71.8% growth in single room rentals in Italy from 2018 to 2025

Rentals of individual parts of properties, therefore rooms, reached 241,700 in 2025. Seven years earlier there were 141 thousand: growth was 71.8%, as Il Sole 24 Ore calculated by analyzing Omi data. In the same period, contracts relating to the rental of entire houses remained essentially stable. The numbers refer to the main cities of Italy, counting that half of all locations are in Rome, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Naples, Bari, Padua, Bologna and Florence. Even in the smaller municipalities, however, there is considerable growth: +51.3%, again between 2018 and 2025.

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In Rome, room rent between 2018 and 2025 increased by 37%, below the national average, but this has to do with the fact that, more than in other cities, this market share has always been very important. Last year, contracts of this type exceeded 37 thousand, representing almost 41% of all registered rental contracts. If we then look at the rent for accommodation, in the second quarter of 2026 the value grew by 3.3% compared to the same period of 2025 (1,012 euros per month). The average rent for individual rooms, which Il Sole calculated by extrapolating Omi data on "transitional subsidized" contracts, which include those for students, stands on average at 471 euros (+4% in one year).

In Milan the increase in partial rental contracts between 2018 and 2025 was much stronger than in Rome: +81%, even if its weight on the total stipulations is more limited (31% in 2025, 23% in 2018). The introduction of rent contracts agreed at a local level caused the rent per accommodation to decrease (albeit very slightly), which in the second quarter of 2026 marked -1% and reached 1,062 euros. The average rent for a room is 387 euros (+12.6%).

The rental market has been driven by the spread in recent years of transitional contracts and those designed for students, which last year accounted for 35.7% of the total contracts stipulated. The rental of individual rooms was affected even more strongly: +75.6%.

Medium-sized university cities are those where this growth is most noticeable, even more than in Milan or Rome. The case of Messina is cited as emblematic: +200.1% of partial rental contracts between 2018 and 2025. From another perspective, it highlights how in Bologna and Padua the population of non-resident students is so large compared to resident citizens that this has influenced the choices of residents for their homes. Speaking about Padua with Il Sole, Paolo di Leonardo of Soloaffitti explains that the rents for the rooms do not fall within the limits on the agreed rents, so landlords often sign a 4+4 contract, which they then close and reopen after a year. Be careful in Turin, which in recent years has been experiencing a boom driven (also) by those who have decided to leave Milan: here, rents are reaching 40% of an average salary.

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