Thousands of foreign owners in France rent out a flat or a house under a long-term residential lease governed by the law of 6 July 1989, a statute whose protection of tenants is so extensive that even the printed form of the lease is regulated. That form is about to change. Decree no. 2026-596 of 6 July 2026, published in the Journal officiel, rewrites the standard lease forms set out in the decree of 29 May 2015, and its new forms become compulsory for every lease signed or renewed on or after 1 October 2026. The change matters for two reasons. First, the previous form had drifted out of step with the statute: for three years, the printed text contradicted the law on the single most consequential clause in a French lease, the clause résolutoire (automatic termination clause for non-payment). Second, the new forms contain additional clauses aimed at two problems that affect foreign landlords disproportionately: undeclared short-term subletting and tenants who become uncontactable.
This article explains what the decree actually changes, which leases it applies to, and how the updated standard form interacts with the enforcement machinery that a landlord in France must operate — the commandement de payer (formal notice to pay), the congé (notice of termination), and the return of the dépôt de garantie (security deposit). Every statutory reference is to the texts as they stand today, and every decision cited is a ruling of the third civil chamber of the Cour de cassation, the chamber that hears residential lease disputes, with a link to the official record. This article is general legal information, not tax advice; non-resident owners should obtain specific advice on the French income tax and reporting treatment of their rental income.
I. The New Standard Lease Contract: What Decree No. 2026-596 Changes
A. Three Years of Drift: Why the Standard Form Is Being Rewritten
The starting point is Article 3 of the law of 6 July 1989, which provides: “Le contrat de location est établi par écrit et respecte un contrat type défini par décret en Conseil d’Etat, pris après avis de la Commission nationale de concertation.” In plain terms: the lease must be in writing and must follow a standard-form contract defined by government decree, after consultation of the national tenant-landlord commission. The article then lists ten mandatory pieces of information — the parties’ names, the term, the habitable surface area, the amount of the last rent paid by the previous tenant, and so on. The standard forms themselves are the two annexes to the decree of 29 May 2015: annexe 1 for unfurnished bail d’habitation (residential leases), annexe 2 for furnished ones, with shared-tenancy colocation (co-tenancy) contracts following the same structure.
Since 2023, the printed forms no longer matched the statute. The anti-squat law of 27 July 2023 amended Article 24 of the law of 6 July 1989 to reduce the period left to a defaulting tenant from two months to six weeks. The annexes to the 2015 decree continued to state two months. A landlord using the government form was therefore signing a contract whose printed clause differed from the binding statutory rule — a source of confusion precisely where confusion is most costly, in the notice that starts an eviction procedure.
Decree no. 2026-596 of 6 July 2026 closes the gap. Its article 1 rewrites annexes 1 and 2 of the 2015 decree; its article 2 adjusts three provisions of the construction and housing code relating to housing aid, effective 1 January 2027. The operative provision is article 3, which states: “L’article 1er du présent décret entre en vigueur le 1er octobre 2026 et s’applique aux contrats conclus ou renouvelés à compter de cette même date.” The new forms therefore apply to leases signed, and leases renewed, from 1 October 2026. A lease signed before that date continues under its own terms and need not be redone; but any renewal — including a tacit renewal formalised in writing, and any new lease signed after 1 October 2026 — must use the updated form.
The content of the form should not be underestimated. Article 3 lists what the contract must contain — the parties, the effective date and term, the dwelling’s designation, its habitable surface area defined by the construction and housing code, the rent and its revision rules, the amount and date of payment of the last rent paid by the previous tenant where that tenant left less than eighteen months earlier, the nature and amount of works carried out since the end of the previous contract, and the deposit. It also requires a written information notice on the parties’ rights and obligations to be annexed to the lease, and, where the building is subject to copropriété (co-ownership), the landlord must give the tenant the extracts of the co-ownership regulations concerning the building’s use and the charges. Missing information on the surface area or the previous rent exposes the landlord to a specific sanction written into the article: the tenant may demand that the missing details be added within one month, and failing a response, may go to court within three months to obtain, where applicable, a reduction of the rent. An owner signing a lease in a hurry from abroad is most often tripped by these formal items, not by the substantive rules.
Three points deserve emphasis for a foreign landlord. First, the decree modifies the printed form, not the statute: the six-week period had already been the law since 2023, and the new form simply aligns with it. Second, the standard form is a baseline, not a straitjacket: additional clauses remain permissible provided they do not contradict the mandatory provisions of the 1989 law, most of which are of public order. Third, the version matters. A lease signed in, say, November 2026 on the pre-2026 printed form exposes the landlord to the argument that the contract fails to “respect” the standard form within the meaning of Article 3 — an argument a well-advised tenant will raise to resist the operation of the clause résolutoire.
B. The Six-Week Termination Clause and the Content of the Updated Form
The heart of the updated form is the clause that every residential lease must contain. Article 24 of the 1989 law opens with the requirement, then the rule: “Tout contrat de bail d’habitation contient une clause prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit du contrat de location pour défaut de paiement du loyer ou des charges aux termes convenus ou pour non-versement du dépôt de garantie. Cette clause ne produit effet que six semaines après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux.” Every residential lease must contain a clause providing for automatic termination on non-payment of rent, charges or the deposit, and that clause takes effect only six weeks after a formal notice to pay has remained without effect.
The new annexes restate this six-week period, ending the mismatch. The same article then lists, “à peine de nullité” — on pain of nullity of the notice itself — six mandatory mentions that the commandement de payer must contain: the six-week deadline, the monthly rent and charges, an itemised account of the debt, a warning that the tenant faces a court procedure for termination and eviction, the address of the departmental housing solidarity fund, and a statement that the tenant may ask the court for time to pay under Article 1343-5 of the Code civil. A notice missing any one of these mentions is null, and the nullity taints the entire procedure built upon it.
The updated form also contains changes beyond the six-week alignment, described in detail by the first practitioner commentaries published in the French legal press in July and August 2026. The form now permits optional clauses résolutoires (automatic termination clauses) to be completed for specific breaches other than non-payment — the failure to take out the tenant’s insurance required by Article 7 of the 1989 law, and repeated neighbourhood disturbances. A further new clause records whether the dwelling is subject to a restriction tied to its use as a résidence principale (principal residence), a provision aimed at undeclared tourist subletting in developments where such use is limited. The parties’ telephone numbers are now systematically requested on the form, which addresses the practical difficulty of tenants who disappear without leaving an address. For a landlord, the message is simple: after 1 October 2026, use the current form, complete every box, and keep the insurance and principal-residence clauses in view, because they define what you will need to prove if you ever seek termination on those grounds.
II. Operating the New Contract: Enforcement, Notice and Deposit
A. Recovering Possession: The Commandement de Payer and the Congé
The reform changes the timetable; it does not change the machinery, and the machinery is slow. When rent goes unpaid, the landlord’s first act is a commandement de payer served by a commissaire de justice (judicial officer), the profession that since 2022 has replaced the huissier de justice (bailiff). The Cour de cassation describes the mechanism as it must appear in the notice: the tenant is the “destinataire d’un commandement de payer visant la clause résolutoire insérée au bail pour défaut de paiement du loyer ou des charges aux termes convenus” — the recipient of a notice to pay invoking the termination clause inserted in the lease for failure to pay rent or charges when due (Cass. 3e civ., 12 Oct. 2023, no. 22-19.117). If the tenant does not pay or obtain time to pay within the six weeks, the clause operates and the landlord applies to the court for a finding of termination and an order for eviction. The court does not rubber-stamp the landlord’s request; it verifies the debt, and the tenant can raise defences of substance, including that the dwelling did not meet the standard of a logement décent (decent dwelling).
The landlord’s other instrument is the congé (notice of termination given at the term of the lease). Article 15 of the 1989 law confines it strictly: the notice must be justified either by the landlord’s decision to take back the dwelling or to sell it, or by a motif légitime et sérieux (legitimate and serious ground) such as a breach by the tenant. A notice for sale has a specific consequence the same article spells out: it stands as an offer to sell the dwelling to the tenant, open during the first two months of the notice period, with the price and conditions stated on pain of nullity — a rule that explains why selling a tenanted property in France is rarely quick. The same article adds: “Le délai de préavis applicable au congé est de six mois lorsqu’il émane du bailleur.” The notice period is six months when given by the landlord, against three months (or one month in listed cases) for the tenant. The notice must state the ground and, for a repossession, the name and address of the beneficiary of the repossession, who can only be the landlord or a close family member listed in the article — a spouse, a registered partner, a long-standing cohabitant, or an ascendant or descendant.
The 2026 case law shows how strictly these requirements are enforced. The third civil chamber held that the conditions of repossession are assessed in the person of its declared beneficiary: “les conditions de la reprise du logement devant être appréciées en la personne de son bénéficiaire, le décès de celui-ci, survenu avant la date d’expiration du délai de préavis, prive d’effet le congé aux fins de reprise” — where the beneficiary dies before the notice period expires, the notice loses all effect, and the heir cannot inherit a right to the eviction (Cass. 3e civ., 16 Apr. 2026, no. 24-13.191). The court has also confirmed that the absence of an explicit justification of the landlord’s genuine intention in the notice is not a defect of form carrying nullity: “la prescription de la justification dans le congé du caractère réel et sérieux de la décision de reprise, à titre de condition de forme, n’est pas édictée à peine de nullité” — but the substance remains controllable, and the judge may verify, even of his own motion, the reality of the ground invoked (Cass. 3e civ., 12 Oct. 2023, no. 22-18.580). In that case, proof of electoral registration, renovation invoices, utility subscriptions and notification to the tax authorities established the landlord’s genuine intention to move in.
Two further rulings define the limits that a landlord must respect. The first concerns a landlord who sought to evict a tenant from a substandard studio in order to carry out the very works needed to make it decent. The Cour de cassation held: “ne constitue pas un motif légitime et sérieux de congé la réalisation de travaux par le bailleur destinés à remédier à l’indécence du logement dont il avait connaissance lors de la conclusion du bail” — works intended to remedy the indecency of a dwelling the landlord knew about when signing the lease cannot justify a notice of termination (Cass. 3e civ., 4 Jun. 2026, no. 24-16.993). The same decision rests on Article 1719 of the Code civil, under which the landlord must “délivrer au preneur la chose louée et, s’il s’agit de son habitation principale, un logement décent” — deliver the premises and, where they serve as the tenant’s principal residence, a decent dwelling. The second ruling shows the mirror risk on the principal-residence requirement: where the parties’ common intention was a lease without any principal-residence obligation, the court upheld that reading — “la commune intention des parties avait été de conclure le dernier contrat de bail sans obligation d’habitation principale tout en soumettant volontairement la location au régime de la loi du 6 juillet 1989” — and the landlord could not rely on the tenant’s non-residence to justify a congé (Cass. 3e civ., 19 Mar. 2026, no. 24-21.660). The practical conclusion: a foreign landlord who suspects the tenant is not living in the property should check what the lease actually says about principal residence before serving any notice.
B. Deposit, the Principal-Residence Clause and the Traps Foreign Landlords Miss
The dépôt de garantie (security deposit) is the area where a well-meaning foreign landlord loses money. Article 22 of the 1989 law caps the deposit at one month’s principal rent and fixes the return period: “A défaut de restitution dans les délais prévus, le dépôt de garantie restant dû au locataire est majoré d’une somme égale à 10 % du loyer mensuel en principal, pour chaque période mensuelle commencée en retard.” If the deposit is not returned within the deadline, the amount still due is increased by 10% of the monthly principal rent for each month of delay begun. The baseline deadline is two months from the return of the keys, cut to one month where the outgoing état des lieux (inventory of condition) matches the incoming one; in a co-owned building, the landlord may retain a provision of up to 20% pending the annual service-charge accounting.
The 2026 case law applies this penalty strictly. In a furnished-lease dispute, the Cour de cassation quashed a decision that treated the mere sending of a cheque as restitution: “sans constater que le bailleur justifiait de la réception du chèque par le locataire, qui la contestait, le juge a violé les textes susvisés” — without proof that the tenant actually received the disputed cheque, the court could not treat the deposit as returned (Cass. 3e civ., 12 Feb. 2026, no. 24-21.258). The lesson for a landlord returning a deposit from abroad: send the refund by a trackable method, keep proof of delivery, and never assume the tenant received it.
Two further provisions of the standard form deserve attention because they involve deadlines that cannot be extended. The first concerns the surface area. Where the habitable surface stated in the lease exceeds the true surface by more than one-twentieth, the tenant may claim a proportional reduction of rent under Article 3-1 of the 1989 law; the Cour de cassation has held that “le délai de quatre mois prévu par l’article 3-1 de la loi n° 89-462 du 6 juillet 1989 est un délai de forclusion courant à compter de la demande faite au bailleur” — the four-month period to go to court is a strict preclusion period running from the tenant’s demand, not a limitation period that can be interrupted (Cass. 3e civ., 9 Nov. 2022, no. 21-19.212). The second concerns death: the standard form reproduces the transfer rules of Article 1751 of the Code civil and Article 14 of the 1989 law, under which, “lors du décès du locataire, le contrat de location est transféré” to the surviving spouse, partner or to descendants living with the tenant for at least one year before the death (Cass. 3e civ., 4 Jul. 2024, no. 22-24.856). A foreign landlord cannot simply treat a deceased tenant’s lease as ended: it continues with the successor listed by the statute, and only a validly delivered congé brings it to an end.
Finally, the principal-residence clause in the updated form deserves a word on its purpose. It is the government’s answer to the situation in which a dwelling let under the protective 1989 regime is in fact used for short-term tourist letting, a practice that falls under a separate regulatory regime outside the 1989 statute. Where the lease states that the dwelling is the tenant’s principal residence and the landlord discovers undeclared subletting, the evidence chain starts with the clause now printed in the new form. The same is true of the insurance clause: the tenant’s obligation to insure under Article 7 of the 1989 law is now easier to enforce because the new form records it expressly, and its breach can, if the optional termination clause is completed, ground a termination procedure. For a landlord operating from London, New York or Sydney, the value of these clauses is that they convert obligations that previously required proof of the statute’s operation into obligations printed in the contract itself.
Conclusion
The decree of 6 July 2026 is best understood as an alignment exercise with real consequences. From 1 October 2026, every new or renewed residential lease in France must follow the updated standard form, whose termination clause now matches the statutory six-week period, whose notice to pay must carry six mandatory mentions on pain of nullity, and whose new clauses target undeclared short-term subletting and uncontactable tenants. The surrounding machinery remains unchanged and unforgiving: a six-week notice before termination can take effect, a six-month notice period for a landlord’s congé, strict rules on who may benefit from a repossession, a deposit return window of one or two months backed by a 10% monthly penalty, and a four-month preclusion period for rent-reduction claims based on surface area.
A foreign landlord’s practical checklist is short: use the post-1 October 2026 form for every new or renewed lease; complete every mandatory box, including the parties’ telephone numbers; keep proof of delivery of every notice and every refund; verify what the lease says about principal residence before serving any termination notice; and obtain specific advice on the French taxation of rental income, which non-residents must declare in France. For questions on drafting or enforcing a French residential lease, contact the real estate team of Kohen Avocats, which advises international owners on French property law, including real estate and business law.