Property

South Africa’s cheapest and most expensive provinces to rent property

Kirsten Minnaar • 19 March 2026

New data revealed that there is now a gap of nearly R4,400 between the average rent in South Africa’s cheapest province, the Free State, and its most expensive province, the Western Cape.

This is according to Payprop’s latest Rental Index for the fourth quarter of 2025, which showed that the average rent in South Africa reached R9,462 per month.

Compared to the final quarter of 2024, when the average rent in South Africa was R9,051, this is an increase of over R400 a month.

However, while South Africa’s 4.5% rental growth remained above inflation, it also continued to slow throughout the final quarter of 2025.

Average rents grew by 4.5% in October, 4.8% in November and 4.3% in December – the weakest annual rental growth month recorded since March 2024.

“Yet, after taking inflation into account, the market still performed better than in 2024,” Payprop said.

Consumer price inflation (CPI) was 3.6% in October, 3.5% in November and 3.6% in December. In comparison, throughout the whole first half of 2024, CPI was sitting at above 5%.

“That said, real-terms rental growth was below 1% in two out of three months of the quarter due to resurgent inflation and falling rental growth – the worst performance of the year,” Payprop said.

However, it stressed that perspective is important, as any positive real-terms rental growth still means the market is performing better than any of the five previous years when inflation outpaced rental growth.

At the same time, though, there are still significant geographical disparities in South Africa’s rental market, with some provinces demonstrating much better growth and arrears rates than others.

As a result, tenants can now expect to see a price gap of over R4,000 between the average rental in South Africa’s cheapest and most expensive provinces.

The table below shows the average monthly rent for every province in South Africa in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Payprop.

Province	Tenants in arrears	Rental growth Q4 2025	Average rent Q4 2025
Free State	21.5%	3.9%	R7,500
North West	23.8%	11.2%	R7,557
Eastern Cape	18.3%	5.0%	R7,660
Mpumalanga	18.5%	1.5%	R8,565
Limpopo	15.8%	5.1%	R9,246
Kwa-Zulu Natal	19.4%	3.4%	R9,456
Gauteng	15.7%	3.2%	R9,465
Northern Cape	19.3%	7.6%	R10,393
Western Cape	13.4%	6.8%	R11,894

South Africa’s cheapest and most expensive provinces

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Payprop reported that the Free State had the lowest average rental prices in South Africa at R7,500 per month.

“Last quarter, we noted that rents had fallen quarter-to-quarter in rand terms and pointed out that this could lead to slower year-on-year growth in late 2025 and early 2026,” Payprop said.

“That prediction seems to be coming true – rental growth fell from 51% in Q3 to just 3.9% in Q4, pushing the province below the national average for growth for the first time in a year.”

However, the average rent was R380 higher than in the third quarter and R284 higher year-on-year. As such, Payprop said it could see provincial growth recovering in late 2026.

Unfortunately, though, rental price was not the only category where the Free State was trailing behind. In the fourth quarter, 21.5% of tenants were behind on their rent.

That’s well above the national average, but nonetheless marked a decrease from the third quarter, which means the Free State no longer has the highest arrears of any province. North West now holds the unfortunate title at 23.8%.

“However, tenants in arrears now owe an average of 96.8% of their rent. This is up 3.9% compared to Q3 and is once again the highest in South Africa,” Payprop found.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Western Cape once again took the crown, with its average rent reaching R11,894. This is R259 more than 2025’s third quarter and R753 more than 2024’s fourth quarter.

Impressively, the Western Cape has now completed eight consecutive quarters of above-average rental growth.

Rents rose 6.8% year on year in the last quarter of 2025, down from 7.0% in Q3 and Q4 of 2024’s peak of over 10%. However, the slowdown was still smaller than the national trend.

“At the current rate, we can expect average rents in the province to pass R12,000 in early 2026,” Payprop said.

While one might expect the Western Cape’s rising rental prices to lead to higher arrears, this is not the case.

“Tenants aren’t just keeping up with rising rents in the Western Cape – they’re paying more reliably. The share of tenants in arrears fell slightly to 13.4% from 13.5% in Q4, still easily the lowest in the country,” it said.

“Tenants in arrears owed an average of 56.4% of their rent, down from 58.2% last quarter and a new record low for the province.”

It is important to note that Payprop’s Rental Index is merely a price comparison. It does not measure “value”, which is a subjective factor and will look different for each tenant.

Some factors which may make a certain rental better value for money include the property’s size, number of bedrooms, proximity to key locations, alternative energy and water solutions, security and amenities.

The rental disparity between provinces means that, for the same price, tenants will likely get better “value” in the Free State than in the Western Cape.

To give a better idea of what tenants can get in the Free State compared to the Western Cape, Daily Investor listed available rentals at three different price points below.