Rents Near Half of Pay Drive Spain’s First General Strike in 14 Years

Renting a 50-square-metre flat in Madrid cost an average of €1,170 a month in October, according to the property portal Idealista. Average gross pay in Spain is about €2,460 a month, so the rent takes nearly half of it. That arithmetic is what put the country’s unions on strike on 11 November for the first time in 14 years, Al Jazeera reports.

For young people the number is far worse. The Youth Council of Spain puts rent at 98.7% of the average young person’s income, against the 30% that housing experts commonly advise. Al Jazeera says the average rent has almost doubled in ten years. The Bank of Spain, DW says, estimates a shortage of about 750,000 homes, a gap it expects to pass a million by 2028.

Chart: GoodBad. Data from Al Jazeera, Idealista and the Youth Council of Spain, November 2026. The salary share is our calculation from €1,170 and €2,460.

A strike with disputed numbers

The 24-hour walkout was called by the UGT and CCOO unions under the slogan “Salaries. Housing. Prices.” The unions said participation reached 90% in the automotive and port sectors in the first hours. The employers’ federation CEOE said the impact varied by region and sector, with low participation in most of them. Business groups called it an election-season protest.

DW says the strike halted much of Europe’s fourth-largest economy, and that some airlines reported disruption to flights in and out of Spain. The disorder was local but real. Small groups smashed shop windows and burned bins in Barcelona, and police used pepper spray at the Mercamadrid wholesale market, leaving at least 13 people seeking medical attention.

Crowd counts differ sharply. Madrid authorities estimated 120,000 marchers on Wednesday evening. Barcelona officials counted 55,000, while housing activists claimed 400,000. Nobody has published a figure that both sides accept.

One vote, then an election

The government’s answer came on Thursday 12 November, and it was narrow. A committee that stands in for the lower house of parliament ratified a housing decree by 35 votes to 34, Al Jazeera reports. It extends protection from eviction for tenants whom social services judge to be in a precarious position, as long as regional authorities cannot offer them another home.

A second decree failed by the reverse score of 34–35. The Basque party PNV backed the first decree but voted with the right-wing bloc against the second, on the grounds that it could lead owners to withdraw homes from the rental market. That would cut supply and push prices higher, Al Jazeera says.

The decree that passed is not safe. Both texts followed an earlier failure: Parliament’s full lower house did not approve the first versions, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez answered by calling a snap election for 29 November. The Popular Party, which leads opinion polls, says it will repeal the measures if it takes power.

How it got here

The protests started in September, when televised images of the eviction of an 87-year-old Madrid pensioner known as Maricarmen shocked the country. She died in October. Protesters occupied Madrid’s Puerta del Sol for five weeks, and Sánchez’s minority government rushed out the two decrees.

Conservative parties blocked them. They argue that the measures would damage the housing market and that Spain needs a building programme instead. Sánchez calls the strike a push for a joint response from all levels of government, according to Al Jazeera, rather than a protest against anyone.

The politics around it

The strike was also a political event, and each side read it that way. Sánchez’s government backed it, saying it was held in favour of rights rather than against anyone. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, called it a serious mistake and warned that the unions risked being tied to Sánchez “forever”, according to Al Jazeera. A spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union told DW the movement will not stop until the housing model changes. Public transport, factories and shops cut back or closed on the day, and roadblocks with burning tyres appeared in Barcelona in the first hours.

Who is still exposed

The pressure is not confined to Madrid. DW cites the Youth Council of Spain for a national average rent of €1,176 a month, about 99% of the average young person’s income. Fewer people can afford to buy, so the number of renters has risen sharply, and each new renter competes for the same short supply of homes. The two counts of income share, 98.7% and 99%, are the same finding at different rounding.

The protection is narrow by design. It covers tenants that social services classify as precarious, and only while no alternative home is on offer from regional authorities.

The other half of the problem is supply. With a shortage of 750,000 homes expected to pass a million by 2028, a measure that protects existing tenants does not build a single flat. Even the party that supported the first decree rejected the second because it feared fewer homes would reach the rental market.

What would change the outcome is on the record: more homes built, a decree that survives the election, and a way to count who is covered. None exists yet. The vote on 29 November decides whether the decree survives.