> Who the hell pays rent in cash? I doubt that’s even an option with any rental company except for shady / illegal slumlords, who will ignore this law anyway.

It's not necessarily easy for migrants to open bank accounts. Sometimes it's even impossible.

Even for me, I assure you that opening a bank account would not be easy (or maybe even possible) due to stricter requirements in recent years, even though I've never done anything illegal (to my knowledge) and I'm not a migrant.

I know this because I've looked into many banks with the intention of opening an account and the requirements are all similar between them. This is in two different European countries.

And well, for the past couple of days I've been trying to set up an automatic monthly bank transfer for my rent and my bank is not allowing me because it's "exceeding the daily allowable limit", even though it's way below the daily allowable limit that I've ran into multiple times for normal bank transfers.

So there's that.

> Also, what kind of illegal immigrant rents a >€3000/month home?

Rents have gone up considerably in European capitals and consider that multiple immigrant families can live under the same (larger) roof.

Inflation will also eat up these limits over time, as governments almost never increase cash limits according to inflation (even though they do it for many, many other things).

Also, the limits are lower in some countries (500 EUR in Greece, 1000 EUR in Spain). I know for a fact that it's almost impossible to get a decent place in the center of Madrid for less than 1000 EUR nowadays.