The Madrid City Council has changed the rules for eligibility for public housing, and now middle-income earners will compete on equal footing with low-income earners for one of the few affordable rental options available in the capital.
The city government, through the Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS), has launched a new program that will begin with rental developments featuring garages, storage units, landscaped common areas, and even swimming pools in some cases. This new initiative kicks off with the Iberia Loreto 1 development in Barajas and will expand to include other recently completed projects, such as Cañaveral 13 in Vicálvaro, which comprises 164 public housing units, 246 parking spaces, and 12 commercial units. Overall, these are 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom apartments, all with an associated storage unit, on-site parking, and common areas featuring playgrounds, landscaped spaces, and, in some cases, a community pool.
Unlike the classic EMVS program, designed for households with incomes up to 3.5 times the IPREM, this new program targets Madrid residents between the ages of 18 and 50 with incomes between 3.5 and 5.5 times the IPREM (and even up to 7.5 times for certain types of housing), who do not own another home, are registered residents of the city, and have not been convicted of illegal occupation or non-payment of rent. In other words, couples and families with stable incomes—up to approximately €62,000–€68,000 gross annually, depending on household composition—who until now were excluded from public lotteries.
According to EMVS calculations for Cañaveral 13, the rent will never exceed 30% of the household’s income—a condition that also applies to the new program for middle-income households. In practice, this means that a family with a gross annual income of around 40,000 euros will pay no more than about 1,000 euros per month, but official ranges place most rents below that figure, taking advantage of public land and municipal financing.
How to enter the lottery
Access is not granted on a first-come, first-served basis or through a traditional waiting list, but rather by lottery for each development. The process, according to the official statement and information from EMVS, is as follows:
Sign up for the EMVS Permanent Housing Applicant Registry
- Applications are submitted online through the Virtual Office or the “SIA: Tenant Registration” section of the EMVS Madrid website.
- Applicants must provide personal information, details of their household composition, employment status, and proof of income (pay stubs, income tax returns, etc.).
- General requirements include: not exceeding the specified income limits (in this program, between 3.5 and 5.5/7.5 times the IPREM, depending on the case), not owning a home, residing or working in Madrid, and not already being a tenant of public housing.
The City Council has announced that “in the coming weeks” the online application period will open for Iberia Loreto 1 housing and, subsequently, for new developments as they are completed. Registration will be exclusively online and must be completed for each specific development, indicating your interest in that particular development within the system.
Once the application period closes, the EMVS will hold a public lottery, similar to those it already conducts for its traditional affordable rental programs (during the current term alone, it has already allocated more than 2,300 homes in nine lotteries). The lottery will determine the order of allocation; afterward, each successful applicant will be verified to ensure they effectively meet all financial and administrative requirements before signing the contract.