Barcelona had the highest advertised rents of any Spanish provincial capital in October, at an average of €30.32 per square metre per month, according to figures published by property portal Pisos.com on Thursday 12th November. For residents looking for a home, the listings point to asking prices well above the average recorded in recently signed rental contracts.

Madrid was the next most expensive capital in the portal’s monthly report, at €29.89 per square metre. The figures describe asking prices in advertisements, not necessarily the rent tenants agree to pay.

How Barcelona’s asking prices compare

Pisos.com put the national average advertised rent at €14.91 per square metre in October, up 0.13% from September and 6.96% from October 2025. Its figures for provincial capitals included:

  • Barcelona: €30.32 per square metre per month.
  • Madrid: €29.89 per square metre per month.
  • San Sebastián: €21.42 per square metre per month.

The portal reported a separate average of €19.02 per square metre for Barcelona province, which covers a wider area than the city. Its figure for Catalonia as a whole was €17 per square metre.

Contract figures measure a different market

The Generalitat, Catalonia’s regional government, published rental figures on 2nd November based on deposits lodged with Incasòl, the Catalan public land institute. They put the average price of Barcelona rental contracts in the second quarter of 2026 at €17.13 per square metre per month, compared with €30.32 in the October listings.

The figures cannot be treated as a direct comparison of like-for-like homes. The portal’s advertisements include seasonal rentals, while the Incasòl figures draw on deposits for formalised contracts; they also cover different periods.

The average Barcelona contract rent was €1,140.89 a month in the second quarter, according to the Incasòl data. That was 0.5% higher than a year earlier, but 4.4% below the level before rent controls took effect in March 2024.

El Mundo reported that the average floor area of rented homes fell from 75 to 71 square metres after the cap took effect, according to an account of the figures by Pollar Editorial. Over the year to the second quarter of 2026, the average price per square metre rose 3.4%.

What the deposit data shows across Catalonia

In areas designated as having a strained housing market, where rent limits apply, average rents rose 0.7% between the first quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2026. The equivalent increase in municipalities outside the regime was 11%, according to the Generalitat’s deposit data.

Average monthly rent in the second quarter was €894.05 in the designated areas and €648.22 elsewhere in Catalonia. Across the region, the average was €877.81.

Housing minister Sílvia Paneque discussed the figures in a regional government statement:

“Two years after the declaration of strained areas, rental prices are growing below inflation.”

In Barcelona, Incasòl recorded 7,845 new rental contracts and 7,757 terminations in the second quarter, a net increase of 88. It was the city’s lowest second-quarter balance since 2019.

Sources: Metrópoli, Pollar Editorial, diaricatalunya.cat, El Nacional.