In July 2019, almost on the brink of the pandemic, Paris decided to use a measure that the new law French housing: limit climbing of their rents. The idea was very simple. For a few years a pilot program would be applied to prevent the law of the most from prevailing in the market. strong wealthy Almost seven years later and with the future of the initiative surrounded by doubts, France already knows how the experiment has gone: it calculates that rent control has allowed Paris to reduce its rents 5%with a average savings of €85 per month.
The experience is interesting for France… and for Spain, which has also opted for control formulas income.
Back to rent. Spain is not the only European country that in recent years have tried to regulate (to a greater or lesser extent, with more or less successful) residential rental prices. In 2019, relying on a new law of the real estate sector (ELAN), Paris requested to launch an experimental program to apply certain limits to the escalation of rents.
Price control came into force in July of that same year and the idea was that it would be applied for five years, a period during which work would be done with the reference values from the Rental Observatory of the Paris Metropolitan Area (OLAP). To calculate them, aspects such as the location of the homes, their age, whether they are rented with or without furniture or how many rooms they have were taken into account. The measure was extended to both contracts signed from 2019 onwards and those renewed.
And how has it been? That is the question that Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme wants to solve (APUR), an urban agency that a few years ago began to evaluate the effects of price controls in the French capital. His first conclusions came two years ago. Now he has updated them with a new report that reveals a couple of interesting data. The main one is that in six years (between 2019 and 2025) the measure has achieved contain rents by 5%which is equivalent to an annual saving of hundreds of euros for tenants.
“The econometric analysis shows that, during the period from July 2019 to June 2025, Parisian rents were, on average, 5% lower than they would have been without the regulation,” notes APUR in your report. “For this period, the average monthly rent observed was 1,519 euros. Without the regulation, it would have reached 1,600, which represents an average saving of 81 euros per month (968 per year) for tenants in Paris.”
Another key data: 1,019 euros. He new report APUR uses data from 2025, which allows us to have a more up-to-date ‘photo’ of the impact of the measure. For example, its technicians calculate that in the last year analyzed (July 2024-June 2025) the average income was around 1,632 euros85 euros less than what Paris tenants would be paying if almost seven years ago the city had not opted for price caps. Per year that translates into about 1,019 euros more in the tenants’ pockets.
The Parisian agency has detected another curious fact. The moderating effect of prices seems to be felt especially in smaller homes. If on average rents have been contained by 5%, in the case of smaller accommodation (less than 18 m2) the reduction is around 12.4%. The effect softens as the surface area of the home increases, until it is “no longer significant” in the largest ones. It’s no surprise. The ALUR and ELAN laws, from which the Parisian measure draws, made it a priority to moderate the rents of smaller homes.
Does it affect the offer? one of the criticism What those who oppose regulation often argue is that, by controlling rents, owners are discouraged from putting their homes on the market. That is to say, the measure may serve to contain the rise in prices, but it does so at the cost of suffocating supply and reducing the available apartments. After studying the sector, APUR technicians have concluded that this is not true.
“No lasting deterioration in the supply of rental housing can be attributed to the rent control system,” collect the report. In fact the clearer oscillations The number of apartments announced is not explained by regulation, but by factors outside the market, such as the pandemic or the 2024 Olympic Games.
Is everything positive? No. The study also reveals that, although the program has been in force for almost seven years, its scope is still limited and there is a considerable part of the market that manages to avoid price controls.
“With 48.6% of ads exceeding the regulatory threshold in the last period analyzed (July 2024-June 2025), the untapped potential remains considerable,” slide APUR. What’s more, those responsible estimate that if all landlords complied with the regulations, the moderating effect on prices would not be 5%, but almost double, around 10%.
Beyond France. APUR’s analysis is important for France, where Paris (and the rest of 70 municipalities who have opted for rent control) risks the measure ending next novemberbut also for other EU countries that have considered regulating their markets.
In Spain, without going any further, the Government promoted a system of ‘stressed market areas’ which allows restrictions to be applied to rent increases. Although it is estimated that the measure already reaches more than nine million of tenants, does not extend to the entire country. The law states that it is the autonomous communities that must request the declaration of a ‘tensioned zone’, something that Catalonia has donebut what regions such as Madrid either Balearics.
Images | Alexander Kagan (Unsplash) and John Towner (Unsplash)
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