Raymond Manners, 56 from Leeds, admitted raping a woman in the Chapeltown area of the city on 23 February 1991.
The cold case was solved thanks to advances in DNA profiling.
Manners, who is already serving 10 years for two 1979 rapes, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court.
West Yorkshire Police said other criminals should be "dreading that knock on the door" due to forensic advances.
Det Ch Insp Jim Dunkerley said: "This is a fantastic result. It has brought justice and hopefully some closure for the victim and sent a message to any criminals still out there who think the passage of time has meant they have got away with what they did.
"I want them to be dreading that knock on the door and to always be looking over their shoulder for the police to come."
The court heard that officers were unable to identify the rapist in 1991.
But specialist cold case investigators later reviewed it and found similarities with two other unsolved rapes dating back to 1979.
In 2012, the same team linked Manners to the 1979 rapes through forensic evidence and he was jailed for 10 years.
At the time, there was insufficient evidence to successfully link him to the 1991 rape.
However, the team reviewed the case again in 2016 and thanks to new techniques in DNA profiling, Manners was linked to the crime scene.
Manners, who was described by police as a "serial rapist", was jailed for a further 12 years on Thursday after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing.
A "serial rapist" has been jailed for a further 12 years for a sex attack dating back almost three decades.