# Rent control in Europe: Catalonia, Berlin and what the evidence says

> Rent control in Europe has two recent test cases. Berlin's 2020 rent cap lowered regulated rents but cut listings by up to 60% before the Constitutional Court struck it down in 2021. Catalonia's caps, first in 2020 and again under Spain's 2023 Housing Law from March 2024, slowed rents while the number of new contracts fell by about a fifth. The evidence supports a radical-centre design: stable, indexed limits on rent increases within a tenancy, free initial rents on new and newly built homes, and a supply target that decides when the limits end.

- URL: https://www.radicalcentre.eu/en/articles/rent-control-europe-catalonia-berlin-evidence
- Language: en
- Publisher: radical centre / centro radical
- Published: 2026-10-27
- Topic: Housing
- Author: radical centre
- Licence: CC BY 4.0

## Key points

- Berlin's rent cap (Mietendeckel) came into force in February 2020 and was struck down by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in 2021 because rent law is a federal matter.
- The ifo Institute found Berlin's rent listings fell by up to 60% and stayed low after the cap ended, while rents in the exempt newer flats rose faster than in other big cities.
- Catalonia's 2020 rent containment law cut average rents paid by about 6% according to an IEB study; Spain's Constitutional Court annulled it in 2022.
- Under the 2023 Housing Law, Catalonia's tensioned areas saw slower rent growth than Madrid from 2024, while new rental contracts fell by about a fifth between 2023 and 2025.
- The OECD distinguishes strict rent freezes from rent stabilisation, which limits increases within and sometimes between tenancies.

Rent control is the housing policy Spaniards argue about most, and Europe has run two large experiments on it in the last six years: Berlin's rent cap and Catalonia's rent limits. Both left data behind, and the data is good enough to settle part of the argument. It lets us say fairly precisely what rent control does, which matters for problem six of Democracia 21's launch speech, the fight between tenants and landlords, and for our [proposal to end it](/en/articles/tenants-landlords-ending-the-war-spain).

## Berlin: the cap that lasted a year

Berlin's *Mietendeckel* came into force on 23 February 2020. It capped rents across the city's existing rental stock. Flats first ready for occupancy from 1 January 2014 were exempt, so new building wasn't covered.

It didn't survive. In a decision of 25 March 2021, made public on 15 April, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court declared the Berlin law void. Its reasoning was about competences: the federal legislator had already regulated rent levels exhaustively in the Civil Code, so a state had no room to pass its own cap.

While it lasted, it did two things at once. Economists at the ifo Institute, using listings data from the portal immowelt, found that rents in the regulated segment grew about 11 percentage points a quarter less than in other big German cities between the second quarter of 2020 and the first of 2021. That is what tenants wanted. They also found that the number of flats advertised for rent collapsed by up to 60%, and stayed at that low level even after the cap was abolished, and that in the exempt segment, flats built from 2014 onwards, rents grew about five percentage points faster than in comparable cities. The authors call it a two-tier market: cheaper for people already inside, scarcer and dearer for everyone looking.

## Catalonia: two rounds

Catalonia went first in Spain. Its Law 11/2020 capped rents in areas declared tense. An IEB working paper by Jordi Jofre-Monseny, Rodrigo Martínez-Mazza and Mariona Segú found that it cut the average rent paid by about 6%, and, unlike Berlin, did not lead to a measurable fall in the number of homes on the rental market in the period studied. Spain's Constitutional Court annulled the rent provisions in 2022 because contract law is a state competence.

The second round came with Spain's national Housing Law of 2023, which lets regions declare tensioned residential markets. In practice only Catalonia applied the rent limits, from 16 March 2024. Fedea's first assessment, written by Fernando Pinto in June 2026 and descriptive by its own account, compares asking-rent data. Between the first quarter of 2024 and the last quarter of 2025, rents rose 5.7% in Barcelona and Catalonia, against 8.5% in Madrid and 10.8% across Spain. In the same period, rental listings fell 22.2% in Barcelona and 20.5% in Catalonia, while in Madrid they rose 3.9%. In Barcelona each listing drew 462 contacts, in Madrid 103.

The official deposit register points the same way. The Catalan land institute, Incasòl, records every rental deposit, and as reported by *Ara Balears*, signed contracts across Catalonia fell from 132,988 in 2023 to 108,057 in 2025, down 18.75%; in the tensioned areas they fell from 115,615 to 91,743. The average new rent in Barcelona was €1,136.40 in 2023 and €1,134.61 in 2025, flat in a period when rents elsewhere kept rising. Part of that fall is tenants staying put, since people who don't move don't sign new contracts. Part is likely homes leaving the long-term market. The register can't yet separate the two, and the debate in Spain mostly picks whichever reading suits it.

## What the evidence adds up to

The pattern from both cities is consistent. Rent limits work for the people already renting regulated homes: rents grow slower or fall. They come with fewer homes offered to newcomers, and a pricier segment outside the rules. The OECD's *Brick by Brick* puts the useful distinction on the table. A strict rent freeze imposes a ceiling below the market rate. Rent stabilisation limits how much rents can rise within a tenancy, and sometimes between one tenancy and the next. The OECD weighs the security this gives sitting tenants against a possible fall in rental supply, and its own simulation finds that making rent control more flexible can lift residential construction.

That gives the radical centre a position with all three traditions in it. The left is right that tenants need protection from sudden, large increases that push them out of their homes and their neighbourhoods; security of tenure is worth paying for. The market-liberal tradition is right that hard caps on the level of rent shrink the market and push newcomers into a dearer unregulated corner, which is exactly what Berlin's data shows, so new homes should stay free to set their first rent.

What fits neither camp is treating rent limits as an emergency brake with a gauge on it. Cap increases within a tenancy at a public index, as Spain already does with its reference index for rent updates, and keep them predictable for years. Leave the first rent of newly built homes free. Publish monthly data on contracts, listings and rents for every tensioned area, so the arguments about Catalonia are settled by numbers. And write the end into the law: when a city meets its supply target, measured in new rental homes, the extra limits lapse. Rent control then becomes a bridge to a market with enough homes, with everyone able to see how far along the bridge we are.

## FAQ

### Does rent control work?

It lowers or slows the rents paid by tenants in regulated homes, which is what Berlin and Catalonia both show. It also tends to reduce the number of homes offered for rent and to push up prices in the unregulated part of the market. Design decides how much of each you get.

### What happened to Berlin's rent cap?

The Mietendeckel capped rents in Berlin flats built before 2014 from February 2020. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court declared it void in a decision of 25 March 2021, published on 15 April, because the federal government had already regulated rents fully in the Civil Code.

### Is rent control in force in Catalonia?

Yes. Since 16 March 2024 Catalonia applies the rent limits of Spain's 2023 Housing Law in municipalities declared tensioned markets. An earlier Catalan law of 2020 was annulled by the Constitutional Court in 2022.

### Have rents fallen in Catalonia since the 2024 caps?

Rents have risen more slowly than elsewhere. Fedea's 2026 review finds asking rents up 5.7% in Barcelona and Catalonia between early 2024 and late 2025, against 8.5% in Madrid and 10.8% in Spain, while listings fell by about a fifth.

## Sources

- [Gesetz zur Mietenbegrenzung im Wohnungswesen in Berlin (MietenWoG Bln) nichtig](https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2021/bvg21-028.html), Bundesverfassungsgericht (2021)
- [Entwicklungen am Berliner Immobilienmarkt ein Jahr nach dem Mietendeckel](https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2022-04-arlia-dolls-etal-mietendeckel-update.pdf), ifo Schnelldienst (2022)
- [Effectiveness and Supply Effects of High-Coverage Rent Control Policies](https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2022-02), Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (Jofre-Monseny, Martínez-Mazza, Segú) (2022)
- [La Ley 12/2023 por el derecho a la vivienda: un primer balance](https://documentos.fedea.net/pubs/ap/2026/ap2026-15.pdf), Fedea (Fernando Pinto) (2026)
- [Does limiting rent destroy its supply? The figures from Catalonia](https://en.arabalears.cat/misc/does-limiting-rent-destroy-its-supply-the-figures-from-catalonia-question-prohens-mantra_1_5872883.html), Ara Balears (2026)
- [Brick by Brick: Building Better Housing Policies](https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2021/05/brick-by-brick_eb010639/b453b043-en.pdf), OECD (2021)