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Rent your secondary residence (furnished with tourism)

Verified 01 January 2022 - Legal and Administrative Information Directorate (Prime Minister)

It is possible to make your secondary residence a tourist furniture, meaning that you can rent it for a transient clientele, for its exclusive use and for short periods of time. Several steps need to be taken. It is possible to request its ranking, as a hotel operator would.

The tourist furnished accommodation is individual accommodation of type villa, flat, furnished studio offered for rent. The following 3 conditions must be met:

  • The accommodation is for the exclusive use of the tenant, i.e. the owner is not present
  • The tenant does not live there, it is a customers
  • The tenant resides there for a short period (day, week or month rental) and for a maximum cumulative duration of 90 days

In order to qualify as furnished, the accommodation must include the following equipment:

  • Furniture
  • Bedding
  • Gas cooker or hotplates
  • Refrigerator
  • Kitchenware

FYI  

if the dwelling is part of a condominium, it must first be checked that the condominium regulations do not prohibit it from becoming a tourist flat. This prohibition generally applies to buildings for the exclusive use of bourgeois houses, that is to say, where any professional activity is prohibited.

It is mandatory to declare your furnished tourist in town hall.

The procedure for doing so depends on the municipality in which your secondary residence is located.

3 procedures exist:

  • Some very big require the owner to request authorisation to change usefirst. These include Paris, Annecy, Aix-en-Provence, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Cannes, Lyon, Nice, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tours.
  • The others big cities (communes with more than 200,000 inhabitants and communes located in the Hauts-de-Seine, the Seine-Saint-Denis and the Val-de-Marne) oblige the owner to make a declaration and then request a authorisation to change use.
    However, any other municipality may decide to apply this procedure.
  • In all other cities, the owner must make a declaration.

Ask your town hall what procedure is in effect.

Who shall I contact
Very big city
Application for Change of Use

You must obtain a permission from the town hall to modify the use of your accommodation in tourist furniture (passage in tourist furniture).

Failure to comply with this obligation shall be punishable by a civil fine of up to €50 000. The initial restoration of the accommodation and a penalty of €1 000 per day and per m2 can be ordered.

FYI  

obtaining this authorisation may be subject to compliance with a rule compensation. This rule requires you to purchase an equivalent surface of a commercial space that you will have to transform into a residential space. Check with your town hall.

If you are granted permission, you must then change the destination of the premises to hotel accommodation.

Furnished declaration

You must report the accommodation to the town hall in order to obtain a declaration number.

Contact your town hall to find out how.

Who shall I contact

Upon receipt of your declaration, the City Council will immediately issue you an acknowledgement of receipt including a declaration number. This number must be indicated in each of the advertisements for this accommodation.

FYI  

not declaring your home in town is liable to a civil fine of up to €5 000.

You will need to include this number in all rental offers for your accommodation.

Big City
Furnished declaration

You must declare the accommodation in town hall. Failure to comply with this obligation is punishable by a fine of up to €450.

You must use the following online service:

Declare a furnished tourist in town hall

Application for Change of Use

You must obtain a permission from the town hall to modify the use of your accommodation in tourist furniture.

Failure to comply with this obligation is punishable by a civil fine of up to €50 000. In case of conviction, the initial condition of the dwelling and a penalty of €1 000 per day and per m2 can be ordered.

FYI  

obtaining this authorisation may be subject to compliance with a rule compensation. This rule requires you to purchase an equivalent surface of a commercial space that you will have to transform into a residential space. Check with your town hall.

Other

You must declare the accommodation in town hall. Failure to comply with this obligation is punishable by a fine of up to €450.

You must use the following online service:

Declare a furnished tourist in town hall

SIRET Number

You must request your registration in the Mermaid directoryInsee: titleContent. This formality is free. You must contact the Registry of the Commercial Court of the place of the rented accommodation using a form.

Declaration of Commencement of Activity - Self-Employed Individual (P0i)

Once this process has been completed, a SIRET number will be assigned to you by theInsee: titleContent. This number will be posted on your supplementary income tax return. In fact, income from the rental, as a non-professional rental company, is subject to progressive scale of income tax. Beyond of a certain amount, you will also have to pay social contributions.

Please note

if you use an internet platform to rent your home, they must provide you with a document in january showing the gross amount of transactions made the previous year.

Company Property Assessment (CFE)

Depending on your situation (location and personal use of the leased property), you may have to pay the EFC.

You should consult the company Tax Service (EIS) where the rented accommodation is located to determine whether or not you will be required to pay this tax.

Who shall I contact

Ranking benefits

The classification of a tourist furniture allows to indicate its level of comfort and equipment to the customer. There are 5 categories (1 to 5 stars).

FYI  

the classification sometimes allows for tax benefits (exemption from housing tax and property tax in ZRR , standard deduction on rental income for micro-enterprises). In addition, it avoids the application of an increased tourist tax.

To do this, you must use these forms:

Apply for exemption from the residential tax for guest rooms and tourist accommodation located in rural revitalisation area (RBA)

Exemption from Property Tax on Built Property (TFPB): hotels, tourist furnished or guest rooms located in rural revitalisation area (ZRR)

Forms should be sent to the Public Finance Centre.

Who shall I contact

How do I get the ranking?

You can request the classification of your tourist furniture from the accredited or accredited body of your choice (listed on lists of the Atout France website ) using a form:

Request for classification of a furnished tourist

The evaluating body shall carry out a housing classification visit. Within one month of this visit, the visitor shall provide you with a certificate of visit including the following:

  • Report and control grid
  • Proposal for a decision to classify your furniture for the category mentioned in the control report

You have 15 days from receipt of the visit certificate to refuse the ranking proposal. After this period and in the absence of refusal, the classification is acquired.

The decision is valid for 5 years. It indicates:

  • Your name (and possibly the name of your agent)
  • Address of the tourist facility, capacity expressed in number of persons who can be accommodated and category of its classification

You are required to display the classification decision in a visible manner within the furniture.

In case of absence or serious lack of maintenance of your furniture, the Prefect can remove it from the list of classified furniture.

If the advertised description or the displayed classification does not correspond to the characteristics of your furniture, the tenant may enter the Department of Population Protection (DDPP or DDCSPP) for misleading commercial practice:

Who shall I contact

If you use an intermediary (contractor or trader, or digital platform provider), they must inform you of your obligations (declaration, request for authorisation).

Prior to the publication of the rental announcement, you must provide this intermediary with a certificate of honour. Your honour must certify that you have fulfilled your prior obligations (declaration, or even authorisation to change use) and that the dwelling is not your principal residence. If you have been assigned a housing declaration number by City Hall, you must also provide this number.

You can use this certificate template on honour:

Attestation on honour

Ads for furnished apartments can be consulted in the town hall, in a tourist office and on the online booking sites.

To report a misleading business practice on a furnished rental, you can contact the Departmental Directorate for Population Protection (DDPP or DDCSPP).

Who shall I contact

You must follow the other rules applicable to tourist furniture:

In some communes, you will have to collect residence tax to the holidaymaker and to the town. Since 2019, if you use an Internet platform as a payment intermediary, it is up to the customer to collect the real city tax.

To find out the amount of the tourist tax charged by your municipality, you can use an online service.

Tourist tax rates per commune

FAQ