How much you can earn and still apply for protected housing (VPO)

Although each region (comunidad autónoma) has its own decree, the mechanism repeats. The income limit comes from multiplying a public income index by a number that depends on the regime, and comparing the result with your income weighted by the size of your family:

1. It starts from the gross income of the whole household (unidad de convivencia), not only yours.
2. That income is divided or adjusted by the number of members: the more people, the more generous the effective cap.
3. It is compared with the index multiplied by the coefficient of the regime you are applying for.

The two indexes you will see are the IPREM (Indicador Público de Renta de Efectos Múltiples), the state income index used to set the caps, and the IRSC (Indicador de Renda de Suficiència de Catalunya), which Catalunya uses instead of the IPREM. Almost every norm refers to the annual IPREM in 14 payments, which is not the same as the monthly figure multiplied by 12: if you do the sum with 12 payments you get a lower cap than the real one and think you do not qualify.

These are the multiples we have verified in each region's norm, and the cap they give for a single person with the 2026 IPREM in 14 payments (€8,400). With more members the cap rises where the region weights by household size. Catalunya does not use the IPREM but the IRSC (€9,622.18 in 2026) with its own coefficients. Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha and Navarra are not in the table because we have not yet verified their cap.

Weighting by household size is the part most people do not know about, and the one that most often changes the result. The logic is that €40,000 goes much less far in a family of five than in a one-person household, so the norm adjusts the income before comparing it with the cap.

Each region does it in its own way. Galicia, for example, applies a coefficient by family size that makes the cap go up with each member. Catalunya does it with weighting coefficients combined with the geographical area. Madrid and Castilla y León have adjustments that they do not publish in full on their websites, so we use the base cap as a cautious floor: if you are under that floor, you are certainly under the cap.

Three details here decide many applications:

• The last closed tax year. They do not look at what you earn today, but at the latest income tax return (declaración de la renta) available. If last year you had a one-off high income (a compensation payment, back pay), it can leave you out even if today you earn much less. And the other way round: if you have just had a pay rise, they will probably still assess you on the previous year.
• The whole household. The incomes of the people who are going to live in the home and are listed on the application are added up, not only the main applicant's.
• The taxable base, not your net pay. The rules work with tax concepts (the general taxable base and the savings taxable base), which are not the same as what reaches your bank account each month.

Some regions also require a minimum income: if you fall below it, you cannot buy either, because it is assumed you could not pay the mortgage. It is less well known than the maximum and rules out quite a lot of people when buying (not always when renting).

We have coded the income models of the regions whose norm we could verify word for word in its official source, plus the full Catalan regulation. Each result tells you which norm was applied and links to the original text, so you can check it yourself.

If your region is not modelled, we do not make up its formula: we send you straight to its official portal, which is where the current tables are. You can see the status of each region on the coverage page.