You own a second home in France, you live in Britain, and the idea is obvious: let the house pay for itself by renting it out furnished while you are not there. Since Brexit, that idea has not become illegal, but it has become a regulated activity wrapped in three separate layers of French law. The first layer is administrative: since the Act of 19 November 2024, every furnished tourist letting must be declared on a national online portal before the first guest arrives, and the town hall receives the file automatically. The second layer is urban planning: in Paris, the inner suburbs and every listed tourist municipality, turning a home into short-term accommodation is a change of use that needs prior authorisation, and the civil fine runs to 100,000 euros per property. The third layer is tax: furnished rent is business profit in France, it is taxable in France first under the France-United Kingdom double tax convention, and Britain then gives credit for the French tax rather than exempting the income. British owners get one pleasant surprise in this landscape: even after Brexit, United Kingdom residents remain exempt from the French CSG and CRDS social charges on French rental income and pay only a 7.5 per cent solidarity levy. This article explains, step by step, how a British owner lawfully rents out a French second home furnished after Brexit, how the rent is taxed on both sides of the Channel, and how to challenge a fine, a return-to-housing order or a wrong tax bill.
I. Can a British Owner Lawfully Rent Out a French Second Home Furnished, and What Must Be Done First?
Yes. Neither Brexit nor the Withdrawal Agreement took away the right of a British national to own French property or to let it furnished. What changed is the paperwork around that right. A British owner who rents out a French second home is treated exactly like a French owner for letting regulation: the same declaration, the same registration number shown on every advert, the same authorisation in regulated towns, and the same fines. The only specifically British questions are residence-related, such as how long you may stay to manage the property under the 90/180-day Schengen rule, which is covered in our companion guide to counting your 90/180 days and staying longer on a visitor visa, and the tax points examined in Part II. For the letting itself, two formalities come before the first paying guest, and confusing them is the single most expensive mistake a British owner can make.
A. How Do You Declare and Register a Meublé de Tourisme: the National Portal, the Mairie and the Declaration Number?
A meuble de tourisme, the legal term for a furnished tourist property, is defined by French tourism law as a furnished villa, flat or studio let exclusively to the tenant, offered to a passing clientele who does not take up residence there and who stays on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Your Dordogne cottage or Paris flat offered on a holiday platform fits that definition exactly when each guest stays briefly and keeps their real home elsewhere. The English-language service-public.fr page confirms that a property offered to successive short-stay guests, with the same customer unable to total more than 90 consecutive days per calendar year, is a tourist furnished property, and that letting your second home this way requires prior steps with both the tax authorities and the town hall.
The declaration itself is governed by Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code, as rewritten by Act No. 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024 strengthening local regulation of tourist furnished properties. The text states: “Toute personne qui offre à la location un meublé de tourisme procède préalablement en personne à une déclaration soumise à enregistrement auprès d’un téléservice national”, in English, anyone offering a tourist furnished property for rent must first personally file a declaration for registration on a national online portal. The portal then issues without delay an electronic acknowledgement containing a declaration number: “A la réception de la déclaration complète, le téléservice délivre sans délai un avis de réception électronique comprenant un numéro de déclaration.” That number, with the supporting documents, is automatically passed to the municipality where the property stands. In practice this means the mairie knows about your letting from day one, before any neighbour complains, and every advertisement for the property must display the number. Platforms are obliged to remove listings without a valid number in municipalities that operate registration, so an unregistered British owner increasingly finds adverts simply delisted.
Two companion formalities complete the registration picture. First, every owner in France must report each property annually through the “Gérer Mes Biens Immobiliers” (Manage My Property) section of their personal account on impots.gouv.fr, stating before 1 July each year whether the property is a main or second home and, if it is let, the identity of the occupants and the nature and period of occupation; the tax administration’s own guidance for non-residents confirms this obligation and excuses only owners where nothing has changed since the last declaration. Second, if the property sits in a block of flats, the co-ownership rules changed with the same 2024 reform: for co-ownership regulations drawn up from 21 November 2024, the regulations must state whether tourist furnished lettings are authorised, while for older buildings an “exclusively residential” clause can prohibit them, and co-owners may vote to ban tourist lets where commercial activity is excluded. A British buyer of a Paris apartment should therefore read the règlement de copropriété, the co-ownership by-laws, before budgeting any rental income, because a private-law ban in the building can kill the project even where the town would have authorised it.
The practical sequence for a British owner is therefore: check the co-ownership by-laws, file the national declaration and obtain the declaration number, display it on every listing, update the annual property occupation return on impots.gouv.fr, and only then take bookings. Each of these steps leaves a dated paper trail, and that paper trail is your evidence if the mairie or the tax office later asks questions.
B. Why Does the Tourist Classification Never Replace the Change-of-Use Authorisation, and What Are the Penalties?
Here lies the trap that has cost owners hundreds of thousands of euros. Registering the property as a meuble de tourisme and even obtaining an official star classification for it has nothing to do with planning permission. In the municipalities listed by decree, which include Paris and the surrounding departments as well as most tourist towns, turning residential premises into short-term accommodation is a changement d’usage, a change of use, which the municipal council may subject to prior authorisation. Article L. 631-7 of the Construction and Housing Code provides: “Dans ces communes, le changement d’usage des locaux à usage d’habitation peut être soumis, sur décision de l’organe délibérant, à autorisation préalable”, meaning that in those municipalities the change of use of residential premises may be made subject to prior authorisation by decision of the elected council. A British owner whose Paris flat or Biarritz apartment has always been a home needs that authorisation before letting it repeatedly to passing guests, and in Paris authorisation is in practice granted only with an offsetting conversion of commercial space back to housing, a condition few individual owners can meet.
The Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court for civil matters, settled the relationship between the two regimes on 27 June 2024 in a case brought by a municipality against a tenant and a management company letting a flat to short-stay guests. The Third Civil Chamber held: “Le fait de louer un local meublé destiné à l’habitation de manière répétée pour de courtes durées à une clientèle de passage qui n’y élit pas domicile constitue un changement d’usage au sens de ce texte”, that is, repeatedly letting a furnished residential property for short periods to a passing clientele who does not live there constitutes a change of use. It then quashed the appeal court’s decision with this decisive sentence: “alors qu’une décision de classement en meublé de tourisme ne peut se substituer à l’autorisation de changement d’usage prévue à l’article L. 631-7 du code de la construction et de l’habitation”, whereas a tourist classification decision can never stand in for the change-of-use authorisation. Read the full ruling in Cass. 3rd Civil Chamber, 27 June 2024, appeal No. 23-13.131. For a British owner, the message is blunt: the star rating on the listing and the declaration number protect against nothing on the planning side.
The sanctions are civil but severe. Article L. 651-2 of the Construction and Housing Code states: “Toute personne qui enfreint les dispositions des articles L. 631-7 ou L. 631-7-1 A ou qui ne se conforme pas aux conditions ou obligations imposées en application des mêmes articles L. 631-7 et L. 631-7-1 A est condamnée à une amende civile dont le montant ne peut excéder 100 000 € par local irrégulièrement transformé”, anyone breaching the change-of-use rules is ordered to pay a civil fine of up to 100,000 euros per unlawfully converted property. The fine is imposed by the president of the judicial court ruling under the accelerated procedure on the merits, at the request of the municipality, and on top of the fine the judge orders the property restored to residential use within a fixed period, after which a daily penalty of up to 1,000 euros per day and per square metre accrues. Paris pursues these cases systematically, and British-owned flats are not spared: the enforcement statistics published by the City of Paris show dozens of convictions each year, many detected through platform data cross-checked with the registration numbers.
One nuance from a second supreme court ruling helps British second-home owners understand exactly which regime targets them. On 7 September 2023 the Third Civil Chamber explained the day-count control mechanism: “la commune peut, jusqu’au 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle au cours de laquelle un meublé de tourisme a été mis en location, demander au loueur de lui transmettre le nombre de jours au cours desquels ce meublé a été loué”, the municipality may, until 31 December of the year following the letting year, require the host to report the number of days the property was let. But the Court added that “l’amende civile prévue par l’article L. 324-1-1, V, alinéa 2, est applicable aux seules personnes offrant à la location un meublé de tourisme déclaré comme leur résidence principale”, the civil fine for overstaying applies only to properties declared as the host’s main home. See Cass. 3rd Civil Chamber, 7 September 2023, appeal No. 22-18.101. The famous 120-day annual cap therefore constrains only main-home hosts. A British owner letting a French second home faces the tougher question instead: authorisation for change of use, yes or no, in that municipality. Answering that question with the mairie’s urban planning department before the first booking is the cheapest legal advice in this entire field.
II. How Is the Rent Taxed in France and in Britain, and How Do You Challenge the Bill or the Fine?
French tax law draws a bright line that surprises many British owners: an unfurnished letting produces revenus fonciers, property income, while a furnished letting produces commercial profit in the category of bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, known as BIC. The tax administration’s guidance for non-residents states this expressly: income from letting furnished premises that you own falls under income tax in the BIC category, and since revenues received in 2025 it bears social levies at 18.6 per cent, with a furnished letting defined by reference to Decree No. 2015-981 of 31 July 2015 listing the furniture a dwelling must contain. Whether you live in London, Edinburgh or Paris, the French calculation starts from the same place, and only the rates and the social charges differ between residents and non-residents.
A. Where Is the Rent Taxed, at What Rate and With What Social Charges: Micro-BIC, Actual Profits and the Non-Resident Minima?
France taxes the rent first. Article 164 B of the General Tax Code provides: “Sont considérés comme revenus de source française : a. Les revenus d’immeubles sis en France ou de droits relatifs à ces immeubles”, income from buildings situated in France counts as French-source income. That domestic rule is confirmed at treaty level by Article 6 of the France-United Kingdom double taxation convention of 19 June 2008, published on gov.uk with its official explanatory material, which allocates to France the right to tax rental income from immovable property situated in France. The British owner therefore declares the French rent in France and pays French tax on it, then declares the same rent in the United Kingdom and claims Foreign Tax Credit Relief for the French tax under HMRC helpsheet HS263, with the general double-taxation position explained on gov.uk’s foreign income pages. The treaty prevents double taxation but it does not prevent French taxation, and any British adviser who suggests the rent can be declared only in the United Kingdom is leading the client into a French reassessment with late-payment interest and penalties.
Within France, the furnished owner chooses each year between two profit regimes, and the 2024 reform made the choice much sharper. The micro-BIC scheme taxes a flat percentage of turnover with no deduction of actual costs. Article 50-0 of the General Tax Code, in its post-reform version, sets the entry threshold for tourist furnished lettings at “1° bis 15 000 € s’il s’agit d’entreprises dont l’activité principale est de louer directement ou indirectement des meublés de tourisme”, 15,000 euros of annual turnover for businesses whose main activity is letting tourist furnished properties, and grants “d’un abattement de 30 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activités de la catégorie mentionnée au 1° bis”, a 30 per cent flat deduction on that turnover. Above 15,000 euros of annual rent, or by election below it, the owner falls under the regime reel, the actual-profits regime, deducting agency fees, co-ownership charges, insurance, interest, maintenance and depreciation of the building and furniture against the rent. For a British owner with a heavily financed Paris flat or a cottage requiring renovation, the actual-profits regime usually wins despite the accounting cost, because depreciation alone often wipes out the taxable profit in the early years, while an owner of a mortgage-free studio with few costs may prefer the simplicity of micro-BIC. Running both calculations before the first tax return is filed is essential, because the election, once made, binds the owner and a wrong choice cannot always be undone.
Non-resident owners then face two specific French mechanisms. First, the minimum-rate rule. Article 197 A of the General Tax Code provides that for taxpayers without a French tax domicile receiving French-source income, “l’impôt ne peut, en ce cas, être inférieur à un montant calculé en appliquant un taux de 20 % à la fraction du revenu net imposable inférieure ou égale à la limite supérieure de la deuxième tranche du barème de l’impôt sur le revenu et un taux de 30 % à la fraction supérieure à cette limite”, the tax cannot be less than 20 per cent on the slice of net taxable income up to the top of the second income-tax band and 30 per cent above it. The same article lets the taxpayer escape the minima by showing that the French tax rate on worldwide income would be lower, a calculation worth making for a British owner whose only French income is a modest rent. Second, the social charges. A British owner who has become French tax resident pays the full social levies on property income under Article L. 136-6 of the Social Security Code, which makes persons fiscally domiciled in France liable to a contribution on capital income assessed on the net amount used for income tax: “Les personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B du code général des impôts sont assujetties à une contribution sur les revenus du patrimoine assise sur le montant net retenu pour l’établissement de l’impôt sur le revenu”. A British owner who remains United Kingdom resident gets the better deal spelled out on impots.gouv.fr: although the United Kingdom has left the European Union, British residents keep the exemption from CSG and CRDS granted to persons affiliated to a non-French compulsory social security scheme, and their French rental income bears only the 7.5 per cent solidarity levy, claimed by ticking boxes 8SH or 8SI on return 2042-C. That single difference can decide whether an owner planning a permanent move should accelerate or delay taking French tax residence.
A final commercial-court ruling completes the tax picture by confirming the nature of the income. On 20 December 2023 the Commercial Chamber held, for the comparison of furnished-letting income with other household earnings, that what counts is “non les recettes brutes tirées de l’activité de location meublée professionnelle, mais le bénéfice industriel et commercial net annuel dégagé par cette activité”, not the gross receipts of the furnished-letting business but the net annual commercial profit it generates. See Cass. Commercial Chamber, 20 December 2023, appeal No. 22-17.612. The case concerned the old wealth-tax test for professional status, but its reasoning is routinely invoked by advisers to remind owners and inspectors alike that furnished letting is a business taxed on net profit, with everything that implies for loss relief, depreciation and the boundary with professional status.
B. How Do You Challenge a 100,000-Euro Fine, a Return-to-Housing Order or a Wrong Tax Bill?
Challenges divide into three tracks, and each has its own court, deadline and winning arguments. The planning track concerns the civil fine and the restoration order under Article L. 651-2. Both are sought by the municipality before the president of the judicial court ruling under the accelerated procedure on the merits, which means the owner receives a formal summons, files written evidence and is heard at a hearing, not an ex parte order in the night. The defences that succeed are factual and documentary. First, the use defence: the municipality must prove the premises were residential and were converted without authorisation, and the owner may show by any means that the property never had residential use within the relevant period, for example premises always used as offices or commercial space. Second, the compensation defence: in Paris an authorisation obtained with a valid offset title is a complete answer, so the file proving the offset must be produced in full. Third, the proportionality defence: the judge sets the fine within the 100,000-euro ceiling per property and fixes the compliance period before the daily penalty starts running, so evidence of immediate cessation, first offence and modest income genuinely moves the amount. What never works, since the June 2024 ruling, is waving the tourist classification or the declaration number: the court has said in so many words that classification cannot stand in for authorisation. An owner who receives a summons should therefore instruct a French property litigator immediately, stop the disputed lettings to cap the penalty base, and assemble the use history of the property over the last thirty years rather than drafting letters about good faith.
The day-count track is narrower and often good news for second-home owners. Where the municipality demands the annual statement of let days or threatens the Tourism Code fine, the September 2023 ruling draws the boundary: the reporting duty and its fine attach to properties declared as the host’s main home under the 120-day rule. An owner whose declaration correctly describes the property as a second home answers the day-count request as a matter of cooperation but contests any fine founded on the main-home provision, pointing to the declaration itself. Conversely, a British owner who actually lives in the French property most of the year and lets it while travelling must check which box was ticked on the declaration, because declaring a main home to obtain lighter treatment and then exceeding 120 days of letting invites exactly the fine the Court upheld.
The tax track follows the standard French disputed-claims procedure with British-specific arguments. Against an income-tax reassessment that ignores the treaty, the owner files a réclamation contentieuse, a formal claim to the tax office, within the statutory deadline shown on the assessment notice, invoking Article 6 of the 2008 convention and the Foreign Tax Credit Relief position in the United Kingdom to show that France is the state of first taxation but not of double taxation. Against the application of the 20 and 30 per cent minima, the owner relies on the escape clause in Article 197 A itself, producing the worldwide-income calculation with the British tax return and supporting documents. Against social charges wrongly applied at the full rate to a United Kingdom resident, the owner cites the impots.gouv.fr doctrine on the CSG and CRDS exemption with the 8SH or 8SI box ticked and the certificate of United Kingdom National Insurance affiliation. And against a refusal to deduct genuine furnished-letting costs, the owner invokes the commercial nature of the income confirmed by the courts: net BIC profit means real expenses, real depreciation and real losses carried forward. Paris and Ile-de-France owners should add one local reflex: the Paris tax offices and the City’s housing protection unit exchange data with the registration portal, so a Paris owner must keep the planning file, the tax file and the platform statements mutually consistent, because a turnover declared to the tax office that exceeds the authorised letting pattern is routinely forwarded. Consistency across all three files is the cheapest defence of all.
Conclusion
A British owner can lawfully earn furnished-rental income from a French second home after Brexit, but only by treating the project as a small regulated business from the first day. Declare the property on the national portal and display the declaration number, secure the change-of-use authorisation wherever the municipality requires one, verify the co-ownership by-laws, compute the French tax under the right BIC regime with the right social-levy rate, and claim the British credit for the French tax. The court decisions are unforgiving toward owners who confuse the tourist registration with planning permission, and the fines are calibrated to hurt, yet every one of the three enforcement tracks leaves room for a documented, timely defence. Preparation filed before the first guest arrives costs a fraction of the fine, the restoration order or the reassessment that follows an unprepared letting.