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Energy performance certificate (DPE) and renovation work: what are the requirements to rent in Paris in 2026?

7 min read By the Belvie team

For years, the energy performance certificate (DPE) was a formality you picked up the day before signing. It has become one of the few documents capable of preventing an apartment from being rented out at all.

The Paris housing stock is old. Haussmannian buildings, top floors under the roof, small and poorly insulated apartments: many dwellings that rented without difficulty ten years ago now find themselves at the bottom of the energy scale. For an owner, the question is no longer “Do I need a DPE?” but “What does my DPE still allow me to do, and what do I need to plan for?”

The DPE: a document whose nature has changed

The energy performance certificate rates a dwelling on a scale from A to G, based on its energy consumption and its greenhouse gas emissions. It is produced by a certified assessor, must be attached to the lease, and its rating must appear in rental listings.

What has changed is not the principle: it is the scope. The DPE has gone from being a piece of information to being a condition for access to the rental market. The lowest-performing dwellings — what are commonly called energy-inefficient dwellings — are gradually being removed from the rental market, on a phased timetable that targets the worst ratings first, then moves up the scale over the years.

Two practical consequences for a Paris landlord:

  • An unfavorable DPE can block a rental, or restrict it, regardless of the property's other qualities.
  • The timetable keeps moving. A dwelling that complies today may no longer comply at the next deadline if nothing has been done in the meantime.

The reflex to adopt: before any decision — renting, renovating, selling, delegating — get the valid DPE and look first at its rating, then at its date. An old certificate may have been produced under a previous method and may no longer reflect the dwelling's actual situation.

Deadlines and the new calculation (updated October 4, 2026)

The dates are now fixed. According to ANIL, for mainland France:

  • January 1, 2025: a dwelling rated G is considered not decent (non décent);
  • January 1, 2028: same rule for dwellings rated F;
  • January 1, 2034: same rule for dwellings rated E.

For dwellings rated F or G, ANIL also points out that it is prohibited to increase the rent on a renewal or re-letting, and that the annual rent review clause cannot apply. A non-compliant dwelling does not invalidate the lease, but a judge may, among other things, order works, reduce the rent or award damages to the tenant.

The DPE calculation has changed for electric heating

Since January 1, 2026, the electricity conversion factor has dropped from 2.3 to 1.9 (order of August 13, 2025): DPEs issued since that date factor it in automatically (Ministry of Ecological Transition). A new order, published in the Official Journal (Journal officiel) on August 31, 2026, lowers it to 1.7 on January 1, 2027. The ministry specifies that no dwelling will see its rating worsen, that DPEs already issued remain valid, and that those carried out up to December 31, 2026 can be updated free of charge, without a new visit from the assessor, on Ademe's DPE-Audit Observatory starting January 1, 2027 (Ministry of Ecological Transition).

In practice: if your apartment is electrically heated and its rating is holding you back, do not start any works before checking whether a free update changes the rating. And if your DPE dates from before 2026, check which method it was produced under.

The other parts of the technical file

The DPE does not travel alone. A residential lease in Paris comes with a file of diagnostic reports whose content depends on the age of the building, its installations and its location. Depending on the case, this notably includes:

  • the lead exposure risk assessment, for older buildings;
  • the inspection of the interior electrical and gas installations, once they exceed a certain age;
  • the statement of risks and pollution;
  • the habitable floor area, measured and stated in the lease;
  • where applicable, the asbestos survey of the private areas.

On top of this comes a substantive obligation, independent of the diagnostics: the dwelling must be decent. This covers safety, the absence of health risks, minimum equipment, and sufficient habitable area and volume — and, now, a minimum level of energy performance. That last point is what links decency and the DPE: a dwelling that consumes too much energy can be deemed non-decent, which exposes the landlord to demands for compliance.

What co-ownership (condominium) changes in Paris

In a Paris building, a large part of the energy performance does not depend on the owner of an individual unit: the facade, the roof, sometimes the windows, and any collective heating are matters for collective decisions. A lone landlord can act on their interior insulation, on their windows when these are private, on their ventilation, on their individual heating system — but not on the common structure. Hence the importance of following the projects voted at the general meeting: a facade renovation with insulation or the replacement of a collective boiler can improve the rating far more effectively than individual works.

Which works to undertake, and in what order

Faced with a poor rating, the costliest reflex is to launch works at random. The logic should rather be as follows.

  1. Get a reliable, recent assessment done. An expired or approximate DPE leads you to fund the wrong items.
  2. Identify the items that really weigh on the rating. Wall insulation, windows, heating system, hot water production, ventilation: a few levers often account for most of the result.
  3. Check what falls under the co-ownership. There is no point replacing windows if a facade renovation with insulation has been voted for next year.
  4. Look at the available subsidies. National and local energy renovation aid schemes change regularly: their conditions must be checked at the time of the project, not based on information from last year.
  5. Cost it out and compare. A works budget should be judged against the rent it secures over ten years, not only against its gross amount.

For major renovations, an energy audit may be required or strongly recommended: it proposes costed and prioritized works scenarios, which a simple DPE does not.

Not to be overlooked: during works, the apartment earns nothing, and a Paris construction site rarely starts on the scheduled date. That cost appears on no quote. We calculated it in our article on the real cost of vacancy in Paris.

DPE and rent: two constraints that add up

In Paris, energy performance is not the only constraint on renting out a property. It comes on top of rent control, which caps the applicable rent according to the sector, the construction period, the number of rooms and whether the dwelling is furnished or not. An owner can therefore end up with a property whose rent is capped and whose rating requires works. We covered the first aspect in our guide to rent control in Paris.

It is precisely this combination that leads some owners to give up, leave the property empty, or sell it as is. That is almost always the costliest decision: an empty apartment keeps generating charges, property tax and slow deterioration, with nothing in return.

The most common mistakes

  • Relying on an old DPE without checking its date or the method under which it was produced.
  • Confusing the rating with perceived comfort. An apartment that feels pleasant in September can be rated very poorly.
  • Launching works item by item, without an overall view: the final gain is often less than the sum of the spending.
  • Ignoring the co-ownership's agenda, and paying twice for the same result.
  • Waiting for the next deadline to act: assessors and tradespeople get busier the closer the date gets.

The Belvie model: we do not take a management mandate — we sign a lease with the owner and become their tenant, in Paris only. During the audit of your property, we review the DPE and the condition of the dwelling, and we tell you frankly what must be dealt with before renting and what can wait. After that, the agreed rent is paid to you every month, whether the dwelling is occupied or not. Understand how guaranteed rent works →

Where to start, in practice

Three steps are enough to clear the fog:

  1. Get the valid DPE — or have one done by a certified assessor if it is old or missing.
  2. Place the dwelling against the applicable timetable: compliant today, compliant in the medium term, or to be dealt with as a priority.
  3. Compare two costed scenarios: the necessary works and the rental income they allow you to secure, versus what an operator would pay you for the property in its current state or after a package of targeted works.

That last point is often the most useful. Many owners stop at the renovation quote without ever setting against it the income it secures — and without knowing that some properties judged “in need of a complete renovation” in fact require only a few well-chosen items to become rentable again under good conditions.

This article is for information only and does not replace legal advice. The energy rules applicable to rentals change regularly, and the thresholds and deadlines must be checked with a professional or the official sources before any decision.

Official sources

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