Egypt’s Parliament Votes to Phase Out “Old Rent” Law with Seven-Year Transition
New legislation mandates tenants vacate after seven years, shifts all leases to civil-code terms and hikes legal rents across zones.
Watan-Egypt’s House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final approval to a government-backed bill concerning certain provisions of the rent laws and reorganizing the landlord-tenant relationship—commonly known as the “old rent law.”
Under the new law, tenants are required to vacate and return leased premises to their owners at the end of a seven-year transition period. It explicitly abolishes all existing “old rent” regulations once this period expires.
All old-term rental contracts will then be terminated, and future leases will be subject solely to the provisions of the Civil Code, based on the mutual agreement of both parties, following the transition period.
The bill also raises the statutory rent for residential units as follows:
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Prime areas: 20 × the current legal rent, with a minimum of EGP 1,000.
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Medium-value zones: 10 × the current legal rent, with a minimum of EGP 400.
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Economic zones: 10 × the current legal rent, with a minimum of EGP 250.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), there are a total of 3,019,662 leased units—residential and non-residential—classified between urban and rural areas. Of these, 2,792,224 are in urban centers and 227,438 in rural areas.
Opposition parties, unions, and civil-society organizations rejected the bill, warning it threatens social stability and could displace millions of families.
