Key takeaways
- If you rent an unfurnished home as your main residence in France and you are transferred to another workplace (mutation), your notice drops from three months to one (Article 15 of the law of 6 July 1989), provided you state and prove the reason when you send your notice letter.
- If you rent a furnished home as your main residence, your notice is one month whatever the reason (Article 25-8).
- A work transfer is one of the situations that give access to the French mobility lease, the bail mobilité (Article 25-12), a furnished lease of one to ten months (one week to eighteen months in an employment-focused residence, an exception still awaiting a decree).
- For a three-month transition with two nights a week in the new city, a hotel costs about €1,100 a month, a fixed-days lease €476 a month in rent: a €1,872 difference over the three months.
The letter from HR arrived on a Tuesday: from 1 February, your job is in Bordeaux. You live in Lille, and your family will join you at the end of April. Relocating for work to another French city raises two housing questions at once: how to hand back the Lille flat without paying three extra months of rent, and where to sleep in Bordeaux until the family follows.
Start with the notice: that is the one with a deadline.
Relocating for work: the notice on your current rental
The law of 6 July 1989 on landlord-tenant relations (loi du 6 juillet 1989) applies, under its Article 2, to rentals that constitute “the tenant’s main residence”. For an unfurnished home, the default is simple: a tenant who leaves gives three months’ notice. But Article 15 of that law cuts the notice to one month “in the event of obtaining a first job, a transfer (mutation), loss of employment or a new job following a loss of employment”. All quotations from French law and official French sites in this article are our translations; the links go to the French originals.
The shorter notice does not apply by itself. The same article says the tenant “states the reason invoked and proves it when sending the notice letter. Failing that, the notice period applicable to this notice is three months.” A letter that only says “I am leaving the flat” costs you two extra months of rent.
Service-Public.fr’s page on notice given by the tenant says who qualifies, and when. The one-month notice applies to employees and civil servants; outside high-demand areas (zones tendues), a self-employed person who changes where they work keeps the three-month notice. The transfer “may be at your initiative or your employer’s” and “is not subject to any condition of geographical distance”. And “the date of the transfer must be close to the date the notice is sent (several months must not have passed)”.
That last sentence matters in our example. If you wait until the end of March to send notice for a transfer dated 1 February, so as to hand back the flat at the end of April when the family leaves, the one-month notice may be refused: the notice date is settled along with the transfer, not when you move.
For proof, ANIL says you can show the landlord you have been transferred with a certificate from your employer.
If your current home is furnished and rented as your main residence, the question does not arise: under Article 25-8 of the law of 6 July 1989, “the tenant may terminate the contract at any time, subject to one month’s notice”. No reason to give, no document to attach.
Furnished or not, the notice goes by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, by a bailiff’s deed (commissaire de justice) or by hand delivery against a signed receipt. A simple email is not valid, even if the landlord replies that they accept it; a registered electronic letter (lettre recommandée électronique) is, provided a private landlord has agreed to that method beforehand. The period runs from the day the letter is received, not the day it is sent.
One last thing about money. When the tenant gives notice, rent and charges are due for the whole notice period, unless another tenant moves in earlier with the landlord’s agreement (Article 15). Handing back the keys early does not stop the rent.
Housing in the new city while you settle
The first weeks are often spent in a hotel, because nothing else is ready. It is simple, but expensive once it lasts more than a month.
The mobility lease (bail mobilité). Under Article 25-12 of the law of 6 July 1989, it is for a tenant who can show, on the date the lease takes effect, that they are, among other cases, “on a job transfer or on a temporary assignment…”. Article 25-14 sets its length at one to ten months, “non-renewable and non-extendable”; as an exception, one week to eighteen months in an employment-focused residence (résidence à vocation d’emploi), a rule that still awaits an implementing decree according to Service-Public.fr. The detailed conditions are in our guide to the bail mobilité, France’s mobility lease.
Temporary housing from Action Logement. According to ANIL, Action Logement offers employees of private, non-agricultural companies with at least 10 staff temporary housing that can be arranged quickly, subject to conditions. The same page lists a flatshare or a room in a private home as ways to start.
A home on fixed days. In our example, you do not spend seven nights a week in Bordeaux: you work there three days and go back to Lille the rest of the time. Renting a whole flat for two nights a week means paying for five empty ones. The fixed-days lease offered by Kowo fits that rhythm: you rent a furnished home on the same days every week, for example Monday to Wednesday, with exclusive use on your days. Those days are set for the whole length of the lease, with no changing or adding days along the way, and the minimum length is three months. How it works is explained in the fixed-days lease, explained.
Whichever route you take, a landlord will ask for a rental application. Prepare it before you even know your start date: the list is in rental application in France: required documents.
What three months of interim housing in Bordeaux costs
Back to your case: for three months, you work three days a week in Bordeaux, so two nights, before your family joins you. The figures below are example rents, based on €55 a night for a fixed-days home outside Paris.
| Option, 2 nights a week | Per month | Over 3 months |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel (based on €125 a night) | about €1,100 | €3,300 |
| Short-term holiday let | about €780 | €2,340 |
| Fixed-days lease (gross rent) | €476 | €1,428 |
The gap with the hotel is €624 a month (1,100 − 476), so €1,872 over the three months of the transition. With a holiday let, it is €304 a month, or €912 over the period.
The €476 rent is €55 × 2 nights × 4.33 weeks a month. The page for part-time furnished apartments in Bordeaux covers the option there.
Those three months can also show up on your French tax return. According to Service-Public.fr, dual-residence costs (frais de double résidence) are among the actual expenses you can deduct when you work somewhere far from where your spouse or civil partner (partenaire de Pacs) works, excluding personal convenience. Conditions and proof are covered in dual residence costs in France.
For owners: employees looking for fixed days
If you own a furnished home in Bordeaux, or elsewhere, that sits empty part of the week, an employee in transition is looking for exactly what you have: the same nights every week, for a few months. A fixed-days lease brings you regular income on those days, and you keep the other days for yourself or for another occupant. The ways to rent out a home you do not live in full time are compared in renting out your second home in France.
Don’t confuse a transfer with a change of employer
The word “transfer” (mutation) has a precise meaning for the notice period. ANIL is explicit: “A change of employer or a move of the company’s head office to another city are not considered grounds of professional transfer.”
If you leave your company for a new job in Bordeaux, you are not transferred in the legal sense. You may fall under another case of Article 15 (first job, new job after a loss of employment), or under the one-month notice that applies in high-demand housing areas (zones tendues), but each has its own conditions. If in doubt, the ADIL of your département advises for free.
Checklist before you move
- Your current lease type. Unfurnished: one month’s notice only if you state and prove the transfer. Furnished: one month in every case.
- The notice letter. Reason written out, employer’s certificate attached, sent by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, by bailiff or by hand.
- The timing. Keep the transfer date and the notice date close; do not let several months go by.
- Rent during the notice. It is due to the end, unless the landlord agrees to an earlier new tenant.
- Your rhythm in the new city. Count the nights you will really spend there each week before choosing between a hotel, a mobility lease and a fixed-days home.
- Your rental application. Ready before you search, not after the first viewing.
Frequently asked questions about relocating for work
Does a work transfer always cut the notice to one month?
For an unfurnished home rented as your main residence, yes, provided you state and prove the reason when you send the notice, under Article 15 of the law of 6 July 1989. Without that, the notice stays at three months. Service-Public.fr adds that, outside high-demand areas, the shorter notice for a transfer covers employees and civil servants, not the self-employed.
Is there a minimum distance between the old and new workplace?
No. According to Service-Public.fr, a transfer is not subject to any distance condition, and it can come from you or from your employer. Its date must, however, be close to the date you send the notice.
Does changing employer count as a transfer?
No. ANIL states that a change of employer or a move of the head office to another city is not considered a professional transfer. Other cases in Article 15, such as a first job, may apply with their own conditions.
Can I sign a mobility lease if I am being transferred?
Yes. Article 25-12 of the law of 6 July 1989 lists a work transfer among the situations that qualify, to be shown on the date the lease takes effect. The lease runs from one to ten months and can be neither renewed nor extended; the exception of one week to eighteen months in an employment-focused residence still awaits a decree according to Service-Public.fr.
What does three months of interim housing cost for two nights a week?
Based on our examples, about €3,300 in a hotel and €1,428 in rent under a fixed-days lease, a €1,872 difference over the three months. A fixed-days lease lasts at least three months, with days set for its whole length.
The other guides in weekday pied-à-terre in the city where you work help with what comes next, when the week is split between two cities for good, and the fixed-days lease details the contract built for that rhythm.