Author
The three-phase reception and integration process is available for all persons who ask for asylum, even in the case they are granted with international or subsidiary protection during the 18-month period. In case a person receives a negative response during the process, usually the person is allowed to complete at least the first period within the reception phase. In any case, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration must give permission for the rejected applicant to continue the on-going phase and the following ones, also accessing financial support foreseen within the second and third phases. It should however be noted that usually applicants receive their asylum decision after 1 year or more from the moment of the asylum claim.
Therefore, beneficiaries follow the same process as described in Reception Conditions: Criteria and Restrictions. They are hosted within the asylum reception centres during the first 6 months. The typologies of reception places vary depending on the institution or entity that manages it: the system relies on places within big reception centres and apartments; some reception places are in urban neighbourhoods while other are located in rural areas. The different types of available accommodation also differ from the point of view of provided services and spaces.
After this first phase of accommodation inside the reception system, beneficiaries are granted financial support to help them pay rent in private accommodation. Due to the rigidity which characterises the Spanish three-phase reception process, they must complete their stay inside the reception places in order to have access to the following foreseen financial support for private housing, also because the participation to initial integration activities developed during the first reception phase is considered is well evaluated and relevant at the time of asking for other financial support available in the last 2 phases.
This factor obviously causes obstacles for those beneficiaries that can either pay their own housing since the beginning or for those who have relatives or personal contacts that can host them. In case they decide to go and live by themselves, they would be renouncing to the entire assistance and support foreseen under the reception system.
The lack of social housing alternatives, the insufficient financial support allocated for rent expenses, high requirements (i.e. payslips, high quantities for deposit, etc.) and criteria in rental contracts and discrimination exposes many beneficiaries of protection to economic vulnerability and in some cases leads to destitution.[1] Although many NGOs who work with refugees and asylum seekers during the first phase try to mediate between refugees and house holders at the time they start looking for private housing, there is no specialised agency or intermediate service helping beneficiaries to find a home. Even in cases in which NGOs act as intermediaries, asylum seekers face serious discrimination in renting apartments. Some of them face homelessness and are accommodated in homeless shelters.[2] CEAR Euskadi denounced the discrimination that asylum seekers face in renting flats, and that 7 out of 10 real estate-agencies admit implementing explicit forms of discrimination, while the other 3 apply more subtle forms of it.[3]
Such challenges continued in 2025 and the beginning of 2026.[4] The lack of houses for rent and high prices in certain cities are an impediment to the integration of refugees. Similarly, the lack of sufficient public housing for persons at risk of exclusion has been described as another barrier that asylum seekers and refugees face in Spain. In addition, discrimination by landlords and neighbours continued to represent the main obstacle for accessing housing.[5] In April 2025, the organisation CEAR joined the claims for the right to decent and free from discrimination access to housing of migrants and refugees, and prepared a set of proposals to the new national plan for accessing housing for 2026-2029.[6] In May, different organisations called the Government to act against the discrimination that migrants and refugees face in the real-estate sector, by registering a law proposal on the topic at the Congress.[7] In July, the organisation Provivienda denounced that the 99% of real-estate companies are discriminating migrants in accessing housing for rent. It also underlined that it obtained a compensation of 4,000 euros by a real-estate company in the Canary Islands for a Moroccan woman that could not access housing for rent due to her migrant background.[8] Against the increase of rents, Provivienda suggested that, in the short term, the solution would be to use already built houses that are left empty.[9]
In February 2025, around 60 people in the process of being evicted from the informal settlement of Níjar (Almería) and looking for an apartment to rent, denounced that nobody wanted to rent flats to Moroccan migrants.[10]
A report published by the Economic and Social Council of Spain (Consejo Económico y Social de España) in December 2025 highlighted the systemic exclusion from access to accommodation that migrants continue to face in Spain.[11]
Autonomous Communities have (or should put in place) programs for the assistance to the autonomous and independent life of young adults (some of these programs start when they are 17 until the age of 21 or 24). Accem manages some of them in different autonomous communities (i.e. Castilla La Mancha, Murcia, Aragón).
A report published in March 2025 by the organization Provivienda continues to highlight the discrimination faced by migrants and refugees in accessing rental housing, also addressing the discrimination against migrants carried out by estate agencies.[12]
In September, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration committed to allocate 40 million euros from the Social Impact Fund to affordable housing.[13]
In December, the police carried out eviction orders to clear an abandoned school building where around 400 migrants were living in a squat in Badalona (Catalonia).[14]
In February 2026, the Social Housing Fund has secured a €7.2 million investment for the purchase of 63 homes that will be added to the affordable rental housing stock. The initiative will be managed by the NGO Provivienda and Primero H, a project promoted by Asocimi and Hogar Sí, with the aim of expanding the supply of housing for social entities and people in vulnerable situations.[15]
[1] Provivienda, ‘Una casa como refugio: itinerarios residenciales de las personas solicitantes de protección internacional en Madrid y Vigo’, 28 October 2019, available at: https://cutt.ly/BtR8WUN.
[2] El País, ‘La red de albergues de Madrid deja en la calle a familias con niños’, 18 November 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2PAw8Nb; Público, ‘Varios solicitantes de asilo denuncian que España les deja fuera del sistema de acogida’, 16 May 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2AUvKQr.
[3] Cadena Ser, ‘Siete de cada diez inmobiliarias admiten implementar formas explicitas de discriminación’, 31 October 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3PF63H3.
[4] Diario de Burgos, ‘Un mercado de la vivienda hostil expulsa al migrante’, 20 March 2025, available here; Público, ‘”No alquilamos el piso a moras”: la lucha de la población migrante contra el racismo inmobiliario’, 8 May 2025, available here.
[5] CEAR, ‘INFORME 2024. Las personas refugiadas en España y Europa’, June 2024, p. 119, available here.
[6] CEAR, ‘CEAR se une a las reivindicaciones por el derecho a una vivienda digna y sin discriminaciones’, 4 April 2025, available here.
[7] La Vanguardia, ‘Organizaciones sociales piden al Gobierno medidas “urgentes” frente a la “discriminación” inmobiliaria a migrantes’, 7 May 2025, available here; Organizaciones sociales reclaman al Gobierno tomar medidas urgentes frente a las prácticas de discriminación inmobiliaria’, 7 May 2025, available here.
[8] Diario de Avisos, ‘Provivienda denuncia que el 99% de las inmobiliarias aceptan que el titular discrimine a migrantes’, 2 July 2025, available here.
[9] Cadena Ser, ‘Una ONG señala la solución al problema de la vivienda: “La respuesta a la emergencia habitacional está en las viviendas ya construidas”’, 10 August 2025, available here.
[10] ABC, ‘”Nadie quiere alquilar a un marroquí”: la realidad de los migrantes a desalojar en Níjar’, 21 February 2025, available here.
[11] Consejo Económico y Social de España, ‘informe la realidad migratoria en España: prioridades para las políticas públicas. 01/2025’, December 2025, available here.
[12] Provivienda, ‘¿Se alquila?(2). Racismo y segregación en el alquiler de vivienda’, March 2025, available here.
[13] La vanguardia, ‘Inclusión compromete hasta 40 millones de euros del FIS para viviendas asequibles en la España rural, 4.9.25, available here.
[14] APN News, ‘Spanish police evict hundreds of migrants from squat deemed unsafe’, 17 December 2025, available here.
[15] Demócrata, ‘El Fondo de Vivienda Social destina 7,2 millones a la compra de 63 pisos para alquiler asequible’, 16 February 2026, available here.