Are rents in Prague still rising?

Get all the data you need about the real estate market in Prague

Are rents in Prague still rising right now?

Prague rents have stopped rising across the city for now, and the freshest data increasingly look like a plateau.

Deloitte's latest Rent Index puts the average Prague asking rent at CZK 462 per square metre per month, down 0.9% from the previous quarter. That broke a run of several consecutive increases. The change itself is small: for a 50 m² apartment, 0.9% is only around CZK 200 a month. The timing is more interesting than the amount because Prague had been moving almost continuously upward.

Nemovitomat's August data, based on thousands of deduplicated listings from major Czech property portals, show almost no movement after Deloitte's quarterly cut-off. Average asking rent went from CZK 511 to CZK 510/m² during the month, while the median moved from CZK 480 to CZK 481.

The price changes inside individual listings point the same way. Among 4,752 rentals that stayed advertised from the beginning to the end of the month, 15% reduced their rent and only 5% increased it. A quarterly decline followed by a month of virtually flat asking prices is enough to say Prague's broad rental upswing has paused.

Have Prague rents actually started falling?

Prague rents are cooling, but one small quarterly decline is still too little evidence to call this a sustained fall.

The longer trajectory makes that clear. Deloitte's Prague average was CZK 408/m² in Q2 2024, CZK 440 one year later and CZK 466 by Q1 2026. The latest move to CZK 462 gives back only CZK 4 of that increase.

Using those figures, Prague rents are still roughly 5% higher than a year earlier and about 13% above their level two years ago. Someone who rented before the latest surge would therefore find today's market considerably more expensive even after the recent drop.

Prague also had a near-pause in Q2 2025, when rents increased only 0.5%. The following quarter brought another jump of roughly 3.6%. One soft quarter can disappear quickly in a market where housing supply remains tight.

The difference today is that we now have more than one weak reading. Deloitte recorded an outright quarterly decline, while the newer Nemovitomat listings were basically flat. The market has clearly cooled. Whether rents keep falling is another question.

Are Prague rents cooling everywhere?

No. The current Prague rental slowdown hides some pretty large differences between districts.

Deloitte recorded falling rents in several of the main districts during its latest quarter. Prague 1 dropped 3.0%, Prague 8 fell 2.9%, Prague 4 lost 2.2% and Prague 10 was down 2.0%.

Prague 9 went the other way. Its average rent jumped 3.8% to CZK 468/m², the strongest increase anywhere in the city. Prague 1 and Prague 9 moved almost seven percentage points apart in a single quarter.

The current price hierarchy is also changing slightly. Prague 7 now has Deloitte's highest average at CZK 493/m², ahead of Prague 1 at CZK 490 and Prague 2 at CZK 482. At the cheaper end, Prague 10 stands at CZK 442 and Prague 4 at CZK 443.

Nemovitomat's newer asking-price data produce higher absolute numbers because the methodology is different, yet they show a similar geographical spread. Average listed rent is around CZK 579/m² in Prague 1, CZK 575 in Prague 2 and CZK 553 in Prague 7, versus CZK 470 in Prague 10.

A single Prague average therefore misses one of the biggest changes happening now: landlords are losing pricing power faster in some expensive districts while demand is still pushing other parts of the city higher.

Why are Prague 9 rents still rising?

Prague 9 is currently one of the clearest places where Prague's rental pressure has moved rather than disappeared.

The district's 3.8% quarterly rent increase came alongside unusually strong population growth. Czech Statistical Office figures show Prague 9 gained 2,283 residents during 2025, more than any of Prague's 57 municipal districts. Prague 5 added 1,985 and Prague 10 gained 1,288.

We should be careful with causality here. A larger population does not mechanically produce a 3.8% rent increase. But Prague 9 combines several things renters increasingly want: metro access, substantial new development around areas such as Vysočany and Hloubětín, and prices that are still below the traditional premium parts of central Prague.

There is also a catch. New development creates more homes, but modern apartments often enter the rental market at relatively high rents. Deloitte says rental units in Prague development projects averaged CZK 498/m² in its latest quarter, above the CZK 459 average in brick buildings.

Prague 9 shows why the current slowdown is more complicated than a simple citywide peak. Demand can migrate toward improving districts and keep raising rents there even while the expensive centre cools.

Have rents in central Prague finally hit a ceiling?

Central Prague looks much harder to push higher these days, especially after several years of aggressive rent growth.

Prague 1 offers the clearest example. Deloitte's average fell 3% in one quarter, from about CZK 505 to CZK 490/m². Prague 2 also slipped, while Prague 7 moved into first place at CZK 493.

Those are still extremely high rents. Recent Nemovitomat listings put Prague 1 and Prague 2 near CZK 580/m² on average, around 23% above Prague 10. A 60 m² apartment priced at that difference can easily cost more than CZK 6,000 extra per month before utilities.

What appears to be changing is tenants' willingness to accept another increase on top of an already large central premium. The newest citywide listing data support that reading: three times as many continuously advertised rentals reduced their price as increased it during August.

CZK 490 or CZK 500/m² is not a permanent ceiling. Premium refurbished apartments and well-located new buildings can go much higher. But the average landlord in central Prague currently has less room to increase rents than a year ago.

Are small apartments in Prague still getting more expensive?

Yes. Small Prague apartments are still the part of the rental market where tenants face some of the highest prices per square metre.

Nemovitomat's August data put average asking rent for a 1+kk at CZK 607/m², up 7.2% year-on-year. A 2+kk averages CZK 501/m² and is up 8.9%. Larger apartments are much cheaper per square metre: 3+1 units average CZK 397/m², with annual growth of only 2.9%.

A separate UlovDomov analysis of Q2 rents found the same uneven pattern. Prague 2+kk rents were up 14% year-on-year to CZK 452/m², while 3+kk rents actually fell 5% to CZK 411/m².

The monthly bill still rises with size, of course. A June sample of 585 live Prague listings found a median of CZK 19,000 for a 1+kk, CZK 25,000 for a 2+kk and CZK 39,000 for a three-room apartment. The pressure shows up most clearly when rent is divided by floor area.

For younger tenants and one-person households, downsizing only goes so far. A renter choosing a studio saves money overall but currently pays a substantial premium for every square metre used.

Do Prague tenants really pay the rents we see in online listings?

Not always. Prague asking rents tell us what someone searching for a new apartment faces, while existing tenants and completed deals can sit at different levels.

Deloitte builds its Rent Index from advertised rental offers. Nemovitomat also tracks asking prices on property portals. These datasets are very useful for measuring today's market because they capture the price facing a person who needs a home now. They should not be mistaken for the average rent already being paid across every occupied Prague apartment.

Completed transactions give us another perspective. Svoboda & Williams recorded an average achieved rent of CZK 24,250 for a 2+kk in Prague 9 during the first half of 2026, versus CZK 36,279 in Prague 1 and CZK 32,559 in Prague 2. Its clientele and apartments skew toward the premium market, so those numbers cannot represent the whole city either. They do show that asking-price averages and real leases are two different datasets.

Existing tenants can be further insulated from market jumps. Under Czech rules described by the Ministry for Regional Development, leases may contain an agreed indexation mechanism. Where they do not, the standard Civil Code procedure generally prevents landlords from increasing the rent by more than 20% cumulatively over three years and above the comparable local rent.

So when we say Prague rents rose around 5% over a year, we are describing the market level facing new renters much more accurately than the rent increase experienced by every person already living in Prague.

Is Prague genuinely short of housing?

Yes. Prague still has a housing-supply problem large enough to keep rents under pressure even during a flat quarter.

The Czech Statistical Office counted 5,303 completed homes in Prague during 2025, down 18.3% from 6,489 the previous year. Housing starts also fell, by 9.9% to 7,380.

Meanwhile, Prague ended 2025 with more than 1.407 million registered residents after gaining 9,204 during the year. International migration provided a net increase of 12,755 people, offset partly by residents leaving Prague for other Czech regions and by natural population decline.

We cannot divide population growth by completed apartments and call the result a housing shortage; households contain different numbers of people, and many new homes are bought rather than rented. Still, the scale is hard to ignore. Prague is adding thousands of people while annual housing completions remain measured in only a few thousand units and have recently fallen.

Supply inside the rental market also tightened sharply in the newest listing data. Nemovitomat counted just over 5,100 active apartment rentals at the end of August, around 17% fewer than at the beginning of the month. Some of that movement will be seasonal, so one month should not be projected indefinitely. It does show that the current plateau is happening without a flood of vacant rentals.

Is population growth still pushing Prague rents higher?

Prague still has strong long-term housing demand from population growth, although the latest population figures are less one-sided than last year's.

The city gained 9,204 registered residents during 2025. That increase came entirely from migration because deaths exceeded births and Prague lost residents through domestic migration to other Czech regions. International arrivals more than compensated for both.

The first quarter of 2026 looked different. Prague's population fell by 1,533 to 1,405,551, including a migration loss of 734. We would be careful about reading too much into that quarter because administrative changes around temporary-protection registrations can affect the figures, and a similar first-quarter distortion appeared previously.

The useful conclusion is narrower. Prague is still a large, internationally attractive city with a population well above 1.4 million, so demand has not vanished. But the latest demographic numbers give us less reason to expect rents to accelerate automatically from here.

This is one area where confidence should stay lower. We need several more quarters before we can tell whether Prague's population growth has genuinely slowed or whether the latest decline was mostly administrative and seasonal noise.

Are Prague salaries finally catching up with rents?

Yes. Prague wages are currently growing faster than the city's year-on-year rent increase, which should take some pressure out of the market.

Fresh Czech Statistical Office data put Prague's average gross monthly wage at CZK 66,459 in Q2 2026, up 6.2% from a year earlier. After inflation, the increase was 4.1%.

Prague rents rose by roughly 5% over a similar period in Deloitte's data. That gives wages a small advantage. The previous quarter was even stronger, with Prague gross wages rising 8.2% year-on-year.

The affordability problem is still obvious when rent per square metre is translated into a monthly bill. Deloitte's CZK 462/m² average gives roughly CZK 23,100 per month for a 50 m² apartment before utilities. That equals about 35% of the latest average gross Prague salary.

That 35% is only an illustration. Average gross wages are pulled up by high earners, take-home pay is lower, and many apartments support two incomes. Still, the direction has improved: incomes are recently rising a little faster than market rents, which gives tenants more ability to reject another large increase.

Are expensive Prague apartments keeping more people in the rental market?

Yes. Buying a Prague apartment remains expensive enough to keep a large group of households renting for longer.

Deloitte's latest Develop Index puts the average asking price for a new Prague apartment at CZK 182,700/m², up 1.3% from the previous quarter. At that citywide average, a 60 m² new apartment comes to almost CZK 11 million before financing and other costs.

Nemovitomat's broader resale and new-build listing mix is a little cheaper at roughly CZK 176,000/m², yet its calculated gross rental yield is only around 3.5%. Prague 1 sits near 3.1%, while even Prague 9 is roughly 3.6%.

Those low yields show how expensive the property is relative to the rent it produces. Landlords cannot simply raise rents enough to match purchase-price inflation without running into affordability limits.

For would-be buyers, though, the purchase price still creates a very high entry barrier. Households that cannot or do not want to spend several million crowns in equity plus take on a large mortgage remain renters. That keeps demand firm even while the pace of rent growth slows.

Will new apartments bring Prague rents down soon?

Probably not. Prague is building enough housing to change individual neighbourhoods, but nowhere near enough to expect a broad rent collapse soon.

Only 5,303 homes were completed in the city during 2025, 18.3% fewer than a year earlier. Housing starts also fell below the previous year's level. Those numbers do not describe a city suddenly producing excess housing.

Large developments around Prague 5, Prague 9 and other growth areas will still help. They add choice, shift demand away from the historic centre and can limit how aggressively landlords raise rents in nearby older buildings.

But new construction enters the market at high prices. Deloitte found Prague rental units in development projects averaging CZK 498/m² in its latest quarter, compared with CZK 459 in brick buildings. New supply can improve availability without making the average rent cheaper.

The more realistic effect is slower rental inflation and wider differences between neighbourhoods. A citywide fall would require supply to catch demand much more decisively than it currently does.

Could Prague rents start rising quickly again?

Yes. Prague still has enough underlying rental demand for another increase, although another citywide surge now looks less automatic than it did before.

The clearest upside risk is supply. Housing completions fell last year, active rental listings dropped sharply during August, home prices remain high and the city still has more than 1.4 million residents. Prague 9's 3.8% quarterly increase already shows how quickly rent pressure can reappear in an attractive district.

There are stronger brakes these days too. Wages have recently outpaced rents, central districts have softened, and the latest live listings show far more landlords cutting prices than raising them. Current rents have reached a level where tenants appear more willing to reject an overpriced apartment and wait for something better.

Any renewed increase is likely to be less uniform. Small apartments, good new buildings and improving outer districts can still move sharply. Premium central stock has a tougher job convincing tenants to pay another large increase.

The next few quarters should tell us whether today's plateau becomes a new normal or simply separates two periods of rising rents.

So, are rents in Prague still rising?

Mostly no right now. Prague rents remain higher than a year ago, but the newest evidence shows that the broad citywide increase has stalled.

Deloitte recorded a 0.9% quarterly decline after several quarters of growth. Newer August listing data then showed average rent down 0.1% during the month and the median up only 0.3%. Among listings that stayed on the market throughout the month, price cuts outnumbered increases three to one.

The longer picture remains expensive. Prague's Deloitte rent level is roughly 5% above last year and about 13% above two years ago. Small apartments are still recording strong annual increases, and Prague 9 is moving higher even while several central districts cool.

The latest quarterly decline has erased only a small fraction of the previous rise. Prague today is best described as a high-rent market that has entered a plateau. Calling rents “still rapidly rising” is outdated; calling Prague a falling-rent market goes further than the evidence allows.

Who is the author of this content?

INVESTROPA

A team specialized in real estate investing in European countries

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Prague. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.