Most students in Granada sign a contrato de temporada (a season let for the academic year), pay one month's deposit, and pay utilities either included in the rent or split separately. Your deposit is refundable at the end unless there's real damage or unpaid bills, and you can usually register your address (empadronamiento) with your signed contract.
This guide walks through what to expect. It's practical orientation, not legal advice — if a specific dispute gets serious, get proper help (see the end).
Season let vs standard lease
Spain has two contracts you'll run into, and the difference matters.
**The season let (contrato de temporada / de arrendamiento de vivienda distinto del de vivienda habitual)** is what most student rentals use. It's for a defined, non-permanent period — say, September to June, or a fixed number of months — because your "main home" is officially elsewhere. It's the normal, legitimate contract for an Erasmus year. The trade-off: it doesn't give you the strong long-term tenant protections that a standard residential lease does, and the landlord isn't obliged to renew.
**The standard residential lease (contrato de vivienda habitual)** is for people making Granada their permanent home. It comes with stronger rights (minimum durations, renewal protections, capped deposits). You're unlikely to be offered this for a single academic year, and that's fine — the season let is appropriate for your situation.
Whichever you sign, insist on it in writing, in a language you can at least run through a translator, and keep a copy. Get the landlord's full name and ID (or the agency's), the exact address, the monthly rent, the deposit amount, the start and end dates, and what the rent does and doesn't include.
Deposits: what's normal and when it can be withheld
The deposit (fianza) is your single biggest up-front risk, so understand it.
- One month's rent is the standard deposit for a room. Some landlords also ask for the first (and occasionally the last) month up front. Two months of deposit is the sensible ceiling — push back on anything more.
- The deposit is refundable. At the end of the let, you should get it back, typically within about a month, once the landlord has checked the room.
- It can legally be withheld only for real reasons: genuine damage beyond normal wear and tear, unpaid rent, or unpaid utility bills that were your responsibility. Normal ageing — a bit of scuffing, a light bulb gone — is not damage.
Protect yourself on day one: photograph the room and the flat when you move in, timestamped, and note any existing marks in writing to the landlord (a WhatsApp message counts). Do the same when you leave. This one habit prevents most deposit disputes.
Never pay a deposit before you've seen the flat in person or on a live video call — that's the golden rule, and the fastest way to lose money to a fake listing is to skip it. The no-nonsense housing guide covers the common scam patterns in detail if you're arranging things from abroad.
Bills, utilities and community fees
Read whether the listing says gastos incluidos (included) or gastos aparte (separate):
- Included means water, electricity, gas, internet and community fees are inside the rent. Simpler, and easier to budget — but check there's no fair-use cap on electricity, which some landlords add to discourage heaters running all winter.
- Separate means you and your flatmates split the actual bills on top of rent. Budget roughly €30–60 per person per month, higher in the cold months (Granada winters are genuinely cold, and heating is the big variable).
If bills are separate, ask who the account holders are and how the split is calculated. In most shared flats the landlord keeps the contracts in their name and you reimburse a share — that's normal and saves you setting up utilities yourself.
Empadronamiento with your contract
The empadronamiento is your registration with the local town hall (padrón) confirming you live at your address. You'll want it for lots of admin (some bank, NIE and university steps run smoother with it). To register you generally need your signed rental contract plus ID/passport, and sometimes the landlord's agreement, so ask before signing whether the landlord will let you empadronarte at the flat — most will, but it's worth confirming. For where the padrón fits among your other first-week admin (NIE, SIM, bank), follow the arrival checklist.
Guarantors and what landlords ask of foreigners
This is where international students hit friction. Spanish landlords often want a **guarantor (aval / avalista)** — someone who'll cover the rent if you don't. Common requests:
- A Spanish guarantor (a person resident in Spain), which most Erasmus students simply don't have.
- Proof of income or a nómina (payslip), which students also don't have.
- Several months' rent paid in advance in lieu of a guarantor.
Realistic alternatives if you can't provide a Spanish guarantor:
- Pay a couple of months up front. The most common workaround; many landlords accept this instead of an aval.
- A parent or family guarantor from home, with translated proof of income. Some landlords accept it, some don't.
- Rent a room in a shared flat rather than a whole flat. Room lets are far more relaxed about guarantors than whole-flat leases — another reason a shared room is the easiest route for a first year.
- A grant or scholarship letter as proof of funds can reassure a landlord.
Renting directly from the landlord (as you do on GranadaPisos, over WhatsApp) helps here — you can explain your situation to a human and negotiate, rather than being filtered out by an agency's fixed checklist.
A note on legal advice
This is general orientation to help you know what's normal, not legal advice, and rules and practice can change. If you face a real dispute — a withheld deposit, an eviction threat, a contract that looks wrong — get proper help: the UGR's international student office and the city's free consumer advice service (OMIC) are good, low-cost starting points, and worth knowing before you need them.
Know what you're signing and you've removed most of the risk. When you're ready to start viewing, browse the live, direct-from-landlord listings at /en/pisos, check a fair price for your area on the student rent index, and make sure your move-in buffer covers the deposit and advance rent — the cost of living guide breaks down those one-off setup costs.