How many months of deposit can you be asked for when you rent an apartment?

According to the law, you can be asked for a maximum of one month deposit. This is explained in article 36 of Law 29/1994, of Urban Leases.

However, the same law gives the possibility of asking for up to two months of "additional guarantees": "The parties may agree on any type of guarantee of the tenant's compliance with his lease obligations in addition to the cash deposit. In the case of housing leases, in contracts of up to 5 years, or up to 7 years if the lessor is a legal entity, the value of this additional guarantee may not exceed 2 months' rent".

This means that, in practice, you may be required to provide up to three months of guarantees, even if the deposit is only one month.

It is important that at the time of signing the contract, all this information is specified in a very clear way, differentiating between what has been paid as deposit and what has been paid as additional guarantees.