You bought the stone cottage in the Dordogne, or the two-room flat in the 11th arrondissement, long before Brexit, and for years the maths worked nicely: a few weeks of your own holidays each year, and the rest of the summer let to passing travellers through an online platform to cover the taxe foncière, which is the French annual property tax on owners, and the roof repairs. Since the reform of the rules on tourist lets that took effect in France in November 2024, that relaxed arrangement has become a compliance exercise with sharp teeth. France now requires every furnished tourist accommodation, known in French as a meublé de tourisme, to be declared beforehand on a national online portal, called a téléservice, which issues a declaration number, and that number must appear in every advert. In Paris and the other designated high-pressure areas there is a second hurdle: prior permission to change the use of the property from housing to tourist accommodation, known as a changement d’usage, often granted only against compensation, which means converting other floor space back to residential use. Ignore either step and the civil fine now runs to 100,000 euros per property, with a daily penalty until the flat is restored to residential use. This guide explains, for a British owner after Brexit, how to register a second-home let, when permission is needed, how the rental income is taxed, and how to challenge a fine or a refusal. It pairs naturally with our guide to staying in France lawfully with a second home, which sets out the 90/180-day Schengen limit and the visitor visa options for longer stays: British Second Home in France After Brexit: Counting Your 90/180 Days, Staying Longer on a Visitor Visa, and Challenging a Refusal or Removal Order.

I. Can I lawfully let my French second home to holidaymakers?

The short answer is yes, provided you complete two formalities that many British owners still overlook: the national declaration with its advert number, and, in the designated communes, the prior change-of-use permission. The two steps are cumulative, and confusing one for the other is the single most common and most expensive mistake.

A. How do I register my holiday let and where must the number appear?

Everything starts with the legal definition. Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code, in force in its current wording since 20 May 2026, provides that “les meublés de tourisme sont des villas, appartements ou studios meublés, à l’usage exclusif du locataire, offerts à la location à une clientèle de passage qui n’y élit pas domicile et qui y effectue un séjour caractérisé par une location à la journée, à la semaine ou au mois” (Code du tourisme, article L. 324-1-1). In plain English: a villa, flat or studio, furnished, reserved for the exclusive use of the tenant, offered to passing trade who do not take up domicile there, for stays counted in days, weeks or months. If that describes your Dordogne cottage or your Paris flat when you put it online, you are letting a meublé de tourisme and the declaration duty applies to you, whether you let through a large platform, a local agent or your own website.

The declaration is prior, personal and electronic. The same article 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”. You must therefore declare before the first letting, yourself, on the national portal, and the declaration must say whether the property is your main home, your résidence principale, within the meaning of article 2 of the tenancies statute of 6 July 1989. If you claim it is, you must prove it in the declaration itself. Where the declaration is complete, “le téléservice délivre sans délai un avis de réception électronique comprenant un numéro de déclaration” (Code du tourisme, article L. 324-1-1), an electronic acknowledgement issued without delay carrying a declaration number. That number is then passed on immediately to the commune, the French municipality, where the property sits. In practice, the official service-public.fr English-language guide distinguishes two tracks: in most large municipalities you follow a declaration with registration, which adds the change-of-use permission described below, while elsewhere you file a simple declaration, and in both cases you must ask your mairie, your town hall, which online service to use. The registration number itself is a 13-character code in three groups: the five-digit official geographic code of the commune, a six-digit identifier fixed by the commune, and a two-character control key.

That number must then follow your property everywhere it is advertised. Article L. 324-2-1 of the Tourism Code places a double duty on anyone who helps you let, against payment or free of charge, by brokerage or by providing a digital platform: such a person “informe le loueur des obligations de déclaration ou d’autorisation préalables prévues par ces articles et obtient de lui, préalablement à la publication ou à la mise en ligne de l’annonce de location, une déclaration sur l’honneur attestant du respect de ces obligations”, and must state whether the dwelling is your main home. Then comes the visible part: “Elle publie, dans toute annonce relative à ce meublé, ce numéro de déclaration” (Code du tourisme, article L. 324-2-1). Every advert for the property must display the declaration number. Concretely, a British owner who uploads a charming listing with photographs but no number is not merely forgetful: the platform is legally required to obtain your sworn statement, called a declaration sur l’honneur, before the advert goes online, and an advert without a number can be delisted in the middle of the season.

British second-home owners often ask about the famous 120-day ceiling, and here the Court of Cassation, the cour de cassation, France’s supreme civil court, has drawn a line that works in a surprising direction. Article L. 324-1-1 limits lets of a main home to 120 days per calendar year, save for professional obligations, health reasons or force majeure. But in a published ruling of 7 September 2023, case number 22-18.101, the third civil chamber held that the civil fine for failing to report letting days applies only to main homes. The Court recalled that the sanction “constituant une sanction ayant le caractère d’une punition”, its scope must be strictly interpreted under the principle of legality of offences and penalties, and concluded: “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, qui omettent de transmettre à la commune l’ayant demandé depuis plus d’un mois, l’information relative au nombre de jours de l’année précédant la demande, au cours desquels ce meublé a été loué”. The full decision is published here: Cour de cassation, 3e chambre civile, 7 septembre 2023, no. 22-18.101. The lesson for a second-home owner is double-edged. You cannot be fined under that particular provision for your Dordogne cottage, because it is not your main home, but you also cannot shelter behind the 120-day tolerance that main-home hosts enjoy: for a second home in a designated commune, any repeated short-term letting is a change of use and needs permission, from the first night. Keep a day-count log in any event, because the commune may, until 31 December of the year following the letting year, ask any host how many days the property was let, and you must answer within one month giving the address and the declaration number.

Skipping the declaration is punished on its own scale. The service-public.fr guide warns that failure to declare exposes you to a civil fine of up to 5,000 euros, and failure to report a change in the declared details to a fine of up to 450 euros. The 2025 official news roundup on the new tourist-let rules adds two heavier tariff lines: up to 10,000 euros for operating without registration, and up to 20,000 euros for a false declaration or the use of a false registration number. These sit alongside, and do not replace, the change-of-use fines described in Part II.

The statute that organises all of this is here: Code du tourisme, article L. 324-1-1, in force since 20 May 2026, and the platform duties here: Code du tourisme, article L. 324-2-1, in force since 20 May 2026. The practical procedure, in English, is set out by the French administration here: service-public.fr, turning a second home into a holiday let.

B. Do I need change-of-use permission in Paris and the high-pressure zones?

In the communes that have adopted the procedure, and Paris is the archetype, letting a home repeatedly to passing visitors legally transforms it: it ceases to be housing and becomes tourist accommodation, and that transformation needs prior permission. 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”. In plain terms, where the elected council has so decided, changing the use of residential premises is subject to prior authorisation. The same article defines the trigger with formidable breadth: any premises affected to residential use at any point in the previous thirty years are deemed residential, and it adds that “Cet usage peut être établi par tout mode de preuve”, meaning use may be proved by any means. The current text is here: Code de la construction et de l’habitation, article L. 631-7, in force since 21 February 2026.

The most expensive misunderstanding is to believe that an official holiday-let grading, the classement, exempts you from that permission. In a published decision of 27 June 2024, case number 23-13.131, the Court of Cassation quashed a Bordeaux appeal ruling that had accepted exactly that argument from the tenant and the manager of a flat let repeatedly for short stays. The Court restated the rule first: “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”. It then gave the holding that every British owner should memorise: “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, la cour d’appel a violé les textes susvisés”. A classification decision can never stand in for the change-of-use permission. Read the ruling here: Cour de cassation, 3e chambre civile, 27 juin 2024, no. 23-13.131. A star-rating certificate may help you charge more per night; it will not save you from the fine.

Paris owners face the strictest version of the regime, and it has survived the highest European scrutiny. In its Cali Apartments line of cases, decided by the third civil chamber on 18 February 2021, case number 17-26.156, sitting in plenary formation and published both in the Bulletin and the annual Report, the Court of Cassation upheld the Paris system of prior authorisation coupled with compensation, confirming a 15,000-euro civil fine against the operator: the grounds record that the appeal court had “condamné la société CALI APARTMENTS à payer une amende de 15 000 euros”, and the Court rejected the further appeal and ordered the company to pay Paris a further 3,000 euros. The full ruling is here: Cour de cassation, 3e chambre civile, 18 février 2021, no. 17-26.156. Before ruling, the Court had referred the European question to Luxembourg, and the Court of Justice of the European Union held on 22 September 2020, in joined cases C-724/18 and C-727/18, that a national scheme subjecting repeated short-term letting to prior authorisation in communes under marked rental strain “est justifiée par une raison impérieuse d’intérêt général tenant à la lutte contre la pénurie de logements destinés à la location et proportionnée à l’objectif poursuivi”, justified by an overriding reason of general interest in combating the shortage of long-term rental housing, and proportionate, notably because after-the-event checks would come too late to be effective. The Court added that such a scheme may lawfully “en les assortissant au besoin d’une obligation de compensation”, attach where needed a compensation duty. The European judgment of 22 September 2020 in joined cases C-724/18 and C-727/18, Cali Apartments, is quoted at length in that ruling: Cour de cassation, 3e chambre civile, 18 février 2021, no. 17-26.156.

What does this mean for Paris and the Île-de-France, the Paris region? If your flat is in Paris, you must obtain the change-of-use permission from the mairie before the first short-term letting, and Paris grants it for a second home only against compensation, which in practice means showing that other floor space you own is being converted back to long-term housing at the same time, an operation costly enough that most individual owners cannot meet it. The practical consequence is blunt: a British-owned Paris second home can rarely be let lawfully as a full-time holiday let, while a main home can be let within its 120-day envelope. Outside Paris, check the position commune by commune: Biarritz, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nice and many Alpine and coastal resorts operate their own permission schemes with their own conditions, and the November 2024 reform allows communes to go further by setting permission quotas and reserving building zones for main homes in their local plans. Your estate agent, your notaire, the French property solicitor who handled your purchase, and the platform cannot grant the permission for you; only the commune can, and the application must come first.

II. What will it cost in tax and penalties, and how do I fight back?

Registration and permission decide whether you may let. Tax and sanctions decide what it costs you and what happens if the commune takes you to court. The two halves call for the same discipline: declare everything, keep every receipt, and answer every official letter within its deadline.

A. How is my holiday-let income taxed in France?

Rents from a French property are taxed in France, and for most British owners of a single cottage or flat the entry point is the micro-BIC scheme, micro-BIC being the flat-rate regime for industrial and commercial profits that covers furnished letting. Article 50-0 of the General Tax Code, in its wording in force since 1 July 2026, sets a specific ceiling for holiday lets: “15 000 € s’il s’agit d’entreprises dont l’activité principale est de louer directement ou indirectement des meublés de tourisme”. If your gross annual takings, before charges, stay at or below 15,000 euros, you may use the flat-rate scheme, under which “Le résultat imposable […] est égal au montant du chiffre d’affaires hors taxes diminué”, with “d’un abattement de 30 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activités de la catégorie mentionnée au 1° bis”, meaning taxable profit equals takings minus a 30 per cent allowance. The text is here: Code général des impôts, article 50-0, in force since 1 July 2026. Two warnings follow directly from the wording. First, the 15,000-euro ceiling and the 30 per cent allowance are the harshest band of the scheme, far below the ordinary service band, so a well-filled cottage at 1,200 euros a week crosses the ceiling in thirteen weeks. Second, the article carves out lets mentioned in article 1414 bis of the same code, so a graded, classified let may fall under a more generous band: check your classement against the article before assuming the 30 per cent rate. Once the ceiling is crossed for the reference years, you leave the flat-rate scheme and must declare under the actual-profit regime, deducting real costs, loan interest, insurance, agency fees and depreciation item by item, which demands proper accounts from the first euro above the threshold.

Social charges sit on top of income tax for owners affiliated in France, and every host, resident or not, must handle the tourist tax, the taxe de séjour, a per-person per-night levy set by the commune. Article L. 2333-34 of the General Code of Local Authorities provides: “Les logeurs, les hôteliers, les propriétaires ou les intermédiaires mentionnés à l’article L. 2333-33 versent, aux dates fixées par délibération du conseil municipal, sous leur responsabilité, au comptable public assignataire de la commune le montant de la taxe”. Owners and intermediaries pay the tax to the commune’s public accountant on the dates fixed by the municipal council, under their own responsibility. Where a platform collects for you as payment intermediary for a non-professional host, it pays over the sums twice a year, by 30 June and 31 December, the June payment settling any balance of the previous year. The article is here: Code général des collectivités territoriales, article L. 2333-34, in force since 21 February 2026. In practice, verify three things with your mairie each year: whether your commune has introduced the levy, the nightly rate for your category of accommodation, and the collection period, because rates and exemption periods vary widely between a Paris arrondissement and a Dordogne village. Keep the platform payout statements and the payment receipts: they are your proof that the tax was collected and passed on, and the commune’s inspectors ask for them.

Two related costs complete the picture. Owning costs you the annual property taxes regardless of letting, and second homes in designated communes can now bear a heavily increased dwelling tax, a point developed in our guide to the surcharge here: Your French Second Home Just Got a 60% Tax Surcharge After Brexit. And if you are resident in the United Kingdom while your cottage is in France, France taxes the rents first and any double taxation is relieved under the France-United Kingdom double tax treaty, normally by a credit in your country of residence, so declare in both countries and keep both assessments.

B. What penalties do I face and how do I challenge them?

The sanction for letting without change-of-use permission is the heaviest in French housing law. Article L. 651-2 of the Construction and Housing Code, in its wording in force since 21 November 2024, provides: “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”. Any person in breach faces a civil fine of up to 100,000 euros per unlawfully converted unit. The same article adds the restorer: “le président du tribunal ordonne le retour à l’usage d’habitation du local transformé sans autorisation, dans un délai qu’il fixe. A l’expiration de celui-ci, il prononce une astreinte d’un montant maximal de 1 000 € par jour et par mètre carré utile du local irrégulièrement transformé”. The court orders the return of the unit to residential use within a deadline it sets, then imposes a penalty payment of up to 1,000 euros per day and per square metre of usable floor space, and past that deadline the administration may evict the occupants and carry out the works at your expense. The text is here: Code de la construction et de l’habitation, article L. 651-2, in force since 21 November 2024. Note carefully who imposes the fine: it “est prononcée par le président du tribunal judiciaire statuant selon la procédure accélérée au fond, sur assignation de la commune”, pronounced by the president of the civil court ruling in the fast-track procedure on the merits, on application by the commune. A warning letter from the mairie, however stern, is not the fine. Only a court order is. That distinction shapes your defence: a formal notice is your last cheap opportunity to regularise or stop, before the commune issues proceedings.

Three lines of defence have worked in the published case law. First, deny the change of use itself by proving the premises never stopped being housing. Article L. 631-7 lets you prove residential use by any means, and deems residential any unit affected to housing at any time in the previous thirty years, so old leases, long-term tenancy records, utility bills in a tenant’s name and council-tax-style records can defeat the claim that the flat had become tourist accommodation. Second, hold every sanction to its strict wording. The 7 September 2023 ruling recalled that a penalty, as punishment, “est d’interprétation stricte”, so a commune that sues you under the wrong provision, for example the day-count fine that applies only to main homes, loses even where letting is proved. Third, attack the permission refusal itself rather than ignoring it. A refusal of change-of-use permission is an administrative decision: write back to the mairie asking it to reconsider, and if it maintains the refusal, apply to the administrative court. Article R. 421-1 of the Administrative Justice Code sets the clock: “La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée”, proceedings must be brought within two months of notification of the decision. The article is here: Code de justice administrative, article R. 421-1. For a Paris flat that means the Paris administrative court; elsewhere, the court of the place of the property.

Assemble your evidence pack before any dispute, not after. Keep the téléservice acknowledgement with your declaration number, screenshots of every advert showing the number, your day-count log with guest names and platform statements, your tourist-tax payment receipts, your French tax returns showing the rental income, and your classification decision if you have one, remembering that the classification helps your nightly rate but never replaces the permission. If a commune officer visits or writes, answer factually and within the stated deadline, produce the pack, and take dated advice the moment proceedings are mentioned, because once the commune assigns you before the court president, the argument shifts from paperwork to penalties.

Conclusion

A British-owned French second home can still earn its keep from holidaymakers, but only in the right order: declare the let on the national portal before the first guest and display the number in every advert; obtain the change-of-use permission wherever the commune requires it, accepting that in Paris a second home will rarely qualify; count the income against the 15,000-euro micro-BIC ceiling with its 30 per cent allowance and pay over the tourist tax on the commune’s dates; and if challenged, insist on the correct legal basis, prove residential history where it exists, and contest refusals within the two-month administrative window. Do that, and the cottage funds itself. Skip it, and the 100,000-euro fine will dwarf a decade of August weeks.