Every spring a neighbour of mine in Nice asks the same thing over coffee: she has a spare studio, she has furniture, can she just put it on a platform and be done with it? The honest answer is no, and the reason has nothing to do with the furniture.
In brief
- Class G is banned from letting since January 2025, class F follows in 2028.
- Eleven furniture items are compulsory, one missing reclassifies the lease.
- Furnished lease: one year, one month notice for the tenant, two months deposit.
- Short-term lets need a national registration number since 20 May 2026.
- 1 Start with the energy label, not with the sofa
- 2 The eleven items that decide whether your lease is furnished at all
- 3 Long-term lease or holiday let: pick before you advertise
- 4 What the tax regimes actually give you
- 5 What I would do differently, having watched friends learn it the hard way
- 6 Questions I get asked most
Start with the energy label, not with the sofa
Before you buy a single cushion, get the DPE done. The diagnostic de performance énergétique grades a dwelling from A to G, and since 1 January 2025 a property rated G can no longer be put on the rental market in mainland France. Class F follows on 1 January 2028 and class E on 1 January 2034, under the Climat et Résilience law.
There is a twist that matters enormously along this coast, where so many flats run on direct electric heating. Since 1 January 2026, following an order signed on 13 August 2025, the primary energy conversion factor used for electricity in the DPE calculation dropped from 2.3 to 1.9. The French government estimated that roughly 850,000 dwellings leave the F or G bracket as a result, with no work done at all. If your last DPE dates from 2023 or 2024 and the flat is heated by convectors, having it redone is the cheapest renovation you will ever pay for.
The eleven items that decide whether your lease is furnished at all
France does not leave “furnished” to interpretation. Decree no. 2015-981 of 31 July 2015 lists a closed set of eleven items that must be present on the day you hand over the keys. Miss one and a judge can reclassify the contract as an unfurnished lease, which means three years instead of one and a very different tax treatment.
- Bedding including a duvet or a blanket.
- Window blackout in any room used as a bedroom, shutters or blinds or curtains.
- A hob.
- An oven or a microwave.
- A fridge and a freezer, or at minimum a fridge with a compartment able to hold minus 6 °C or lower.
- Enough crockery to eat a meal.
- Kitchen utensils.
- A table and seating.
- Storage shelving.
- Light fittings.
- Cleaning equipment suited to the property, so a broom for tiles, a vacuum where there is carpet.
The inventory annexed to the lease is what protects you afterwards. Photograph each room the morning of the handover, list the items with their condition, and have both parties sign it. I have watched a deposit dispute collapse in twenty seconds because a landlord had a dated photo of a worktop.
Long-term lease or holiday let: pick before you advertise
This is the fork most first-time landlords get wrong, because the two options look similar on a listing site and behave nothing alike.
| Furnished main residence | Meublé de tourisme | |
|---|---|---|
| Lease length | 1 year, 9 months for students | Per stay, days or weeks |
| Tenant notice | 1 month, any time | Cancellation terms of the contract |
| Landlord notice | 3 months, on a legal ground only | Not applicable |
| Deposit | 2 months rent maximum, charges excluded | Free, stated in the contract |
| Registration | None | National number compulsory since 20 May 2026 |
| Micro-BIC allowance | 50 % | 50 % if classified, 30 % if not |
On the short-term side, the loi Le Meur of 19 November 2024 changed the landscape. Since 20 May 2026 registration goes through a single national portal rather than each town hall, the number it issues has to appear on every listing, and platforms remove adverts that do not carry one. Municipalities on this coast also have their own rules on change of use, so the town hall call is not optional.
What the tax regimes actually give you
Under the micro-BIC regime, a long-term furnished let and a classified tourist rental both get a 50 % flat allowance on gross receipts, within an annual ceiling of 77,700 euros for 2025 income declared in 2026, a ceiling revalued periodically. An unclassified tourist rental gets 30 %, with a ceiling of 15,000 euros.
That gap is the single strongest argument for getting your holiday flat officially classified, and it is a procedure, not a favour. Beyond the ceilings, or when your real costs exceed the flat allowance, the régime réel becomes the sensible route, and that is the point where an accountant pays for herself.
What I would do differently, having watched friends learn it the hard way
Two mistakes come up again and again around here. The first is furnishing for the photos instead of for wear: a pale linen sofa looks magnificent in a listing and looks tired after one August. Buy the washable version, keep the beautiful things for the pieces nobody sits on.
The second is pricing off the neighbours’ asking rent rather than off their occupancy. A flat let eight months a year at a modest rent earns more than a flat listed high and empty for a season, and it also ages far better. If you want to see the flat the way an applicant sees it, my notes on preparing for a rental property visit work just as well read from the landlord’s side of the door.
Questions I get asked most
Can I refuse a tenant who has no French guarantor? You can assess solvency, and you can accept alternative guarantees such as a rent guarantee scheme or insurance. What you cannot do is discriminate on nationality or origin.
Does the one month tenant notice really apply in a furnished lease? Yes, and at any point in the lease, without justification. It is the structural difference with an unfurnished let and the reason furnished rents sit higher.
My building is a co-ownership. Can it stop me doing short lets? It can. The co-ownership rules may prohibit tourist letting, and recent legislation reinforced that possibility. Read the règlement de copropriété before you advertise, not after a neighbour complains.
Is a written lease compulsory? In practice, treat it as compulsory. The written contract with its annexed inventory and diagnostics is what makes any later dispute winnable.
Thinking further ahead than the first tenant?
Letting is only one part of what a property can do for your finances.
Updated 14 August 2026. Sources consulted: decree no. 2015-981 of 31 July 2015 for the furniture list; the Climat et Résilience calendar for the DPE letting bans; the order of 13 August 2025 on the electricity conversion factor, with the estimate of 850,000 dwellings published by the French ministries of ecology and economy; law no. 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024, known as loi Le Meur, for tourist rental registration; published micro-BIC thresholds for 2025 income. General information only, not a substitute for advice from a notaire, a lawyer or an accountant.
