The cost of residential rent in Spain experienced a year-on-year increase of 5.6% in October, reaching 15.1 euros per square meter, according to the latest price report released this Tuesday by the real estate portal idealista.
Compared with September, rents barely varied, with a monthly increase of 0.1%, while over the last three months there was a decline of 1.1%.
The study by capitals shows that up to 49 cities recorded annual increases and only two broke this trend with declines: Lleida (-1.3%) and Bilbao (-1%).
The biggest increase was in Huesca (+19.7%), followed by Huelva (+13.1%), Palencia (+12.7%), Pontevedra (+12.5%), Castellón de la Plana (+12%) and Ciudad Real (+11.1%). Double-digit rises also stood out in Toledo (+11%), Oviedo (+10.9%), Soria (+10.5%) and Cuenca (+10.3%).
In the country's major markets, the upward trend also prevailed, with increases in Palma de Mallorca (+7.6%), Alicante (+5.6%), Málaga (+5.4%), Madrid (+4.5%), Valencia (+4.2%), Sevilla (+3.3%), San Sebastián (+1%) and Barcelona (+0.3%), with Bilbao remaining the only major city with a year-on-year drop.
Madrid remained the capital with the highest rents, at 23.4 euros per square meter, followed by Barcelona (20.5 euros/m2), Palma (19.6 euros/m2), San Sebastián (18.6 euros/m2), Málaga (16.7 euros/m2), Valencia (16.5 euros/m2) and Bilbao (15.6 euros/m2).
At the opposite end, the cheapest rentals were located in Cáceres (8.2 euros/m2), Zamora (8.4 euros/m2) and Jaén (8.5 euros/m2).
Behavior by provinces and autonomous communities
At the provincial level, rents increased in 48 of the 50 provinces compared with the same month of the previous year, with Huesca (+12.1%), Toledo (+11.5%), Cuenca (+10.8%) and Castellón (+10.2%) leading the rises.
On the correction side, only Guipúzcoa (-1.4%) and Álava (-1.1%) closed October with declines in the price per square meter.
Madrid (21.6 euros/m2) and Baleares (20.6 euros/m2) stood as the provinces with the most expensive rents, while Jaén (7 euros/m2) and, next, Ciudad Real, Cáceres and Badajoz (7.7 euros/m2 in all three cases) were the most affordable markets.
By autonomous communities, all regions recorded increases in the last twelve months. Castilla-La Mancha (+8.5%) led the rises, followed by Aragón (+8.4%), Asturias (+8.1%), Cantabria (+7%), Castilla y León (+6.4%), Andalucía (+6.3%) and Comunidad Valenciana (+6.1%).
Below the national average were Baleares (+5.4%), Extremadura (+5.4%), Comunidad de Madrid (+5.2%), La Rioja (+4.7%), Galicia (+4.6%), Canarias (+4.5%), Murcia (+4.5%), Cataluña (+2.9%), Navarra (+1.9%) and Euskadi (+0.5%).
In the autonomous ranking by price levels, Comunidad de Madrid (21.6 euros/m2), Baleares (20.6 euros/m2) and Cataluña (16 euros/m2) concentrated the highest rents, while the lowest amounts were recorded in Extremadura (7.7 euros/m2) and Castilla-La Mancha (8.8 euros/m2).
The real estate platform also recalled that it updated the methodology of its index in July 2026 to exclude from the calculation seasonal or holiday rentals and strengthen the detection of anomalous values through new statistical techniques, applied retroactively to the entire historical series.