Most people who build a second home here end up letting it. Not to run a business — to stop the house sitting empty for forty weeks and to cover the annual bills while it does.
It works. It is also more regulated than it was three years ago, and the rules changed again in 2026. Here is what you actually have to do, what the tax comes to, and what the money looks like honestly rather than optimistically.
First, the registration. This is new, and it is national
Until recently, declaring a holiday let at the mairie was something only certain communes required — Paris, the big cities, a few hundred tourist towns. Everywhere else, a simple declaration was enough and plenty of people did not even do that.
That changed with the Le Meur law of 19 November 2024, whose registration provisions took effect on 20 May 2026. Registration of a meublé de tourisme is now compulsory across the whole of France, in every commune, whether the house is your main home or a second home.
What it means in practice:
You register with your commune — through its own online service if it has one, otherwise at the mairie — and you receive a registration number. A national portal was legislated for and, at the time of writing, has not yet opened; the government has said the second half of 2026. Until it does, the local procedure is the one that counts, and a number issued locally should carry over.
The number has to appear on every advertisement, on every platform and in your own listings. Platforms remove adverts without one.
You declare whether the property is a main or a secondary residence, and you update the declaration if anything changes — capacity, classification, status.
The penalties are not nominal. Failing to register can attract an administrative fine of up to €10,000, and using a false number up to €20,000. The 120-nights-a-year ceiling that gets talked about applies only to main residences, so it does not touch a second home, and registration is separate from any change-of-use authorisation a large town might also require.
This is a half-hour errand at the mairie, done once. Do it before the first booking, not after.
Second, the SIRET. Nobody warns people about this one
Letting furnished accommodation is a commercial activity in French law, even when you do it for eight weeks a year and call it a holiday let.
So you must register the activity and obtain a SIRET number, within 15 days of starting to let, through the business formalities portal at entreprendre.service-public.fr. It costs nothing. It is not the same thing as the commune registration above, and it does not make you a company — you remain a loueur en meublé non professionnel, an LMNP, which is simply an individual with rental income to declare.
That registration is also where you choose your tax regime, which matters more than anything else on this page.
Third, the tax. The allowances were cut, and classification is now worth real money
Furnished holiday income is taxed as business income, not as rent, and most owners use the simplified micro-BIC regime: you declare the gross takings, the tax office applies a flat allowance for your costs, and you are taxed on the rest. No accounts, no receipts.
The Le Meur law cut those allowances sharply, and 2026 is the first full year they bite:
- An unclassified furnished tourist let gets a 30% allowance, on gross income up to €15,000 a year.
- A classified one — meublé de tourisme classé, with a star rating — gets a 50% allowance, on gross income up to €77,700 for 2025 income, rising to €83,600 for 2026 income.
Read that twice, because it is the single most useful paragraph here. Getting the house classified nearly doubles the slice of income the tax office ignores, and raises the ceiling fivefold. Classification is a voluntary inspection by an accredited body against a published grid — surface, equipment, comfort, information for guests — and a new, well-equipped house with level access and proper insulation walks it. The visit costs a couple of hundred euros and lasts five years. On a house taking €12,000 a season, the allowance difference alone is worth more than the inspection, every year.
Above the ceiling you drop into the régime réel, where you deduct real costs and depreciate the building. That is usually better still for a new build, because a new house has a great deal to depreciate — but it needs an accountant, so it is a conversation rather than a box to tick.
What a non-resident actually pays
Two layers, and the second one is where British and Irish owners are often overcharged.
Income tax. As a non-resident you are taxed on the French-source income at a minimum rate of 20% on the first slice (a little over €29,000 of taxable income) and 30% above it. You can ask to be taxed instead at your average worldwide rate if that is lower, which helps people with modest total incomes and rarely helps anyone else. Returns are filed online at impots.gouv.fr in the spring, on form 2042-NR with 2042-C-PRO for the letting income, and you will need a French tax number before you can file.
Social charges. This is the one worth knowing. Furnished rental income normally carries social charges of 18.6% — but if you are covered by the health system of another EEA country or the UK, typically evidenced by an S1 form, you are liable only for the 7.5% solidarity levy and not for CSG and CRDS. France accepted this for UK residents in 2022. It is not applied automatically in every case: claim it, and keep the paperwork. Owners resident outside the EEA — in the United States, Canada or Australia — pay the full rate and cannot claim the reduction.
Two smaller items. Taxe de séjour is a tourist tax charged to your guests, not to you; platforms collect and remit it on bookings made through them, and on direct bookings you collect it and pay it to the commune. And a small local business rate, the cotisation foncière des entreprises, can apply to a separate let property, though the first year is exempt and many communes vote exemptions for classified lets — ask at the mairie rather than assuming either way.
The money, honestly
Nobody should buy a house here on rental projections, and anyone who shows you a glossy yield forecast for rural Brittany is selling something.
What is true is that the season in these three regions is short and sharply concentrated. July and August do most of the work. June and September fill reasonably on the coast and unevenly inland. Easter and the half-terms give you a handful of weeks. Outside that, you are looking at occasional lets rather than a calendar that fills itself.
That makes the location question blunt. A house within walking distance of a beach in the Côtes-d'Armor or on the Vendée coast lets for a strong weekly rate across a real season. A house in the bocage twenty-five minutes inland lets for less, for fewer weeks, and mostly to families who want a pool or a view rather than a village. Both can comfortably cover the annual running costs we set out in what it really costs to own a French house each year. Only one of them is going to produce a surplus worth doing a tax return for.
A new house has two quiet advantages as a let. Nothing breaks, which matters enormously when you are managing changeovers from another country — there is no boiler to fail in week two of August. And the running cost is low enough that the house is cheap to keep warm and available out of season, when an old stone house is expensive to heat for a three-night booking. The energy rules reinforce it: if you ever switch to a long-term let, a house rated F or G cannot legally be let in France, while a new build sits at the top of the scale.
If you would rather take bookings directly than hand a platform fifteen per cent, our holiday rentals directory lists properties free, shows your own email and phone, and takes no commission at all. Owners anywhere in France can list.
In one paragraph
Registration at the mairie became compulsory nationwide on 20 May 2026 and your number must appear on every advert, with fines up to €10,000 for skipping it. Separately, register the activity for a SIRET within 15 days of your first let. Then choose carefully: an unclassified let gets a 30% allowance on income up to €15,000, a classified one gets 50% on income up to €77,700, so the inspection pays for itself in the first season. Non-residents pay income tax at a minimum 20%, and if you are covered by the UK or another EEA health system you should be paying 7.5% in social charges rather than 18.6%. The season is short and the coast lets far better than inland — expect a let to cover your annual bills rather than to produce an income.
Our free guide covers the building side — the fixed-price contract, the stage payments and the guarantees. Download it here. Current house and land packages in Brittany, Normandy and the Vendée are listed with all-inclusive prices, and you are welcome to book a free 30-minute call if you want to talk through whether a particular commune lets or not.
Rules and rates checked in October 2026. We build houses; we are not tax advisers. Letting income, classification and social charges all depend on your own circumstances — take advice from a French accountant before you file.