BREAKING: Spain's New Rental Law Could Upend Tenerife Contracts

Spain's government approved two new Royal Decree-Laws on housing on 29 September 2026, and several of the measures inside them would directly affect how landlords on Tenerife rent out their properties, if the decrees survive their next hurdle.

One decree extends the eviction protection "social shield" for vulnerable households until 31 December 2030, meaning landlords dealing with non-paying tenants who qualify as vulnerable could face longer timelines and additional procedures before recovering their property. The same decree also tightens the rules around seasonal and room-by-room rentals, a format widely used across Tenerife's holiday-let market: reports point to a cap of twelve months on temporary lets, along with a requirement for landlords to justify why a contract is seasonal rather than a standard residential lease, aimed at stopping such agreements from being used to sidestep normal tenant protections.

A second, separate decree introduces automatic renewal of existing residential rental contracts once their term ends, with exceptions including cases where the landlord needs the property back for personal or family use. This measure has a track record worth knowing about: a near-identical automatic-renewal rule was approved by the Council of Ministers back in April 2026, only to be voted down by Congress a month later after opposition from Junts, PP and Vox. The government split this year's package into two decrees specifically so that a rejection of the renewal rule wouldn't also sink the rest of the package.

Both decrees are already legally in force following their publication, but under Article 86 of the Constitution, Congress must validate them within 30 days or they lapse. A vote is expected this Friday, 2 October. Given that a closely comparable measure failed this exact process only five months ago, landlords and tenants on Tenerife should treat this week's approval as a strong signal of direction, not a finished law, until Friday's result is known.