What India actually pays in rent right now — 8,500+ reports, 16 cities

Every flat hunter in India runs into the same wall: everyone quotes asking prices, nobody reveals what they actually pay. Portals show listings designed to make you call. Brokers quote high because that lifts their commission. Friends lowball to avoid sounding like they overpaid. The result is that the single biggest expense in most urban budgets — rent — is negotiated blind.

This report is our attempt to fix that, with numbers instead of vibes. MyBharat now holds 8,590 first-hand rent reports across 16 cities, all submitted anonymously by actual tenants. Every number below is what someone is really paying right now, not what a listing hopes to fetch. Here is the state of rents in India as of August 2026.

The headline numbers

A few things jump out. Mumbai is expensive, sure — but Delhi and Hyderabad now sit within striking distance of it, and Bengaluru's ₹34,000 weighted median is remarkably high for a city where ₹25,000 options still exist in volume. Kolkata remains the outlier on the other side: a median of ₹16,750 means half of reported rents in the city sit below that number. In Bengaluru, that wouldn't cover the 25th percentile in Bellandur.

Why medians beat asking prices

A median is the middle of the distribution: half the reports are above it, half below. It is stubborn. One billionaire renting a ₹5 lakh penthouse cannot drag it up, and one damp basement bargain cannot drag it down. Compare that with listing portals, where the "average rent" is typically an average of asking prices — inflated by stale listings, negotiable quotes, and properties that never actually transact at the printed number.

Asking prices answer the question "what do landlords want?" Medians of verified reports answer the question you actually care about: "what did people like me end up paying?" On MyBharat, every data point in the median is a tenant reporting their own rent, first-hand and anonymous. No broker markup, no anchoring.

The second reason is the spread, which we publish alongside every median. HSR Layout in Bengaluru has a median of ₹38,000 (n=796), but the middle 50% of reports run from ₹25,000 to ₹57,425. An asking price tells you nothing about that range. A median with percentiles tells you both the centre and the room to move.

City by city: what the data says

Bengaluru — the deepest dataset

With over 6,700 reports, Bengaluru is where our numbers are hardest to argue with. The weighted median sits at ₹34,000. HSR Layout leads in volume (796 reports, median ₹38,000), Marathahalli follows (670 reports, ₹35,000), and Sarjapur Road carries a premium at ₹44,000 (n=444). Bellandur is the shocker: a ₹54,000 median across 394 reports, pushed up by lake-adjacent gated communities. Meanwhile BTM Layout holds at ₹25,000 (n=338) and Electronic City at ₹26,000 (n=260) — proof that the city still has a spine of affordability if you can live with the commute.

Mumbai — the usual suspect, with nuance

The citywide median of ₹42,773 hides enormous variation. Bandra West reports a median of ₹87,000 (n=3) and a lone Dadar report at ₹94,000, while Vashi sits at ₹40,000 (n=3), Thane West at ₹43,000, and Borivali West at ₹42,000. Powai — the default IT couple postcode — shows ₹59,500 (n=4). The honest takeaway: in Mumbai, the suburb matters more than the city.

Delhi — compact data, clear gradient

At a ₹37,188 median, Delhi's limited reports still sketch the map cleanly: Lajpat Nagar ₹49,000, Saket ₹45,000, Dwarka ₹40,000, Karol Bagh ₹37,000, Mayur Vihar ₹27,000, Rohini ₹25,000. South Delhi commands the premium; the outer west and east are dramatically cheaper.

Hyderabad — the quiet climber

A citywide median of ₹35,375 with Banjara Hills at ₹60,000 (n=3), Madhapur at ₹36,000, Gachibowli at ₹31,000 and Kukatpally at ₹22,000. Hyderabad spent years as "the affordable IT city"; that story is ageing fast in the tech corridor.

Pune — the value pick among IT cities

At ₹28,459, Pune undercuts Bengaluru by roughly ₹5,500 a month at the median. Hinjawadi — the IT heart — sits at ₹28,000 with 15 reports, while old-city Kothrud manages ₹23,500 (n=9) and Baner commands ₹33,000 (n=10). For a metro with that job market, it remains the best rent-to-paycheque ratio of the big five.

Chennai — steadier than its reputation

The ₹26,912 median makes Chennai cheaper than every big rival except Kolkata. Adyar (₹34,000) and T Nagar (₹31,000) lead; OMR Perungudi — the IT stretch — is ₹21,000, and Mylapore reports ₹20,250. Chennai's rents rise slower than its southern neighbours, and the data shows it.

Kolkata — the outlier, in a good way

A ₹16,750 median, with even premium Ballygunge at ₹18,000. Dum Dum reports ₹16,250, Behala ₹14,500. For remote workers, Kolkata is arguably India's biggest arbitrage: metro-city infrastructure at tier-two rent.

The spread within cities is the real story

City medians are useful for comparison, but the negotiation happens inside the spread. Koramangala's median is ₹35,000 (n=307), yet its middle 50% spans ₹22,000 to ₹60,250 — nearly a 3x range inside one neighbourhood. Frazer Town runs from ₹17,000 to ₹55,000 around a ₹30,000 median. Same pincode, wildly different outcomes, depending on building age, configuration, and how informed the tenant walked in.

That is the practical gift of this dataset. When you know the 25th percentile of your target area, "the owner is asking ₹52,000" stops being a fact and becomes an opening position.

How to use this

• Open the rent map and drop into your city to see live medians, spreads, and report counts per locality.
• Compare your target areas on the city pages: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi.
• Drill into a specific society before you visit — for example Green View Residency, Electronic City — to see building-level medians and how many reports back them.
• Pay rent digitally and generate rent receipts — you will want the paper trail for HRA and for any deposit dispute later.
• Add your own rent anonymously. Every report sharpens the median for the next person.

FAQ

Which city has the highest rents in India right now? Among our tracked cities, Mumbai leads with a median of ₹42,773, followed by Delhi (₹37,188) and Hyderabad (₹35,375). Bengaluru (₹34,000) has the largest single-city dataset, with 6,700+ reports.

Is Bengaluru rent really that high? The weighted median of ₹34,000 comes from over 6,700 first-hand reports, and hotspots like Bellandur (₹54,000, n=394) and Sarjapur Road (₹44,000, n=444) run well above it. But BTM Layout (₹25,000) and Electronic City (₹26,000) show the affordable end is real.

Why trust these numbers over property portals? Portals publish asking prices of listings. We publish medians of what tenants actually pay, anonymously and first-hand, with report counts and freshness shown next to every figure.

Which is the cheapest metro to rent in? Kolkata, by a distance — a median of ₹16,750, less than half of Mumbai's. Chennai (₹26,912) and Pune (₹28,459) are the next most affordable.

How often is this data updated? Continuously. Every anonymous report updates locality and society medians in near real time, and this snapshot reflects August 2026.

Keep exploring

• Bengaluru Rent Report, August 2026 — the deep dive behind Bengaluru's ₹34,000 median
• Pune Rents by Area: Hinjawadi, Baner, Kothrud — where Pune's ₹28,459 median actually lives
• How to Read a Rent Map — medians, percentiles and report counts explained
• Security Deposits: What Societies Actually Ask — the other big cheque you'll write

The configuration ladder, city by city

A single all-configurations median hides the shape of each market, so here are the ladders. Bengaluru, with the deepest evidence base, prices each step almost perfectly:

The 2BHK-to-3BHK jump is the one to study: ₹25,000 a month, the steepest single step on the ladder, because 3BHKs cluster in gated premium stock. The 1BHK-to-2BHK step costs roughly double the 2BHK-to-3BHK jump per square foot of life improvement — which is why the 2BHK is India's working compromise.

Pune's ladder (2BHK ₹27,500, n=126; 3BHK ₹40,000, n=34; 1BHK ₹19,000, n=29) runs systematically below Bengaluru's at every step. Mumbai's runs above: 1BHK ₹22,000 (n=19), 2BHK ₹50,000 (n=44), 3BHK ₹83,000 (n=13) — the 2BHK premium over Bengaluru is ₹17,000 a month, the single clearest number in Indian rent comparisons.

Where evidence is still growing, the 2BHK-only row is the honest comparison — all-configurations medians are mix-sensitive, but 2BHK-vs-2BHK is like-for-like:

Read that table twice. Delhi's 2BHK costs more than Mumbai's 1BHK. Kolkata's 2BHK costs less than Bengaluru's 1BHK. City choice is worth more than any negotiation you will ever run.

What the seeker side says

The map also carries demand, not just outcomes: renters announcing what they are looking for. The median seeker budget across the current window is ₹18,500 a month (n=1,328). Set that against the ladder above and the market's central tension appears in one line: the median searcher's budget buys a good 1BHK in Bengaluru, a modest one in Pune or Chennai — and does not reach a 2BHK in any Tier-1 city. Most seekers are not being cheap; the ladder is priced above them, which is why flatmate-splitting and per-room budgets dominate the seeker board.

What changed by September

We re-cut this analysis a month later, and the stable medians are themselves a finding: Bengaluru's all-configurations median held at ₹30,000, and the configuration ladder barely moved. Rent "growth" narratives mostly dissolve when you actually measure month over month — levels are sticky, and the exciting stories live in velocity and mix, not in the level. The September edition carries the full re-cut with a larger evidence base, and the Bengaluru September report goes area-deep.

Reading these numbers well

Three rules before you quote any of this. First, respect the n. A median from twelve reports is a signal, not a fact; we publish it because twelve honest reports beat zero, but the count is part of the number. Second, mind the window. Everything here is a rolling 180-day median — it deliberately forgets stale pricing. Third, compare like with like. All-configurations medians shift when the mix of 1BHKs and 3BHKs shifts; the 2BHK-only row is the one built for cross-city arguments. When a portal headline says rents "surged," check whether they measured the market or the mix.

Frequently asked questions

What is the median rent in India right now?

There is no honest single number — India is seven rental markets in a trenchcoat. The useful anchors from the map: Bengaluru ₹30,000 and Pune ₹27,500 all-configurations, Mumbai ₹48,000, Kolkata ₹17,000, with each figure carrying its report count. A 2BHK-only row exists for fair cross-city comparison.

Which Indian city has the cheapest 2BHK rent?

Among cities with current data, Kolkata — ₹17,000 median for a 2BHK — is the clear floor among the metros, roughly half of Delhi's ₹40,000. The trade is the rest of the package: salaries, corridors, and stock quality differ as much as the rent.

Is rent higher in Mumbai or Bengaluru?

Mumbai, decisively. The all-configurations gap is ₹48,000 vs ₹30,000, and the like-for-like 2BHK gap is ₹50,000 vs ₹33,000. Mumbai's premium is steepest exactly where families live — the 2BHK and 3BHK steps.

How much should I budget for rent as a single person?

The map's own demand side says the median single seeker budgets ₹18,500. That buys a solid 1BHK in Bengaluru (₹16,000 median) or Pune (₹19,000), and requires a flatmate split for a 2BHK in any Tier-1 city.

How current is this data?

Every figure is a median over the last 180 days of first-hand reports, recomputed continuously as pins land. This article's cuts were taken in October 2026; the live map and the monthly reports carry the rolling current edition.

Methodology, sources, and how to cite

Every figure on MyBharat is a median over anonymous first-hand rent reports from a rolling 180-day window, with the report count (n) shown beside it. We publish medians, never averages, so one palace or one dump cannot move a number. Coordinates are rounded to roughly 110 metres before storage — a pin identifies a neighbourhood, never a flat. Outliers are flagged statistically and by community report, and flagged pins are excluded from medians until reviewed. Localities and societies with fewer reports than our evidence threshold are deliberately held out of search engines rather than wearing a number they cannot support. Data cuts in this article were taken in October 2026; figures shift as new reports arrive, which is the point — the live map is always the current edition.

Related reading

• What India actually pays — September 2026 — the next edition of this analysis
• Bengaluru Rent Report — September 2026 — the deepest single-city cut
• 2BHK under ₹30,000: Bengaluru vs Pune vs Hyderabad — the budget-tier showdown
• Salary needed to rent in each Indian metro — the income side of this table
• The rent map — the live, always-current edition

The flatmate arithmetic, with real numbers

The seeker budget (₹18,500 median, n=1,328) meets the ladder (1BHK ₹16,000, 2BHK ₹33,000 in Bengaluru) at one obvious place: the split. Two people sharing a median 2BHK pay ₹16,500 each — for roughly twice the space, a living room, and usually better stock than the solo 1BHK at ₹16,000. The per-room premium over solo living is effectively ₹500 a month; the space gain is on the order of 100%. This is the arithmetic behind the seeker boards on the map, and it is why the 2BHK is the market's volume centre (n=3,076, the deepest single evidence pool in the country). The honest caveats: per-room budgets on the seeker side (median ₹18,500 across all seekers) already assume sharing in most cases, and the real cost of a flatmate is compatibility, not rupees — but as pure economics, sharing a 2BHK is the best value transaction in Indian renting.

Which city has the best rent-to-space value?

Kolkata, decisively: its ₹17,000 median 2BHK costs less than Bengaluru's ₹16,000 1BHK — a relocating renter doubles their space and cuts their rent. Pune is the value pick within the IT corridors: a 2BHK at ₹27,500 against Bengaluru's ₹33,000 for like-for-like stock.

How do deposits change the city comparison?

They widen it. Measured deposit norms run 2.1 months of rent in Pune (n=166) against 3.2 in Mumbai (n=24) — on median 2BHKs, that is ₹58,000 of move-in capital in Pune versus ₹1,60,000 in Mumbai. The city with the lower rent usually also has the lower day-one cost; the gap compounds.