Andorra la Vella

The model Andorra is debating is the cooperative in cessió d’ús (grant of use). Members pay an entry contribution and a monthly fee. The cooperative owns the building, and members hold a lifelong right to live in it but never a saleable share. Arrel’s worked example, set out in a report on the parishes’ offer of land, puts an 80 m² flat at about €1,500 a month, falling to €350 once the building loan is repaid. It assumes an initial contribution of about €75,000.

Estaló ran its own numbers for a building of 45 homes costing about €13 million. In its cost simulation, a 55 m² one-bedroom flat needs €40,160 up front and €896 a month in the base case. With the most public support, that falls to €16,730 and €670. Per square metre the fee runs from €16.3 down to €12.07, below the new-let market on either measure the group compared.

From our library

Un habitatge cooperatiu podria costar des de 670 euros al mes i requerir una aportació inicial de 16.730 euros

The first cost simulation of an Andorran housing cooperative, set against market rents.

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There is no modern cooperative tradition to draw on. The older inheritance is communal. From the late thirteenth century the heads of each household met in parish assemblies that managed pastures, fields and forges, and parish councils still own the plots they now offer for housing. The Llei 5/2015 (the 2015 law on cooperative societies) already lists housing among the permitted forms. Pierre Fauré of Arrel calls it a usable base that is still quite generic.

The sector today is two groups of architects and a list of names. Arrel, led by the architect-urbanists Pierre Fauré and Léa Cazaban, had signed up more than 200 interested households by May 2026. Estaló, launched in July 2026 by four architects with Andrea Doncel as president, began with about 30 interested people. Both groups compare themselves with Zurich, where cooperatives hold more than 20% of the housing stock. They face the same three obstacles: no land yet committed, no bank product for collective loans, and a law that says little about housing. Estaló is looking at sites in La Massana, while Arrel talks mainly to the parishes.

Organisation in focus

Arrel

The architect-led group that brought the grant-of-use cooperative model to Andorra.

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The capital is the first public body to engage. Andorra la Vella’s Comú (parish council) is looking for sites where a first project could fit, and parish sources describe a good predisposition towards the idea. The Govern is studying whether its guarantee for first-home purchases could cover a member’s entry contribution. The Institut Nacional de l’Habitatge (the national housing institute) hosted a talk on a Barcelona cooperative in its conference series, as a July 2026 overview of the debate recalls. The opposition Partit Socialdemòcrata has promised a bill to adapt the cooperative law to housing.

Xavier Espot’s government, formed by Demòcrates per Andorra with Ciutadans Compromesos, treats housing as its central file. The minister in charge is Conxita Marsol, Minister of Presidency, Economy, Labour and Housing since 2023 and previously cònsol major (mayor) of Andorra la Vella. The flagship is the Llei 11/2026, passed in June 2026 by the governing majority against the whole opposition. It releases frozen leases in stages between 2027 and 2030. Rents of €2,500 a month or more are excluded from its protections.

The law comes with a cushion. A rent-aid programme worth €6 million in 2027 opens to applications on 1 November. Households qualify after 15 years of residence, once rent takes more than about 30% of their income. The public stock is the other half of the answer. The Govern aims for 650 affordable flats, expecting 500 by the end of 2027. It is putting €35 million of the 2025 surplus into public housing. The Institut Nacional de l’Habitatge has already housed 165 families and holds about 1,300 applications. A bill announced in September 2026 would pay private builders 10% of construction costs if they cap rents at €13.20 per square metre for at least 15 years.

The levers are split between two tiers. The Consell General (Andorra’s parliament) writes tenancy law and taxes, and the Govern builds and allocates through the institute. The seven Comuns (parish councils) own land and write the urban plans. Andorra la Vella’s cònsol major, Sergi González, has pushed the parish lever hardest. The capital’s new urban plan caps buildings at seven floors, down from 15, and cuts buildability by 40% on average. Developers must now cede 30% of land for green space, public housing or facilities, up from 15%. Relations are not seamless: González publicly regretted that the minister announced her builder subsidy without waiting for the Comuns.

For cooperatives there is not yet a dedicated instrument. What exists is the offer of parish land without ground rent, the capital’s search for a site, and a promise to study the purchase guarantee. The opposition bill on cooperatives is the first attempt at a legal route.

The answer to empty homes has moved from tax to requisition. After the 2023 increase in the empty-homes tax, the Llei 5/2025 (the law on sustainable growth and the right to housing) allowed empty flats to be transferred temporarily to the state for three years. It also suspended new tourist-flat licences and capped foreign buyers at one house or two flats. The Llei 3/2024 taxes foreign property investment at 6% or 10%. In August 2026 the Govern invited owners of whole buildings, aparthotels included, to lease them to the public stock for at least 30 years.

The climate rules reach housing through two instruments. The Llei 21/2018 (the law on energy transition and climate change) requires nearly zero-energy standards for new buildings licensed from 2020. It targets a 37% cut in emissions by 2030. The Renova programme subsidises building rehabilitation, with extra points for flats let at affordable rents. The public stock is where both goals meet, in passive-house and timber-framed buildings.

The street has become the third actor. Organisers counted between 2,000 and 3,000 people at the first large march in December 2023. In May 2026 the Sindicat d’Habitatge brought about 1,500 people through Andorra la Vella under the slogan “Neither people without homes, nor homes without people”. As reports from that march show, the union wants rents regulated and no eviction without an alternative home. The opposition says the new law will end “the Andorra we know”, while the government argues that an indefinite freeze shrinks supply.

Organisation in focus

Sindicat d'Habitatge d'Andorra

Tenants' union campaigning for rent regulation and preventing evictions without alternatives.

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Borda Nova I, on carrer Terra Vella, is the capital’s newest public building. Its 44 flats rise over nine floors on a plot the Comú gave the Govern free of charge. It is the first building in Andorra’s public stock designed to passive-house criteria. Rents run from €425 to €1,000 a month. Some two-bedroom flats were at first left unallocated, and the tenants’ union asked for the allocation rules to be revised. A second building of 42 flats, Borda Nova II, is due on the same plot in early 2029.

El Cedre, in Santa Coloma, shows what the next generation looks like. The Govern is building 30 flats there on a plot the Comú has lent for 40 years. As the award of its works sets out, the contract went for €8,267,114.34 to Construccions i edificacions les Valls. The structure will be timber, the flats range from 35 to 82 m², and the ground floor is kept for the Casa Pairal de Santa Coloma. The Govern pays 83% of the cost and the Comú the rest.

Terra Vella is the capital’s own experiment, and its hardest lesson. The Comú planned 49 flats on a 50-year concession, let at about €826 a month to residents with 15 years in the parish. The first tender attracted no valid bid, and only one company entered the negotiated round. By August 2026 the project was stalled for lack of bank finance. Sergi González still defends the route: “we continue to back public-private collaboration, because we believe the answers to the housing crisis have to be collective.”

Smaller schemes add renovated and purpose-built flats. On carrer Gravada de Tobira, the first public flats were handed over in 2025, housing 27 new families. In Roureda de Sansa, 14 renovated flats went to tenants by draw at rents between €394.04 and €717.83 a month. The Institut Nacional de l’Habitatge now manages the national stock and its waiting list.

Organisation in focus

Institut Nacional de l'Habitatge d'Andorra

Manages national housing policy, allocating affordable rentals, registering contracts, and providing aid.

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The Col·legi Oficial d’Arquitectes d’Andorra has argued for a different city rather than more of the same. Its president, Zaira Nadal, and the board proposed affordable-rent quotas in new developments and lower buildability. Without lower buildability, the college warned, the centre stays dense and congested. The parish plan has since moved in that direction.

Put together, Andorra la Vella holds pieces that rarely sit side by side. It has parish land offered free, a public builder that has learned passive-house and timber construction, a stalled concession that exposed the finance gap, and Arrel and Estaló’s would-be cooperators waiting for a first plot. What the capital does not yet have is the first building where those pieces meet.