Dakar Rental Market Regulation Reform: Urgent Calls Amid Exploitation

• A recent RTS report highlighted widespread abuses and an outdated legal framework in Dakar's rental market, including coercive evictions and high upfront costs.
• Many tenants, fearing court, fail to respond to eviction summonses, often unaware of legal recourses like the 'référé sur difficulté expulsion' to temporarily suspend proceedings.
• Despite numerous laws, the National Rent Regulation Commission (Conarel), established by Decree n° 2023-446, only conciliates, and while Decree n°2010-439 has not been revised in 16 years, a new decree in March 2023 introduced rent reductions.
• Rents in Dakar surged by 256% between 1994 and 2014, making housing increasingly inaccessible for over half of Dakar's households who are renters.
• Proposed reforms include regional evaluation and conciliation units, full digitalization of the rental sector for traceability, and greater state oversight of social housing allocation.

This significant disparity between regulatory intent and market reality underscores the urgent need for comprehensive Dakar rental market regulation reform.

A recent in-depth report, aired on RTS on Sunday, August 30, 2026, under the title "Loyer, le casse-tête des Dakarois," has brought to light the systemic issues plaguing the Senegalese rental market, characterized by widespread exploitative practices and a regulatory framework that has remained stagnant for years. The investigation detailed numerous instances of tenant hardship, including the case of Cheikh Fall, who was forcibly removed from his Grand Dakar apartment in 2022 after a twelve-year tenancy for refusing an arbitrary rent increase imposed by his landlord. Further accounts revealed a visually impaired elderly man allegedly pressured by a real estate agency into signing an eviction document without comprehending its contents, alongside other tenants describing evictions carried out during the rainy season, often without any support or assistance.

An official from a tenant advocacy association highlighted a common issue where many tenants, fearing legal proceedings, decline to accept eviction summonses, inadvertently leading to default judgments against them. This situation persists despite the existence of a lesser-known legal recourse, the 'référé sur difficulté expulsion,' which allows for the temporary suspension of eviction proceedings to provide tenants time to secure alternative housing. The report also underscored the substantial financial burden associated with securing a rental property in Dakar, typically requiring three months' rent upfront, covering an advance, a security deposit, and a brokerage commission before keys are handed over.

This challenging environment is partly attributed to the 1994 liberalization of the real estate sector, which removed the requirement for a professional card to operate an agency. This change inadvertently facilitated the proliferation of unscrupulous agencies, some of which reportedly vanished after collecting deposits from dozens of clients. The scale of the issue is significant: a survey by the National Agency of Statistics and Demography, reported in March 2026, indicated that 23.6% of Senegalese households are renters, a figure that dramatically rises to 56.1% within the Dakar region alone. Furthermore, government data cited in a July 2024 article revealed that loyers Dakar abus had surged by an alarming 256% between 1994 and 2014, a trend that has continued to render housing increasingly inaccessible for many Dakarois households.

Despite a seemingly robust legal foundation comprising six laws, nine decrees, and one circular enacted since 1976, the réglementation locative Sénégal is widely perceived as ineffective. A member of the commissions tasked with regulating the market since 2014 expressed concern in the report that legislative texts, once drafted and published, are frequently stripped of their intended impact. A critical limitation lies with the Commission nationale de régulation des loyers (Conarel), established by Decree n° 2023-446, which currently functions primarily as a body for conciliation rather than possessing the authority to evaluate or set rental prices.

The most contentious piece of legislation is the décret n°2010-439 loyers, which establishes the pricing scale for both bare and built land. This decree, intended for revision every two years, has remained unchanged for an astonishing sixteen years, contributing to a disconnect between official valuations and market realities. However, a new decree implemented in March 2023 has since introduced significant reductions in residential rent prices. This significant disparity between regulatory intent and market reality underscores the urgent need for comprehensive Dakar rental market regulation reform.

In response to the current regulatory vacuum and the challenges faced by both tenants and landlords, stakeholders within the sector are advocating for specific reforms. Key proposals include the establishment of regional units dedicated to evaluation and conciliation, which could provide more localized and responsive mechanisms for addressing rental disputes and pricing concerns. Additionally, there is a strong push for the complete digitalization of the rental sector, drawing parallels with the vehicle registration system, to enhance the traceability of contracts and transactions, thereby increasing transparency and accountability.

The report also touched upon the role of social housing initiatives, noting that properties constructed by entities like SICAP and SNHLM are no longer sufficient to meet the escalating demand. This shortfall has inadvertently created an environment where private developers largely dictate the market. Consequently, there are growing calls for the state to implement more stringent oversight regarding the allocation of these social housing units, as the current process is widely regarded as lacking transparency.

Lawyers advising landlords or tenants in Dakar's rental market must contend with an outdated and often unenforced legal framework, including the unrevised Decree n°2010-439. They should be prepared for potential legislative reforms and be aware of specific, underutilized legal recourses like the 'référé sur difficulté' for eviction cases.

Source: Reporting based on a recent investigation by SenePlus.