Short Term Rentals Paris: 2026 Legal & Investment Guide

Many buyers arrive in Paris with a plan: purchase an apartment, use it a few weeks a year, and offset the carrying costs with short-term rentals the rest of the time. It is a reasonable instinct. It is also, in most cases, significantly more complicated than it sounds.

Paris has spent the better part of a decade closing the gap between what platforms like Airbnb made possible and what French housing law permits. Paris rental regulations as of 2026 are specific and actively enforced — and the path to legal short-term rentals in Paris is narrower than most buyers anticipate.

What the Law Permits — If Paris Is Your Primary Residence

Owners who occupy their Paris apartment as their primary residence — meaning they live there at least eight months of the year — may rent it out as a meublé de tourisme for short stays. As of January 2025, under the Le Meur Law passed in November 2024, Paris reduced the annual cap from 120 nights to 90 nights per year.

To do this legally, owners must:

• Register the property with Paris City Hall and obtain a 13-character registration number
• Display that number on every listing
• Stay within the 90-night annual ceiling; platforms now report rental data directly to municipal authorities

Penalties for non-compliance are significant and have increased since the Le Meur Law came into force. Exceeding the 90-day cap as a primary-residence owner carries a civil fine of up to €15,000. Operating a secondary residence as a short-term rental without change-of-use authorization — the violation most relevant to international buyers — now draws fines of up to €100,000 per unit, double the previous ceiling of €50,000, with additional daily penalties that can accumulate after a formal notice is issued. Failure to register at all risks a separate fine of up to €10,000.

These are not theoretical maximums. Paris City Hall has a dedicated enforcement team that cross-references platform data with registration records, and courts have been applying the caps. In April 2026, a tribunal imposed a total of €585,000 against a single operator who had converted eleven apartments in the 9th arrondissement into unregistered tourist rentals.

If the Property Is Not Your Primary Residence: The Change-of-Use Process

For owners who use their Paris apartment as a second home — the profile of most international buyers — short-term tourist rentals are not simply a matter of registering with the city. A property that is not the owner’s primary residence must undergo a formal changement d’usage, a change-of-use authorization that converts the property from residential to commercial designation.

The barriers are not just financial — they stack. Money is the most visible obstacle, but it is one of several.

The compensation requirement. The authorization requires the owner to convert an equivalent amount of commercial space into residential housing to offset the loss to the housing supply. In Paris, the ratio varies by zone:

• Arrondissements 1–11 and 18 (highest restriction zone): 3 sqm of commercial space converted to housing for every 1 sqm of short-term rental
• Reinforced compensation sector (1st–9th, 16th, and parts of 10th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th): 2-to-1 ratio
• Outer areas (parts of 12th, 13th, 19th, 20th): 1-to-1 ratio, though tourist demand in these zones is considerably weaker

In the central arrondissements, compensation rights trade at roughly €1,500–€2,000 per sqm, putting the cost for a 50 sqm apartment in the Marais at €60,000–€80,000 before administrative and legal fees — and before a single night has been rented.

Building consent. Even if an owner clears the city’s compensation hurdle, the building itself may block the conversion. Many Paris apartment buildings have a clause de bourgeoisie in their règlement de copropriété — a provision restricting commercial activity, which courts have held includes short-term tourist rentals. Under the Le Meur Law, co-owners can now vote to prohibit short-term rentals outright with a two-thirds majority, down from the previous requirement of unanimity. That makes it easier for neighboring owners to shut down a conversion before it begins.

No new permits in central Paris. Beyond the compensation and building consent issues, the practical reality is that the city is not approving new change-of-use authorizations in its most tightly regulated zones. Applications in the central arrondissements face an administrative environment in which the process has effectively stalled. This is part of why legally converted properties — when they do come to market — attract significant buyer interest.

Future zoning tools. The Le Meur Law also gives Paris the authority to designate specific neighborhoods in its local urban plan (Plan Local d’Urbanisme) where only primary residences may be rented short-term, and to set hard quotas on tourist rental authorizations by neighborhood. Paris has not yet formally enacted these designations, but the legal framework is in place.

Can You Buy a Property That Already Has Commercial Designation?

Yes — and the commercial designation does transfer with the sale. If a property has been legally converted for tourist rental use, a buyer acquires that status along with the title.

The practical problem is scarcity. Legally converted properties approved for full-time short-term rental use in central Paris are extremely rare. The change-of-use process is expensive and administratively onerous enough that very few owners have pursued it. Buyers who specifically seek this type of property should be prepared for a long search, and should treat finding one as a fortunate exception rather than a realistic acquisition strategy.

“Clients sometimes come in expecting that short-term rental income will make a Paris purchase work financially,” says Miranda Junowicz, founder of Paris Property Group. “We have to walk them through what the regulations actually allow — and for most buyers who aren’t living here full-time, that window is much smaller than they anticipated. The picture changes once you understand what medium-term leasing looks like.”

The Medium-Term Alternative: Leases Under the Code Civil and Bail Mobilité

For owners who cannot or do not want to pursue the short-term rental route, two lease frameworks offer a legally clean path to rental income — and neither falls under the 90-day cap or the Le Meur Law restrictions.

The bail code civil is governed by the French Civil Code rather than the 1989 law that regulates primary-residence tenancies. It applies when the property serves as the tenant’s secondary residence — a pied-à-terre, corporate housing, or temporary base for a professional whose primary home is elsewhere. Duration, rent, and terms are freely negotiated between the parties. Because it falls outside standard residential lease law, Paris rent control (encadrement des loyers) does not apply, allowing owners to price at market rate. Corporate tenants — companies, embassies, senior executives — are the typical profile, and they bring correspondingly stronger financial reliability.

The bail mobilité, introduced under the ELAN law in 2018, covers furnished rentals to tenants in a defined list of temporary situations: students, interns, apprentices, and professionals on a formal work assignment in France. Leases run from one to ten months and cannot be renewed with the same tenant. From an owner’s standpoint, the bail mobilité has a significant disadvantage: Paris rent control (encadrement des loyers) applies to it, capping what owners can charge. No security deposit can be required either — which makes it accessible to the tenant pool it targets, but shifts more financial risk onto the owner.

Most owners who have a genuine choice between the two frameworks choose the bail civil. The bail mobilité‘s practical utility is largely tenant-driven: some corporate relocation programs specifically require it for internal HR or tax purposes, and certain student housing programs are structured around it. Some owners also value the Visale guarantee — a government-backed rent protection scheme available to bail mobilité tenants — when dealing with younger or less financially established occupants. But absent a tenant-side requirement, the bail civil offers more flexibility, market-rate pricing, and stronger protections for the owner.

Both lease types sit entirely outside tourist-rental regulations. Neither requires city registration as a meublé de tourisme, and neither is subject to the 90-day cap. Properties rented under either framework must still meet energy performance requirements — G-rated properties cannot be legally rented as of 2025, with F-rated properties to follow in 2028.

Are Medium-Term Leases Worth It Financially?

Medium-term rentals generate more income than a standard long-term lease, but the gap is not dramatic enough to anchor a purchase decision on. Owners who furnish well, price at market rate, and manage vacancy effectively can expect returns that are modestly better than a conventional unfurnished lease — not the premium often associated with nightly tourist rates.

Vacancy between tenants and your own usage of the property, professional management fees (typically 15–25% of monthly rent), and the time and attention required to maintain a property for rotating occupants all compress net returns. For most Paris buyers, rental income from either a bail civil or bail mobilité arrangement is best understood as a useful offset to carrying costs — not a return strategy in its own right.

The Bottom Line for Buyers Considering Short-Term Rentals in Paris

• Primary residence, 90 days or fewer: Legal with registration; the only straightforward path to nightly tourist rentals
• Secondary residence, nightly tourist rentals: Requires change-of-use authorization and expensive compensation; practical for very few buyers
• Properties with existing commercial designation: Permit transfers with sale, but legally converted stock in central Paris is extremely limited
• Medium-term leasing via bail civil or bail mobilité: Legal, flexible, and outside tourist-rental restrictions — but not a windfall

Buyers who want to use a Paris property part-time and generate income in their absence have workable options. The key is matching expectations to what those options actually produce, rather than to what nightly Airbnb rates would imply if the regulatory environment were different.

Ready to explore your options? Contact Paris Property Group to discuss your ownership and investment goals in the 2026 market.