Where buy-to-let pays: rental yields across Europe

Gross rental yield across Europe splits sharply by market. In 2026 the strongest income yields sit in Poland and Spain, where Łódź, València and Wrocław return close to 6% a year on median asking figures in Seeki.eu listings data. The weakest are in Germany's biggest cities: Berlin, Hamburg and Munich all pay under 3%. Broadly, the more a city costs to buy, the less its rent yields.

Last reviewed: 2026-08-10. The table is a Seeki.eu listings snapshot taken on 1 July 2026 and re-derived from the same data on 10 August 2026, when the ranking was unchanged. Seeki.eu is not a tax or investment adviser; this is orientation, not advice. Confirm the purchase costs, tax treatment and letting rules of any market with a local notary or tax adviser before you commit. Methodology and sources at the foot of this article.

Gross rental yield, city by city

The table ranks twenty of the largest apartment markets across the countries Seeki.eu covers by gross rental yield: the median asking rent per square metre, annualised, divided by the median asking sale price per square metre, for apartments. Every figure below is ours, taken from Seeki.eu listings data as of 1 July 2026. The final column is each city's average Seeki.eu location score, a 0 to 100 measure of how well-served the typical address is.

City	Median sale (€/m²)	Median rent (€/m²·mo)	Gross yield	Location score
Łódź, Poland	2,210	12.8	6.9%	80
València, Spain	3,240	18.6	6.9%	89
Wrocław, Poland	3,150	15.6	5.9%	72
Poznań, Poland	2,940	14.1	5.8%	80
Marseille, France	4,340	20.8	5.8%	87
Warsaw, Poland	4,100	19.6	5.7%	82
Gdańsk, Poland	3,460	16.5	5.7%	70
Madrid, Spain	5,420	24.4	5.4%	91
Barcelona, Spain	4,880	21.2	5.2%	93
Bordeaux, France	4,800	20.8	5.2%	88
Amsterdam, Netherlands	8,320	32.9	4.8%	89
Paris, France	10,890	40.9	4.5%	83
Lyon, France	5,690	20.2	4.3%	74
Lisbon, Portugal	6,770	23.6	4.2%	96
Vienna, Austria	6,540	22.1	4.1%	88
Bratislava, Slovakia	4,210	14.1	4.0%	85
Prague, Czechia	6,930	19.1	3.3%	87
Munich, Germany	8,980	20.5	2.7%	87
Hamburg, Germany	6,720	14.7	2.6%	71
Berlin, Germany	5,730	12.0	2.5%	83

The headline is a near-perfect inversion of price. The cheapest markets to buy into pay the most, and the dearest pay the least. Poland and Spain fill eight of the top nine places. Germany's three largest cities, the most expensive and most sought-after housing on this list, fill the bottom three. Berlin, the city that rents the most space per euro to a tenant, is the single worst place on the list to be the landlord.

Gross yield is not net yield

Gross yield is the honest starting point, but it is not what reaches your account. It is annual asking rent divided by asking price, before anything is deducted. Net yield strips out the purchase costs (transfer tax, notary, agent commission), income tax on the rent, vacancy between tenants, management and maintenance, and any financing.

Those costs vary widely across Europe, so the gross ranking does not survive intact to net. On the rules published for 2026, Poland charges a 2% tax on civil-law transactions (podatek od czynności cywilnoprawnych) on a second-hand flat, while Spain's regional transfer tax runs from 6% in Madrid to 13% at the top of Catalonia's scale, French conveyancing fees and duties on an existing property come to roughly 7% to 10% of the price, and Germany's land-transfer tax is set by each federal state, from 3.5% in Bavaria and Saxony to 6.5% in Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. A high-cost market erodes more of its gross than a low-cost one, which narrows the gap between, say, a Polish and a Spanish city once real costs are in. Read the table as a screen, then model the specific costs of any market before you commit. We compare those purchase costs country by country in the true cost of buying a home in Europe, and our per-country guides cover the purchase mechanics and tax treatment market by market.

Poland and Spain lead, for different reasons

The top of the table is Polish and Spanish, but the two get there by different routes. Poland leads on cheap entry: Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Warsaw and Gdańsk buy in at roughly €2,200 to €4,100 per square metre, the lowest prices on the list, while rents have climbed with strong urban demand and a young, mobile rental population. Cheap to buy and solid to rent is the classic high-yield combination.

Spain gets there on rent. València, Madrid and Barcelona are not especially cheap to buy, but their rents are high against those prices, driven by deep domestic demand and a large short and medium-term letting market. That pushes València to the top of the table alongside Łódź, and keeps Madrid and Barcelona above 5%. As the next section shows, Spain does it while holding the best address quality on the list, which is the more important point for a landlord.

Why Germany's big cities yield least

At the bottom sit Prague, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, between 2.5% and 3.3%. These are among the deepest, best-capitalised markets in Europe, and their prices reflect years of appreciation and deep, well-funded buyer demand. Rents per square metre are high in absolute terms, but they have not climbed as fast as prices, so the income yield compresses. When buyers pay for expected capital growth, current rent buys a smaller slice of the price.

Berlin is the sharpest case. It rents the most space per euro of any city here, which reads as a bargain to a tenant, but that same low per-metre rent against a mid-tier price pins its yield to the bottom of the list. Part of Berlin's low median rent is structural. The city's rent brake (Mietpreisbremse) runs to 31 December 2029 and caps a re-let rent at 10% above the local comparative rent, and the Berliner Mietspiegel 2026, published by Berlin's Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing in May 2026, states rents as net cold rent (Nettokaltmiete) before charges. A deep pool of long-standing tenancies let below market and that cold-rent convention both pull the advertised median down.

Paris and Amsterdam: expensive both ways

Paris and Amsterdam are the two markets that break the price-versus-yield rule. They carry the highest sale prices on the list by some distance, near €10,900 and €8,300 per square metre, yet both hold a mid-table yield around 4.5% to 4.8%. The reason is that their rents are as extreme as their prices. Paris asks over €40 per square metre a month and Amsterdam near €33, far above anything else here. Extreme rent, not cheap entry, is what keeps their yields respectable, and it is a very different investment case from the Polish value band: high capital at stake, thin tenant affordability headroom, and heavy regulation in both cities.

The location score changes the ranking

Yield tells you what the rent returns. It says nothing about the quality of the place you are buying into, and that is where the location score earns its column. It scores the setting, not the flat: transport access, nearby amenities, green space, how quiet the street tends to be. Read the two columns together and the ranking rearranges itself around risk-adjusted quality.

Spain is the standout. València returns 6.9% at a location score of 89, Madrid 5.4% at 91, and Barcelona 5.2% at 93, the three highest scores among the high-yield cities. Getting a near-6% yield and a top-tier address at the same time is rare, and no other country on the list manages it. Poland, by contrast, buys its top yields at weaker addresses: Wrocław (5.9%) and Gdańsk (5.7%) post the two weakest location scores among the high-yield cities, 72 and 70, so part of that headline yield is compensation for a less central setting. Poznań (80) and Warsaw (82) are the Polish cities that pair strong yield with a solid address.

At the other end, the expensive markets invert the trade. Prague, Munich and Vienna score 87 to 88 for location but sit near the bottom on yield, and Lisbon posts the single highest location score on the list, 96, at a middling 4.2%. In those cities you are buying the address, not the income. For a buy-to-let investor the sweet spot is the top-left of that trade-off, high yield and a high score together, and in mid-2026 that corner belongs to Spain. If you want the full breakdown of what the score measures, we wrote it up in what the Seeki Score actually measures.

Frequently asked questions

Which European city has the highest rental yield?

Among the cities studied, Łódź and València share the top gross rental yield at about 6.9%, according to Seeki.eu listings data as of 1 July 2026, followed by Wrocław and Poznań near 5.8% to 5.9%. Poland and Spain dominate the top of the table. The weakest yields are in Germany's largest cities, where Berlin, Hamburg and Munich all pay under 3% on median asking figures.

Is Berlin a good buy-to-let?

On gross yield alone, Berlin is the weakest on this list at about 2.5%. Its advertised rents are the lowest per square metre here, held down by a large pool of regulated tenancies and by cold-rent quoting, while its prices sit in the mid tier. Berlin is a strong, liquid city with weak income yield, so the case for it rests on capital growth rather than rent.

Why does Spain combine high yield with good locations?

Spanish cities pair moderate purchase prices with strong rents and dense, well-connected urban cores, so they score highly on the Seeki.eu location measure while still yielding above 5%. València, Madrid and Barcelona post location scores of 89 to 93 alongside yields of 5.2% to 6.9%, the strongest risk-adjusted combination on the list.

Are these gross or net yields?

These are gross yields: annual asking rent divided by asking price, before purchase costs, income tax, vacancy, management, maintenance and financing. Net yield is lower and varies by country, because transfer taxes and letting costs differ widely across Europe. Use the gross figure to screen markets, then model net for the specific city and property.

Why do the expensive cities yield the least?

In Prague, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg, prices reflect years of capital appreciation and deep buyer demand. Rents per square metre are high in absolute terms but have not risen as fast as prices, so current rent buys a smaller share of the purchase price. When a market prices in expected growth, its income yield compresses.

Are these asking figures or achieved figures?

Both columns are median asking figures from live Seeki.eu listings as of 1 July 2026: advertised sale prices and advertised rents. Achieved sale prices tend to run slightly below asking, and signed rents slightly below advertised, so treat the yield as a current market snapshot rather than a realised return. They cover apartments only.

Already a landlord?

If you already own a rental or plan to sell a buy-to-let, you can list it on Seeki.eu yourself. The Seeki.eu app builds the listing from your photos, prices it against the same live market data behind this article, and puts it in front of buyers and tenants in their own language.

Methodology

Gross rental yield is the median asking rent per square metre for apartments, multiplied by twelve, divided by the median asking sale price per square metre for apartments, in each city. The twenty cities are among the largest apartment markets by listing volume across the countries Seeki.eu covers, selected for a pan-European spread rather than a single region. Both medians come from currently advertised listings on Seeki.eu and are converted to euros so the cities compare on a like-for-like basis. Medians are used because they resist outliers better than averages. Rents are base rent excluding charges and utilities, which is how these markets advertise. Where a city holds a large pool of regulated or below-market tenancies (notably Berlin), the median asking rent reflects that stock and can understate what a landlord letting a fresh flat would achieve, so Berlin's investable yield on a new letting is a little above the figure shown. The Seeki.eu location score is the average of the per-listing location score for each city's apartments. The data is refreshed quarterly.

For buyers weighing one of these markets, our per-country guides cover the mechanics of purchase, taxes and non-resident rules. Start with the Buying Property in Spain as a Foreigner (2026 Guide) or the Buying Property in Germany as a Foreigner (2026 Guide). To compare per-metre prices directly, see the Spanish price-per-m² page or the Polish price-per-m² page. For two budget-flipped views of the Central European cities in this table, read what €200,000 buys across Central Europe and what €1,000 a month rents across Central Europe.

Sources

Every price, rent and location-score figure in the table is Seeki.eu's own data, read from apartment listings advertised on the portal on 1 July 2026 and re-derived from the same source on 10 August 2026, which left the ranking and every headline claim unchanged. Local-currency prices are normalised to euros at European Central Bank daily reference rates, taken through the Frankfurter API with the ECB's own daily reference file as the fallback.

The purchase-cost comparison rests on published national rules rather than our data, all as they stood in 2026. Poland charges a 2% tax on civil-law transactions on second-hand homes. Spain's autonomous communities set their own transfer-tax scales, from Madrid's 6% to the 13% top band of Catalonia's progressive scale. French conveyancing fees and transfer duties on an existing property are customarily quoted at 7% to 10% of the price. Germany's land-transfer tax is set by each federal state, between 3.5% and 6.5%. Rates change and turn on the property and the buyer, so confirm your own case before you rely on them.

Berlin's low advertised median is read against two German conventions. The Berliner Mietspiegel 2026, published by the Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing in May 2026, expresses rents as net cold rent before charges. Berlin's rent brake continues to 31 December 2029 and holds a re-let rent to no more than 10% above the local comparative rent, which is what keeps a deep pool of long-standing tenancies below market.