Finding somewhere to live in Seville

The heading on the contract is the whole game

The Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos gives a residential tenant the right to stay five years when the landlord is an individual and seven when it is a company, by automatic annual extension whatever term the contract names. A contrato de arrendamiento de temporada sits outside all of that: nine or eleven months, no cap on the agency fee, and it ends on the date written in it. Nothing has closed that gap nationally yet. Real Decreto-ley 8/2026 was about something else — an extraordinary contract extension and a 2% cap on rent updates — and Congress refused to convalidate it on 28 April 2026; the draft housing decree that would fold temporada and room lets into the LAU was pulled from the Council of Ministers agenda in late July 2026 and was still short of votes in September, so do not sign on the assumption it arrives. Catalonia has legislated its own rules; Andalucía has not, so in Seville the only protection is the wording at the top of the page you sign.

• Since 26 May 2023, article 20.1 of the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos, as rewritten by Ley 12/2023, puts the estate agency commission and the cost of drafting the contract on the landlord for a habitual-residence let. It does not apply to a temporada let, which is one more reason a landlord may steer you to one.
• Ask for the flat's Registro de Turismo de Andalucía code. Decreto 31/2024, in force since 22 February 2024, renamed these flats viviendas de uso turístico, but the registry code did not change: in Seville it still reads VFT/SE/ and a number. A long let on a flat that holds one deserves an explanation.
• There is no national register left to check. The Tribunal Supremo partly annulled Real Decreto 1312/2024 in sentencia 620/2026 of 19 May 2026, striking down the single-rental-register procedure as an invasion of regional competence, so the national registration number is no longer required.

The fianza no longer goes to the Junta

This is the part most guidance has not caught up with. Ley 5/2025, de 16 de diciembre, de Vivienda de Andalucía, published in BOJA 247 on 24 December 2025, abolished the obligation to deposit rental fianzas with the regional administration for contracts dated 24 January 2026 or later. AVRA no longer holds new deposits, there is no lodgement receipt to ask for, and the money sits with your landlord until you leave. The change is not retroactive: deposits made before that date stay with AVRA and are refunded as those contracts end.

• One month's rent as fianza is still compulsory. That duty comes from article 36 of the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos, which is state law and unchanged.
• Any further guarantee, whether extra months, an aval bancario or a seguro de impago, is capped at two months' rent during the first five or seven years. Three months of guarantees is the ceiling before keys.
• Pay by bank transfer with the word fianza in the reference and keep the contract clause that names the amount. That paper trail is now the whole of your evidence.

What the market costs, by district

Asking rents in Sevilla capital averaged 14 €/m² a month on Fotocasa's September 2026 index, and the spread between districts is wide. Casco Antiguo is the dearest at 17 €/m² and Los Remedios second at 16 €, while Nervión and Triana sit on the city average of 14 € and Macarena at 12 €, Cerro-Amate and Norte at 11 € are cheaper again. No Andalusian municipality has been declared a zona de mercado residencial tensionado, and the Junta has refused to use the state rent-cap tool at all, so no ceiling and no reference price binds a new contract here. On a contract signed after 26 May 2023 the annual increase follows the INE's IRAV index rather than the IPC, published at 2.47% for August 2026.

• The portals worth searching are Idealista, Fotocasa and pisos.com. Habitaclia is often listed alongside them but covers Catalonia and the Balearics, and carries nothing useful here.
• The portals compile their indices differently and Idealista changed its method in July 2026, so do not put a figure from one beside a figure from the other.

What a landlord will ask you for

The pack is a passport or NIE and TIE, recent payslips with the employment contract, or tax returns and invoices if you are self-employed, and a Spanish bank account for the direct debit. The Spanish norm is net monthly income of about 2.5 to 3 times the rent, which is another way of saying the rent should not exceed 30 to 40% of what you earn. They will also check that you are not listed on the ASNEF, RAI or FIM debtor registers. Without a Spanish payslip you will be steered towards a guarantor, an aval bancario or a rent-default insurance policy, and whichever form it takes, it counts against the two-month cap on additional guarantees.

The spring squeeze, and the summer

Central furnished stock tightens before Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril, when an owner earns more by the night than by the month. In 2027 Semana Santa runs from Palm Sunday on 21 March to Easter Sunday on 28 March, with La Madrugá on the night of 25 to 26 March, and the Feria follows from 13 to 18 April, its alumbrado at midnight on 12 April. Nobody has measured how much of the centre actually flips, so treat it as a pattern rather than a proportion. If you are house-hunting for a spring start, assume the good central listings thin from February and search earlier.

• New tourist flats are being throttled by the city council. Under an urbanistic agreement of October 2024 a flat needs the Modelo 17 Bis declaración responsable filed with the Gerencia de Urbanismo before the tourist use is lawful, and only 542 new tourist units were registered in the nineteen months to mid-2026, none at all in April or May 2026.
• AEMET's normals for Sevilla Aeropuerto give a July mean daily maximum of 36.0 °C and an August one of 35.5 °C, so ask what August's electricity bill actually was rather than what the certificado energético says.

In order

1. 1Start the NIE before you fly and open a Spanish bank account. A landlord will ask for both.
2. 2Assemble the income pack: employment contract and payslips, or tax returns and invoices if self-employed. Expect a test of roughly 2.5 to 3 times the rent.
3. 3Search Idealista, Fotocasa and pisos.com. Habitaclia does not cover Seville.
4. 4Ask for the flat's Registro de Turismo de Andalucía code — in Seville it reads VFT/SE/ and a number — and why a registered flat is being let long.
5. 5Check the contract is headed arrendamiento de vivienda habitual and not de temporada, before you discuss anything else.
6. 6Confirm the agency fee is the landlord's, as it has been on residential lets since 26 May 2023.
7. 7Total the guarantees: one month fianza, plus at most two months of anything else.
8. 8Pay the fianza by bank transfer with fianza in the reference. For contracts dated from 24 January 2026 no state body holds it.
9. 9Ask for August's electricity bill and check the potencia contratada.
10. 10Empadronarse at the Ayuntamiento as soon as the contract is signed.