Nearly 500,000 people take to the streets of Madrid to protest Spain's spiralling housing crisis

From the Newshound archive · first published 3 October 2026 · last updated 4 October 2026.

Close to half a million demonstrators flooded Madrid on Saturday as Spain's housing crisis triggered one of the country's largest protests in years. Crowds marched across multiple Spanish cities simultaneously, with organisers blaming soaring rents and a shortage of affordable homes for pushing ordinary workers out of major urban centres. The scale of the turnout has heaped pressure on the Spanish government to act.

Tens of thousands also marched in cities beyond Madrid, making it a nationwide show of anger over housing costs.

Spain's rental market has surged in recent years, with tourists and foreign investment blamed for pricing locals out of their own neighbourhoods.

There are warnings that policymakers risk drawing the wrong lessons from Spain's crisis — measures that restrict supply could reportedly deepen the problem across Europe.