I just reviewed how rent increases worked in March of last year, and it's interesting to see how everything changed after the rent law was repealed. It turns out it depended quite a bit on when you signed your contract.

To understand it clearly, there were three different scenarios at that time. The oldest contracts, those signed before October 2023, had annual adjustments based on the ICL index. Then there were contracts agreed upon between October and the end of 2023, with semi-annual increases. And then came the major change: starting December 29, 2023, everything became a matter of contractual freedom between tenant and landlord.

What happened in March 2025 was somewhat peculiar. Only the newest contracts, those signed after the repeal, had increases that month. The older ones with adjustments based on the ICL index no longer received increases, and the mid-term contracts would only update later.

For those who signed with quarterly adjustments based on CPI, the increase was 8.44% according to the January 2025 index. If you paid 600,000 pesos, you would end up paying around 650,000. With 800,000 pesos, it would rise to nearly 868,000.

However, there were contracts that continued to use the ICL index as a reference, even without legal obligation. Those saw a smaller increase, of 6.29%. The difference was notable: with a 600,000 peso rent, it would go up to approximately 637,000. More than two percentage points less than the CPI.

What’s interesting is that in March, agreements that had started exactly a year earlier, in March 2023, also ended. Those were three-year contracts under the old law, with annual adjustments based on the ICL index. But for renewal, the situation was completely different: most new contracts were being agreed upon for two years with quarterly or four-monthly adjustments, tied to inflation in pesos. So both those ending and those wanting to continue had to negotiate under these new rules of the game.