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Last Updated: May 2026
Short-term rental activity in Paris operates under three overlapping compliance layers: national French law, Paris municipal rules, and European Union data-sharing requirements that took effect January 1, 2025, under EU Regulation 2024/1028. Hosts cannot satisfy one layer and ignore the others.
All three apply simultaneously.
The primary governing statutes are Law No. 2018-1021 of November 23, 2018 (the ELAN Law), which gave municipalities the authority to cap rental nights and require registration, and Paris Municipal Decree No. 2024-0012, which consolidated the city's enforcement procedures.
The ELAN Law's short-term rental provisions have been in force since January 1, 2019. France's national tourism code, specifically Articles L324-1-1 through L324-2-1 of the Code du Tourisme, defines the baseline registration obligations that Paris builds upon.
Under French law, a short-term rental is any furnished residential letting of fewer than 90 consecutive days to a transient guest. That 90-day threshold is the legal boundary.
Rentals at or above 90 consecutive days to the same tenant fall outside STR rules entirely and are governed by standard tenancy law.
Enforcement in Paris sits with the Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH), the city's housing authority, operating under the authority of the Préfecture de Police for criminal-level violations. The DLH processes registration applications, investigates complaints, and issues administrative fines.
(The DLH replaced fragmented arrondissement-level oversight in 2022, which is why pre-2022 guidance on Airbnb rules in Paris is often structurally outdated.)
Before you can list your Paris property, you've got homework to do. Under Article L.324-1-1 of the French Tourism Code, every short-term rental host must register with the Mairie de Paris, a rule that's been in effect since December 28, 2017.
It's mandatory for every platform, Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, you name it. The city then gives you a 13-digit registration number that absolutely has to be on your listing, or you risk a fine of up to €5,000. Bottom line: get the number.
Who Must Register: All hosts renting a furnished dwelling for short stays in Paris, whether primary or secondary residence.
Application Process: Hosts submit a declaration online via the Paris City Hall portal (teleservice.paris.fr). No fee applies to the registration itself.
Required Documentation: Property address, host identity details, and confirmation of property type (primary vs.
Platform Obligation: Platforms are required under French law to refuse listings that do not display a valid registration number, and to transmit rental data to the city on request.
The 120-day rule is a big one. If you're renting out your primary residence, Article L.631-7 of the French Construction and Housing Code caps you at 120 rental days per calendar year.
Seriously, don't mess with this one; it's the single most enforced restriction under Paris Airbnb rules, and platforms like Airbnb will automatically block your calendar once you hit the limit.
Secondary residences, on the other hand, don't have a day-cap, but they open a whole different can of worms requiring a separate change-of-use authorization (see Section 5).
Hosts who exceed 120 days on a primary residence face fines of up to €10,000 per violation under Article L. Platforms are legally required to enforce this cap automatically once a host reaches the annual threshold.
Exception: Hosts renting a single room within their primary residence while remaining on-site are not subject to the 120-day cap under current municipal interpretation.
Paris does not use a formal building classification system equivalent to New York's Class A/Class B dwelling categories.
Eligibility for short-term rental is governed instead by property type, ownership status, and applicable private law instruments, specifically condominium bylaws (règlement de copropriété) and, in some cases, local zoning rules under the Paris Local Urban Plan (Plan Local d'Urbanisme PLU).
Under Article L. 324-1-1 of the French Tourism Code (Code du tourisme), as amended by the ELAN Law of November 23, 2018, only a host's primary residence may be rented on a short-term basis without a change-of-use authorization.
A primary residence is defined as the dwelling occupied by the host for at least 8 months per year.
Annual Cap: Primary residences may be rented for a maximum of 120 nights per calendar year.
Ownership and Tenancy: Both owners and tenants may rent their primary residence, provided tenants have written landlord authorization.
Condominium Restrictions: Even where French law permits short-term rental, a condominium's règlement de copropriété may prohibit commercial activity. Hosts must verify their building's bylaws before listing.
Properties that are not a host's primary residence require a change-of-use authorization (autorisation de changement d'usage) from the Paris City Hall (Mairie de Paris) under Article L. 631-7 of the French Construction and Housing Code (Code de la construction et de l'habitation).
In Paris, this authorization is exceptionally difficult to obtain and is subject to a compensatory offset requirement, one commercial square meter converted to residential use for every residential square meter converted to tourist use.
Properties classified as secondary residences face a hard ceiling under Article L. 324-1-1 of the French Tourism Code, as reinforced by the Loi ELAN (Law No. 2018-1021, effective November 24, 2018). Secondary residences may not be rented short-term for more than 90 nights per calendar year.
The cap resets on January 1. Platforms are legally required to block listings once the threshold is reached, and the Paris City Hall can audit platform data directly.
The 90-night limit does not apply to a host's principal residence, which may be let for up to 120 nights annually under the same statutory framework.
All short-term rental listings in Paris must display a registration number issued by the Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH).
Since January 1, 2020, platforms are required to verify the number before publishing a listing and to remove any listing where the number is absent or invalid. Operating without a valid registration number carries a fine of up to €5,000 per infraction.
Renting a secondary residence short-term constitutes a change of use under Article L. 631-7 of the Code de la Construction et de l'Habitation. Hosts must obtain a change-of-use authorization (autorisation de changement d'usage) from the Paris City Hall before listing.
In most Paris arrondissements, this authorization requires a compensatory conversion of equivalent commercial space to residential use, making approval difficult and expensive for most individual owners.
Note: Proposition de loi No. 2111 (2024), currently in Senate review, would lower the secondary-residence cap from 90 to 60 nights annually and increase the no-registration fine to €15,000.
Paris applies a taxe de séjour (tourist tax) to all short-term rental stays. The rate is set annually by the City of Paris under Article L. 2333-26 of the General Code of Territorial Authorities (Code général des collectivités territoriales).
For 2025–2026, the applicable rate for furnished tourist accommodations is 5% of the nightly rate per person, per night, subject to a departmental surcharge of 10% applied on top of the base rate, bringing the effective combined tourist tax to 5.5% in most Paris arrondissements.
A flat departmental ceiling applies: no tourist tax charge may exceed €14.13 per person per night for unclassified furnished rentals as of January 1, 2025.
Tax Type | Rate | Description |
|---|---|---|
Taxe de séjour (base) | 5% of the nightly rate per person | Municipal tourist tax under Article L. 2333-26 |
Departmental surcharge | 10% of the base taxe de séjour | Applied by the Île-de-France region on top of the base rate |
Income tax (micro-BIC regime) | 71% abatement; net taxed at marginal rate | Applies when annual rental revenue stays below €77,700 |
Social contributions (prélèvements sociaux) | 17.2% | Applied to net rental income under Article 1600-0 G CGI |
Let's talk about the Tourist Tax. The combined rate is 5.5% of your nightly rate, calculated per person, per night. It's not unlimited, though. For unclassified furnished rentals, this tax is capped at a maximum of €14.13 per person each night.
The good news? Platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo almost always handle the collection and remittance of this tax for you, so it's one less thing on your plate.
Platforms including Airbnb are required under French law (Loi n° 2019-1479, Article 242 bis CGI, effective January 1, 2020) to collect and remit the taxe de séjour directly on behalf of hosts for all bookings processed through
Smoke Detectors: Required in every room used for sleeping and in each hallway serving sleeping areas, per the Code de la Construction et de l'Habitation (Article R129-12).
Carbon Monoxide Detectors: Mandatory in any dwelling with a gas appliance, boiler, or attached garage, under Decree No. 2016-1316, effective October 1, 2016.
Fire Extinguisher: At a minimum, one portable extinguisher accessible on each occupied floor.
The Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH) enforces habitability standards that apply to all short-term rental properties in Paris. (Non-compliance can void a host's registration and trigger fines independent of Airbnb platform status.)
Minimum Ceiling Height: 2.20 metres in all habitable rooms, per Article R111-2 of the Code de la Construction.
Electrical Certification: Installations older than 15 years require a conformity report from a certified diagnostician before any rental activity.
Ventilation: Mechanical or natural ventilation meeting NF DTU 68.3 standards in kitchens and bathrooms.
Registration Number Display: Under Article L. 324-2-1 of the French Tourism Code (as amended by the Loi ELAN, effective November 24, 2018), platforms operating in Paris must verify that hosts provide a registration number before activating any listing for properties rented more than 120 days per year.
Blocking Obligations: Platforms must deactivate listings that exceed the 120-night annual cap for primary residences. Airbnb's compliance systems track this automatically for Paris listings.
Annual Data Transmission: Platforms must submit annual rental activity reports to the Paris municipal authority (Mairie de Paris) upon request, identifying hosts, addresses, and total nights rented, per Article L.
Platform Penalty Exposure: Non-compliant platforms face fines of up to €50,000 per listing under Article L. 651-4 of the French Construction and Housing Code.
Everything above, in the order you'll do it — who you deal with at each step and what it costs.
French law sets hard financial ceilings on STR violations. The penalties apply per infraction, not per calendar year, so repeat violations compound fast.
Operating without registration: Up to €5,000 per listing under Article L. 324-1-1 of the Tourism Code (Code du Tourisme).
Exceeding the 120-night annual cap (primary residence): Up to €10,000 per violation under Article L. 631-7 of the Construction and Housing Code (Code de la Construction et de l'Habitation).
Renting a secondary residence without change-of-use authorization: Up to €50,000 per unit, plus a mandatory restoration order requiring the property to revert to residential use.
Failure to display registration number in listings: Up to €5,000 per listing under the same Tourism Code provision.
Platform non-compliance (failure to transmit rental data): Up to €50,000 per platform per year under the 2018 ELAN Act (Loi ELAN, Law No.
Paris's Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH) runs enforcement. Detection methods include:
Platform data cross-referencing: Platforms must transmit annual rental-night counts per listing to the DLH; figures above 120 nights trigger automatic review.
Complaint-driven inspections: Neighbor or building syndicate complaints routed through the Mairie de Paris generate on-site inspections within 30 days.
Proactive monitoring: The DLH uses scraping tools to identify listings missing valid registration numbers across service-public.fr guidance and major booking platforms.
Tax authority referrals: The Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP) cross-checks declared rental income against platform-reported payouts.
Paris operates one of Europe's most protected residential tenancy frameworks under the loi du 6 juillet 1989. Short-term rental of a unit subject to rent control does not suspend tenant protections, and hosts who vacate a regulated unit to list it commercially risk legal action from the Paris Prefecture.
Converting a rent-controlled primary residence to a short-term rental without maintaining genuine primary occupancy constitutes a breach of tenancy law and can trigger lease termination proceedings.
Subletting restrictions: The loi du 6 juillet 1989 prohibits subletting without written landlord consent, regardless of rental duration.
Retaliatory eviction risk: Landlords who discover unauthorized short-term use may pursue eviction and damages under Article 15 of the same law.
Social housing prohibition: Units managed by organismes HLM are categorically ineligible for short-term rental under any circumstances.
Approximately 75% of Parisian residential buildings are structured as copropriétés. The règlement de copropriété (co-ownership bylaws) frequently contains clauses restricting commercial use or requiring bourgeois residential occupation (usage bourgeois exclusif).
Violating a copropriété bylaw can result in a court injunction and damages awarded to the syndicate, independent of any municipal penalty.
Bourgeois clause conflicts: Listing a unit commercially in a building with a usage bourgeois clause exposes the host to syndicate litigation.
General assembly approval: Some bylaws require a supermajority vote before any unit may operate as a meublé de tourisme.
Not all short-term accommodation activity in Paris falls under the residential STR registration and night-cap rules described above.
Stays of 90 consecutive days or more: These qualify as standard residential tenancies under French civil law and are governed by the Loi du 6 juillet 1989, not the short-term rental framework.
Licensed hotels and aparthotels: Classified establishments holding a licence de tourisme operate under the Code du tourisme and are exempt from the residential registration requirements imposed by Paris municipal decree.
Classified furnished tourist residences (résidences de tourisme): These operate under a separate commercial classification regime and are not subject to the 120-night annual cap.
Student and social housing: Units managed under HLM (habitation à loyer modéré) social housing contracts are prohibited from STR use entirely and fall outside the exemption framework.
Introduced in the Paris City Council in early 2025, this proposal would direct the Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH) to conduct a formal review of whether the 120-day annual cap for primary residences remains calibrated to current housing pressure indicators. The review would assess:
Cap Reduction: Whether reducing the limit to 90 days in arrondissements 1 through 11 is warranted by vacancy rate data
Enforcement Coordination: Increased data-sharing obligations between platforms and the DLH, beyond current requirements under Loi ELAN (2018)
Penalty Escalation: Doubling the €50,000 per-violation ceiling for repeat non-compliance
As of May 2026, this proposal has not been enacted. The DLH review period remains open, and no binding legislative text has passed into law.
Direction du Logement et de l'Habitat (DLH) – City of Paris
Address: 17 Boulevard Morland, 75004 Paris
Website: paris.fr – meublé de tourisme
Mairie de Paris – Registration Portal
Registration Portal: Declarations are filed through the Guichet numérique des professionnels or the arrondissement mairie for primary residence declarations
Phone: 3975 (Paris municipal services line)
Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP)
Website: impots.gouv.fr – handles income declaration and taxe de séjour remittance for hosts collecting directly
Suspected violations of Paris short-term rental rules can be reported to the DLH via the Paris municipal services line (3975) or through the city's online signalement portal at teleservices.paris.fr.
Complaints regarding unlicensed commercial operators are also accepted by the Préfecture de Police de Paris, which coordinates enforcement actions under Articles L. 651-2 and L. 324-1-1 of the Code du tourisme.
Let's be clear: this guide isn't legal advice. Paris's short-term rental regulations are a notoriously complex beast, and they're constantly changing. You absolutely must consult with qualified legal and tax professionals to ensure you're compliant.
Why? Because the enforcement landscape keeps evolving, the city recently hired dozens of new agents specifically to crack down on illegal listings. Ultimately, it's your responsibility as a host to stay on top of the current rules.
Founder, Mr. Props · Short-term rental investor
Helvis has spent the better part of a decade buying and selling real estate, and now focuses on scaling his short-term rental portfolio. He joined forces with the property OG himself, Mr Props, to share what's actually working — the systems, numbers, and hard lessons — so other hosts can grow faster and with fewer headaches.
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