Renting your apartment to a company by the week or by the day: what the law says

“I'm renting to a company, so the regulations don't apply to me.” It is the most common — and the most dangerous — thing said by Paris owners who are discovering rentals to companies. The truth is more nuanced: it is not the tenant's identity that determines your legal regime, it is the duration and the occupant's situation.

The starting point: three regimes, not one

Under French law, renting out a furnished dwelling can fall under three very different frameworks:

• The Law of July 6, 1989, which protects an individual tenant who occupies the dwelling as a primary residence. It is the most restrictive regime for the landlord: minimum term, notice periods, automatic renewal, rent control in Paris.
• The Civil Code lease (bail de droit commun), which applies in particular when the tenant is a legal entity. Much broader freedom of contract.
• The tourist furnished rental (meublé de tourisme) under the Tourism Code, which targets furnished rentals to a transient clientele who do not make it their domicile — in other words, very often, rentals by the night, the day or the week.

The whole question is which of these three frameworks you are in. And many owners believe they are in the second when they are in the third.

Renting to a company: the Civil Code lease

When the tenant is a company that takes a dwelling to house its employees on business trips, the relationship in principle falls outside the 1989 law: a legal entity has no “primary residence” within the meaning of that text. The contract is then a Civil Code lease, governed by the Civil Code and by what you have negotiated.

In practical terms, this means:

• A freely set term, agreed by mutual consent — a few months, a year, several years.
• Negotiated financial terms: the amount of the security deposit, rent review arrangements, how charges are split.
• A contractual notice period, and not the statutory notice period of a residential lease.
• Paris rent control, which does not apply in the same way, since it covers residential leases for a primary residence. We explain how the two fit together in our guide to rent control in Paris.

It is a much more flexible framework. But it calls for careful drafting: your lease must specify who may occupy the dwelling, on what basis, and for how long. A clause making the dwelling available to the company's employees is essential; otherwise you risk ending up in an unauthorized subletting situation.

By the day or by the week: you move into tourist furnished rental territory

Here is the point many owners overlook: whether something qualifies as a tourist furnished rental does not depend on whether your customer is an individual, a platform or a CAC 40 company. It depends on the nature of the occupancy. As soon as you rent to a transient clientele, for repeated short stays, without the occupant establishing their domicile there, you are in this regime — even if the invoice is addressed to a company and paid by its accounting department.

Yet in Paris, this regime is one of the most tightly regulated in France. The main obligations:

• A declaration at city hall and a registration number, which must appear in your listings.
• A change-of-use authorization (changement d'usage) if the dwelling is not your primary residence — in Paris, this authorization is in practice conditional on a compensation mechanism (converting commercial space into housing, or buying the “commerciality” of existing commercial space), which is costly and out of reach for most private individuals.
• An annual cap on rental days if you rent out your primary residence — a number of days that the law now allows municipalities to lower, with Paris among the strictest cities.
• Collecting and remitting the tourist tax.
• Energy performance requirements, tightened by the recent regulations on tourist furnished rentals.

Penalties for short-term rentals without a change-of-use authorization are heavy, and the City of Paris is particularly active in pursuing these cases. This is not a theoretical risk.

Three blind spots that prove costly

1. The co-ownership rules

Even before public law, there is your building. Many Paris co-ownership rules contain an exclusively residential use clause (habitation bourgeoise exclusive), which prohibits any activity other than housing. Depending on how it is worded, a very short-term rental activity comparable to hotel accommodation may be found contrary to the rules — and a co-owner or the managing agent (syndic) can take action. Read this document again before committing; it is the first thing to do.

2. Taxation

Furnished rental falls under industrial and commercial profits (bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, BIC), whoever your tenant is. The applicable regime, the allowances and the depreciation options vary according to your situation and whether or not the furnished property is classified — an area where the rules have changed a great deal recently. We give the main benchmarks in our article on taxation of furnished rentals in Paris, to be validated with your accountant.

3. VAT and services

A point often forgotten: bare (unfurnished) rental of housing is in principle exempt from VAT, but as soon as you add hotel-type services (welcoming guests, providing linen, regular cleaning, breakfast), you may move into the para-hotel sector (para-hôtellerie) and become liable for VAT. An owner who “does the company tenant a favor” by providing cleaning and linen can thus change tax regime without realizing it.

The arrangement that holds up in Paris

There is a middle path, and it is the one serious operators use: rather than chaining rentals by the day or by the week, you sign a lease of several months with a single tenant — a company — that houses its employees on successive assignments. The use remains residential, there is no transient clientele within the meaning of the Tourism Code, and the owner has just one solvent point of contact.

For a stay tied to an assignment or a training course with an identified individual occupant, the mobility lease (bail mobilité) is the other suitable tool, within its own legal framework.

Your checklist before signing

1. What is the actual length of occupancy? A few repeated nights and a few continuous months do not belong to the same legal world.
2. What do your co-ownership rules say? Look for exclusively residential use clauses and restrictions on activities.
3. Who occupies the dwelling, and on what basis? Include a precise clause in the lease making the dwelling available to them.
4. Is the dwelling your primary residence or an investment? The answer radically changes your declaration and change-of-use obligations.
5. Do you provide services? Cleaning, linen, reception: assess the tax impact before offering them.
6. Does your insurance cover this use? Notify your insurer; undeclared professional occupancy can cause problems in the event of a claim.

Our verdict

Renting to companies is one of the best segments of the Paris market: solvent occupants, a well-cared-for home, terms that spare you the three-year commitment. But it is a tightrope walk: by the week or by the day, you are in the tourist furnished rental regime, with all its Parisian constraints; over several months with a single tenant, you are in a far more comfortable Civil Code lease. The dividing line is not the tenant's name — it is the duration. And that is precisely where the choice of arrangement, or of operator, makes all the difference.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace personalized legal or tax advice. The rules on short-term rentals and tourist furnished rentals change frequently and vary from one municipality to another: check the texts and local rules in force, and have your arrangement validated by a professional.