You own a flat in Lyon, a cottage in the Dordogne or a studio in Paris, you live in Britain, and you want to let it out. Since Brexit, that simple plan sits at the crossing of two demanding French regimes: the letting rules, which punish landlords who skip registration or paperwork, and the tax rules, which treat French-source rent as taxable in France even when the owner lives in Manchester or Edinburgh. This guide explains both, in that order, for a British reader. It covers the long-term residential let your French tenant expects, the holiday let or Airbnb-style rental that now runs through a national register, the French income tax on each type of rent, the France–UK double tax treaty safety net, and what to do when the tax office or the town hall sends a bill you believe is wrong. Every French term is explained at first use, and every decisive legal proposition is tied to the official text or decision it comes from.

I. Letting your French home lawfully: the paperwork British owners most often overlook

A. The long-term let your tenant expects: the written lease, the technical file and the deposit clock

A French residential lease, known as a bail d’habitation, is a written contract with compulsory content: the identities of the parties, a description of the property, its permitted use, the rent and its terms of payment, and the amount of the security deposit, called the dépôt de garantie. British owners sometimes recycle an English assured shorthold tenancy translated into French. That is a false economy. The French lease allocates rights and deadlines — notice periods, renewal, deposit return — that an English template simply does not contain, and a dispute before the local housing judge will be decided under French law whatever the template says.

Before the tenant moves in, the landlord must hand over the dossier de diagnostic technique, a file of technical surveys that includes the energy performance certificate (the diagnostic de performance énergétique, or DPE) alongside the other surveys the age and location of the building require. Since the climate legislation phased in minimum energy standards, a property with the worst energy ratings can be progressively barred from new lettings, so a British owner who bought years ago should commission a fresh DPE before re-letting rather than reusing the survey from the purchase file. An entry inventory of condition, the état des lieux d’entrée, is then drawn up with the tenant, ideally with dated photographs; it is the mirror image of the exit inventory that will decide, at the end of the tenancy, which damage can fairly be deducted from the deposit.

The deposit itself is capped by law, and the official service-public.fr guidance states the caps plainly: for an unfurnished letting, one month’s rent excluding service charges (hors charges) for an unfurnished letting, and two months’ rent excluding charges for a furnished letting, in each case recorded in the lease. The return clock is equally strict. Service-public.fr explains that the owner must return the deposit within one month at most where the exit inventory matches the entry inventory, and within two months at most where deductions for damage are made, with time running from the day the tenant hands back the keys. Late return is expensive: the refund due is increased by 10% of the monthly rent excluding charges for each month of delay begun. A British landlord who treats the deposit as a casual float, as some English letting practice once tolerated, therefore accumulates a 10%-per-month penalty automatically. Deductions must be justified with the exit inventory, invoices or quotes; a vague “cleaning and wear” line will not survive a challenge. Full detail is on the official page Dépôt de garantie dans un bail d’habitation.

Ending the tenancy is where British expectations most often collide with French law. As a general rule, the owner can only give notice — the congé — for the expiry date of the lease, and only on three grounds: to sell the property, to repossess it (to live in it or to house a close relative), or for a serious and legitimate reason such as the tenant’s persistent breach. The official guidance puts it this way: notice may only be given for the expiry date of the lease, and only to sell the property, to repossess it to live in or to house a close relative, or on a serious and legitimate ground such as the tenant’s persistent breach. For an unfurnished letting, the tenant must receive the notice letter at least six months before the expiry date of the lease. A notice to sell, the congé pour vendre, doubles as an offer of sale to the tenant, whose right of first refusal — the droit de préemption — keeps the sale offer open during the first two months of the notice period. Elderly tenants of modest means enjoy reinforced protection that can force automatic renewal, with income ceilings published on service-public.fr, so the owner’s file should verify the tenant’s age and resources before any notice is served. The procedure and the protected-tenant rules are set out on Préavis et formalités du congé donné par le propriétaire.

Two practical consequences follow for British owners. First, never serve notice by ordinary email: an invalid form can void the notice and restart the clock for another full lease term. Second, if the tenant disputes the notice, the deposit or the charges, the first port of call is the departmental conciliation commission (commission départementale de conciliation), a public mediation service that charges the parties no fee, before the specialised housing judge (juge des contentieux de la protection) at the local court. Readers viewing the relationship from the tenant’s side will find the mirror perspective in our guide for British tenants renting in France.

B. Holiday lets and Airbnb-style rentals: the national register, the 120-day ceiling and the change-of-use trap

Short-term furnished letting is the area where British second-home owners face the heaviest recent reform. French law gives these rentals a precise definition. Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code (code du tourisme) provides that a meublé de tourisme — a furnished tourist accommodation — is a villa, flat or studio, for the exclusive use of the guest, offered to a clientele passing through who do not take up residence there, for stays charged by the day, week or month. The official wording reads: “les meublés de tourisme sont des villas, appartements ou studios meublés, à l’usage exclusif du locataire, […] 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.” If your Dordogne cottage or Paris studio is let on Airbnb, Booking.com or a local agency to successive short-stay guests, it falls squarely within this definition, whether or not you ever use the platform’s own labels. Read the current version of Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code.

Since the 2024 reform of furnished rentals, every such letting must first be declared on a national online service, the téléservice national, which issues a registration number that must appear on adverts and listings. The statute is explicit: “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” (Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code), and the declaration must state whether the property is the owner’s main home, with proof. Failure to declare, false declarations and missing or fake numbers attract administrative fines of up to 10,000 euros for a missing declaration and up to 20,000 euros for a false declaration or a fake number. A British owner who lists the property first and registers later is therefore already in breach on day one.

A second ceiling applies where the let property is declared as the owner’s main residence (résidence principale): “Toute personne qui offre à la location un meublé de tourisme qui est déclaré comme sa résidence principale ne peut le faire au-delà de cent vingt jours au cours d’une même année civile, sauf obligation professionnelle, raison de santé ou cas de force majeure” (Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code). Councils may lower that ceiling to ninety days by reasoned decision, and they can demand the annual day-count within a month. Breach of the day-cap exposes the owner to a civil fine of up to 15,000 euros. For a British owner whose French address is genuinely a second home (résidence secondaire), the 120-day main-home allowance is simply unavailable: a second home let short-term year-round is a commercial-style use of a dwelling, and that is where the change-of-use rules bite.

The change of use, or changement d’usage, is the trap that has generated the largest fines. In designated high-demand communes, turning a dwelling into short-term tourist accommodation requires the prior authorisation of the mayor. Article L. 631-7 of the Construction and Housing Code (code de la construction et de l’habitation) now says so in terms that leave no room for doubt: “Le fait de louer un local meublé à usage d’habitation en tant que meublé de tourisme, […] constitue un changement d’usage au sens du présent article” (Article L. 631-7 of the Construction and Housing Code). The authorisation is issued by the mayor and “peut être subordonnée à une compensation sous la forme de la transformation concomitante en habitation de locaux ayant un autre usage” — in other words, the owner may have to fund the conversion of an equivalent non-residential space back into housing, a condition that in cities such as Paris can cost far more than the rental income at stake. The permit is personal to the holder and lapses when the beneficiary permanently stops the activity, unless it was granted against compensation, in which case it attaches to the premises. See Article L. 631-7-1 of the Construction and Housing Code.

Two court decisions make the practical stakes vivid. In the first, a commune prosecuted the tenant and the manager of a flat repeatedly let short-term to passing guests, who argued that the flat’s official star-rating as tourist accommodation exempted them from the change-of-use authorisation. The Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation), Third Civil Chamber, 27 June 2024, appeal no. 23-13.131, quashed the appeal court’s dismissal and held: “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” A classification certificate, even one properly issued after inspection, is an entirely separate instrument from the mayor’s authorisation, and it excuses nothing. Read the decision no. 23-13.131 of 27 June 2024. British owners should apply the same reasoning to any English-language advice that a platform “registration”, a tourist-tax account or a star rating somehow regularises the planning position: none of them replaces the authorisation.

In the second decision, the Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 18 February 2021, appeal no. 17-26.156 — the well-known Cali Apartments ruling — upheld the whole architecture of the prior-authorisation scheme after the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed its compatibility with the Services Directive. The European Court accepted that a national scheme subjecting short-term letting of dwellings to prior authorisation in tight housing markets “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, en ce que celui-ci ne peut pas être réalisé par une mesure moins contraignante, notamment parce qu’un contrôle a posteriori interviendrait trop tardivement pour avoir une efficacité réelle.” In plain terms: protecting the long-term housing stock justifies requiring permission before the first guest arrives, and retrospective checks come too late. Read the decision no. 17-26.156 of 18 February 2021. The fines for unlicensed short-term letting run per square metre per day under mayoral penalty procedures, so an owner who tests a single season without authorisation can face a bill that dwarfs the season’s takings. Before listing any French second home for short stays, identify the commune’s deliberation on change of use, apply for the authorisation where required, complete the national declaration, display the number, and count the days.

II. Paying French tax on the rent as a British landlord and challenging the bill when it is wrong

A. Which French tax catches your rent: unfurnished income, furnished profits and the treaty backstop

French tax follows the building, not the owner. Article 164 B of the General Tax Code (code général des impôts, or CGI) lists the income treated as having a French source, and it begins with property: “Sont considérés comme revenus de source française : a. Les revenus d’immeubles sis en France ou de droits relatifs à ces immeubles”. Rent from a French flat or house is therefore taxable in France whether the landlord lives in London, Leeds or Limoges. See Article 164 B of the General Tax Code. The France–UK double tax treaty of 2008 confirms the allocation: Article 6 on income from immovable property gives the state where the property sits the right to tax the rental income. France may therefore tax the rent; the United Kingdom then relieves the resulting double taxation under its own foreign-tax-credit rules, on which HMRC guidance should be checked for the current claim procedure. The treaty text is published by the British government at the 2008 UK–France Double Taxation Convention. Owners who hold through a family property company should also read our guide to the SCI for British families, and owners weighing whether to keep or sell will find the holding taxes mapped in our guide to French property tax for British second-home owners.

How France taxes the rent then depends on a single distinction: unfurnished or furnished. Unfurnished rent falls into revenus fonciers, the property-income category. Article 14 of the General Tax Code provides: “sont compris dans la catégorie des revenus fonciers, lorsqu’ils ne sont pas inclus dans les bénéfices d’une entreprise industrielle, commerciale ou artisanale, d’une exploitation agricole ou d’une profession non commerciale : 1° Les revenus des propriétés bâties, telles que maisons et usines”. See Article 14 of the General Tax Code. Within that category, small landlords can use the micro-foncier simplified scheme: “lorsque le montant du revenu brut annuel défini aux articles 29 et 30 n’excède pas 15 000 €, le revenu imposable correspondant est fixé à une somme égale au montant de ce revenu brut diminué d’un abattement de 30 %.” Gross rent up to 15,000 euros a year is thus taxed after an automatic 30% allowance, with no deduction of actual expenses, and the figure is reported directly on the standard income return. See Article 32 of the General Tax Code. Above the threshold, or by election, the landlord moves to the régime réel, the actual-expenses regime, deducting management fees, insurance, repairs, loan interest within the statutory limits, and the property taxes. The frequent British mistake is to assume that because the rent is modest it is invisible: French tax residence of the income does not depend on any registration threshold, and the bank transfers leave a complete trail.

Furnished rent is taxed differently, as industrial and commercial profits (bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, or BIC), the category for trading-style activity. The micro-BIC simplified scheme sets its own thresholds, reshaped by the 2024 reform to curb the old Airbnb advantage: “1° bis 15 000 € s’il s’agit d’entreprises dont l’activité principale est de louer directement ou indirectement des meublés de tourisme”, against 83,600 euros for other businesses, and the taxable profit is gross turnover minus “d’un abattement de 71 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activités de la catégorie mentionnée au 1°, d’un abattement de 50 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activités de la catégorie mentionnée au 2° et d’un abattement de 30 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activités de la catégorie mentionnée au 1° bis.” In practice, an ordinary unclassified tourist flat now gets only a 30% allowance within a 15,000-euro envelope, while classified or higher-threshold activities keep more generous treatment — the exact classification of the property therefore drives the tax bill directly. See Article 50-0 of the General Tax Code. Above the thresholds, the landlord uses the actual-profits regime with depreciation of the furniture and fittings, which usually requires an accountant. A British owner who lets one flat unfurnished all year and a second furnished in summer must keep the two regimes strictly separate, because the allowances, returns and deadlines differ. Where the numbers are close to a threshold, obtain advice before 31 December: crossing a threshold mid-stream without preparation is one of the commonest sources of reassessment.

B. The non-resident extras: minimum rates, social charges and how to fight an assessment

Living in Britain does not buy a lower French rate. Article 197 A of the General Tax Code applies the standard income-tax scale to non-residents’ French-source income but imposes a floor: “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”. A British landlord whose French rental profit is modest can therefore pay a higher effective rate than a French-resident neighbour with the same rent, because the 20% floor replaces the lower bands of the progressive scale. There is, however, a statutory escape route: “lorsque le contribuable justifie que le taux de l’impôt français sur l’ensemble de ses revenus de source française ou étrangère serait inférieur à ces minima, ce taux est applicable à ses revenus de source française.” A landlord with little worldwide income can ask for the average rate computed on worldwide income — the taux moyen — by filing worldwide income evidence with the French return. See Article 197 A of the General Tax Code. Many British landlords never make that claim and overpay for years; the claim can be raised for open years, so a review of past returns is often worthwhile.

Income tax is not the only levy. French-source rental income can also attract social charges (prélèvements sociaux), whose rate and applicability for a British resident depend on social-security affiliation and on successive France–UK coordination positions since Brexit. This corner changes often and turns entirely on the owner’s personal file — British state pension with a French S1 form, private health cover, or no French affiliation at all — so no flat rate is stated here. Check the breakdown printed on the avis d’impôt (the tax assessment notice) line by line, compare it with the impots.gouv.fr guidance for non-residents, and challenge any social-charge line that does not match the owner’s affiliation rather than paying first and asking later.

When a bill looks wrong, French law offers a structured ladder. Start with the documents: the signed lease, the entry and exit inventories, the national declaration receipt and number for tourist lets, the day-count for any main-home letting, the rent receipts, the expense invoices, and the worldwide-income evidence for a taux moyen claim. Then file a formal claim — a réclamation contentieuse — with the tax office that issued the assessment, within the time limit printed on the notice, setting out each ground separately: wrong category (foncier versus BIC), wrong threshold, missed allowance, missed average-rate claim, or social charges inconsistent with the owner’s affiliation. Keep proof of filing and diary the reply deadline. If the office rejects the claim expressly or by silence, the dispute moves to the administrative court (tribunal administratif) for tax matters, while letting-law fines from the commune follow their own appeal routes stated in the penalty decision. Two errors commonly destroy good cases: paying the reassessment without marking the payment as contested where the procedure requires it, and missing the claim deadline while negotiating informally with the inspector. A polite telephone discussion is not a claim. Owners who decide the letting game is no longer worth the candle will find the exit taxes analysed in our guide to selling a French house and its capital-gains bill, and newcomers arranging their first French return should read our arrival formalities pillar, the British newcomer’s guide to French visas and residence.

Conclusion

A British landlord in France succeeds by treating the letting as two files kept with equal care. The regulatory file holds the written lease, the current energy and technical surveys, the matched entry and exit inventories, the deposit returned within one or two months with justified deductions, notices served in the right form and time, and — for any short-stay letting — the national registration number on every advert, the day-count within the ceiling, and the mayor’s change-of-use authorisation wherever the commune requires one. The tax file holds the correct category for each rent, unfurnished income under Article 14 or furnished profits under the micro-BIC thresholds of Article 50-0, the French-source declaration, the average-rate evidence that can defeat the 20 and 30% minimum rates of Article 197 A, and the treaty position that lets France tax while Britain relieves. The court decisions are unforgiving to owners who improvise: a tourist classification never replaces the authorisation, and the authorisation scheme itself has survived European-level challenge precisely because housing protection demands advance control. Build both files before the first tenant or guest arrives, review them each year against the official texts, and challenge promptly any assessment or fine that departs from them.