designation before being able to extend its validity. Catalonia was a pioneer in applying rental price caps, and since then it has become a reference in market containment.
For a municipality to be declared a tense zone, it must meet at least one of two requirements: that families spend more than 30% of their income on rent or mortgage payments, or that the purchase or rental price of homes has increased in the last five years by at least three percentage points above the CPI. In the case of Sant Boi, the improvement of these indicators has led to its exclusion from the list.
The Government's decision has generated diverse reactions among sector agents. While tenant associations lament that the removal of municipalities like Sant Boi may lead to a rise in prices, property owners and real estate agencies celebrate the measure as a step towards market liberalization. For the moment, the Sant Boi de Llobregat City Council has not officially commented on the change, although it is expected to assess the impact of the measure on the municipality in the coming days.
Residents who currently have a rental contract in Sant Boi will not see their conditions altered, as the cap only affected new contracts. However, those looking for a flat in the municipality from now on may face higher prices, as the legal limit disappears. The Government insists that the annual review will allow Sant Boi to be re-included if conditions worsen.
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