Key takeaways
- The meaning of pied-à-terre, per the Cambridge Dictionary: “a small house or apartment in a city that you own or rent in addition to your main home, where you stay when visiting that city for a short time”. The English plural is pieds-à-terre.
- In French the word is invariable, and the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française defines it more loosely, as a home where you do not live permanently and that you use occasionally.
- Under the French law of 6 July 1989 on landlord-tenant relations (loi du 6 juillet 1989), a main residence is a home occupied at least eight months a year, except for work obligations, health reasons or force majeure (Article 2).
- Two nights a week at €55 a night come to about €476 a month, against about €1,100 in a hotel on the same rhythm.
Tuesday night, the meeting ran late and you missed the last train home. Your manager wants you on site in Nantes three days a week, Monday to Wednesday, and you live two hours away. A colleague says: get a pied-à-terre. It sounds simple, but it covers everything from a studio you bought to a room booked every week.
The dictionary settles the word. Whether to buy or rent is settled by French law and by your budget, and they do not point the same way.
Pied-à-terre meaning: the dictionary definitions
Merriam-Webster is brief: a pied-à-terre is “a temporary or second lodging”. It traces the word to French, “literally, foot to the ground”, with a first known use in English in 1823, and gives the plural as pieds-à-terre.
The Cambridge Dictionary is more specific. For Cambridge it is “a small house or apartment in a city that you own or rent in addition to your main home, where you stay when visiting that city for a short time”. That is the everyday English sense: a second, smaller place in town, on top of the real home.
French is looser. All quotations from the Académie française, French law and official French sites in this article are our translations; the links go to the French originals. The 9th edition (2024) of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française lists it as an invariable masculine noun and defines it as a “home where one does not live permanently, which one occupies occasionally”, with the example “He lives in the provinces and has a pied-à-terre in Paris.” It mentions neither a city nor a main home elsewhere, and leaves aside whether you own or rent. The Académie also gives the origin: in the 17th century the word named “a trumpet call telling the horseman that he had to set foot on the ground”, and the current sense dates from the 18th.
The common thread is use, not status: you pass through, you do not live there. Whether you own the place or rent it is left open.
Owning a pied-à-terre near the office
The appeal of buying a studio near the office is obvious: your things stay there and nobody asks you to leave. But the flat sits empty on the nights you are not there, and French tax rules follow you.
There is first the housing tax on second homes (taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires). According to the Service-Public page on this tax, it “is set for the whole year and depends on your situation on 1 January of the tax year”. It is due from whoever has “the use or permanent enjoyment of a second home, that is, a furnished home that is not your main residence but that you can occupy at any time, privately”, and the page adds that this applies “as owner, tenant or even occupant free of charge”.
Then there is a filing. The same page explains that the owner of a residential property must file an occupancy declaration with the tax authorities before 1 July if the home has never been declared or if its situation has changed, stating whether they keep the use of it and on what basis: main residence, second home or vacant. Failing to file, or filing inaccurately, carries a fine of €150 per property.
Owning makes sense if your rhythm will hold for years and you accept a home that sits empty the rest of the week. For a job whose length you do not know yet, it is a heavy commitment.
Renting a pied-à-terre: what French leases provide
Renting looks simpler, and it is, provided you know which contract you are signing. French residential tenancy law is built around the main residence.
The furnished lease under the law of 6 July 1989, the one normally signed for a furnished flat, applies under Article 25-3 to furnished homes “where they constitute the tenant’s main residence within the meaning of Article 2”.
The mobility lease (bail mobilité) also falls under the 1989 law. Article 25-12 reserves it for tenants who can show, on the date the lease takes effect, that they are in vocational training, higher education, an apprenticeship, an internship, civic service, a work transfer (mutation professionnelle) or a temporary work assignment. Under Article 25-14, it runs from one to ten months and cannot be renewed or rolled over. An exception allows one week to eighteen months in an employment-focused residence (résidence à vocation d’emploi), but Service-Public states that a decree must still be published before it takes effect. Our guide to the bail mobilité covers the conditions in detail.
Then there are hotels and aparthotels, with no lease at all. To choose between them and a place of your own based on your rhythm, our comparison of hotel vs aparthotel vs weekly housing walks through the decision.
Kowo offers another option: renting on fixed days every week, under a fixed-days lease. The days are set for the whole term of the lease, which lasts at least three months.
A costed example: two nights a week in Nantes
Back to the opening case: two nights a week on site, every week. The figures below are an example scale outside Paris, not prices surveyed in Nantes. They give the order of magnitude, and the gap matters more than the exact number.
A month averages 4.33 weeks, or about 8.7 nights at two nights a week.
| Option | Basis | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel | €125 a night | about €1,100 |
| Holiday let | depends on the listing | about €780 |
| Fixed-days rental | €55 a night | about €476 |
The last line works out as €55 × 2 nights × 4.33 weeks = €476 a month.
Against the hotel, the gap is €624 a month (1,100 − 476), or €7,488 over a year. Against a holiday let, it is €304 a month, or €3,648 a year. Our page on part-time furnished apartments in Nantes covers the option in that city.
Buying is left out of this table: its cost depends on the price of the property, the financing and the running costs, and cannot be set against a rent without assumptions we cannot make here.
For owners: a home that stands empty part of the week
The same word from the other side: a pied-à-terre is, by definition, empty part of the week.
With a fixed-days lease, each occupant has exclusive use of the home on their days, and the owner can let the other days to other occupants, each under their own contract. On the example scale, three occupants at two nights a week bring in about €1,428 a month in gross rent, a regular income from a property that used to sit unused. The approach is set out in earning from a second home, without holiday lets.
Don’t confuse: pied-à-terre, main residence, second home
Pied-à-terre is an everyday word. Main residence and second home are legal and tax categories with their own criteria, and they are what the rules attach to.
Main residence (résidence principale). Under Article 2 of the law of 6 July 1989, it is “the home occupied at least eight months a year, except for work obligations, health reasons or force majeure, either by the lessee or their spouse, or by a dependant within the meaning of the Construction and Housing Code”. This definition sets the scope of the residential lease under the 1989 law and, through the cross-reference in Article 25-3, of the furnished lease.
Second home (résidence secondaire). For housing tax, Service-Public describes it as “a furnished home that is not your main residence but that you can occupy at any time, privately”.
The same studio can be a pied-à-terre in conversation and fall, depending on the facts, into one category or the other.
What to check before you commit
- Your rhythm over a month. Count the nights you actually spend there, not those of a busy week. Every price comparison starts there.
- How long it will last. Buying assumes years; a mobility lease normally stops at ten months, save the employment-focused residence exception above; a fixed-days lease locks your days for its whole term.
- The contract on offer. A furnished lease under the 1989 law targets the tenant’s main residence (Article 25-3); check that the one you are handed fits your situation.
- Whether you qualify for a mobility lease. On the date it takes effect you must be in one of the situations listed in Article 25-12, and be able to prove it.
- The tax calendar of buying. Before you buy, note the occupancy declaration due before 1 July when something has changed.
Frequently asked questions about the pied-à-terre
What is the meaning of pied-à-terre?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a small house or apartment in a city that you own or rent in addition to your main home, where you stay when visiting that city for a short time. Merriam-Webster puts it more briefly as a temporary or second lodging.
What is the plural of pied-à-terre?
In English it is pieds-à-terre, according to Merriam-Webster and Cambridge. In French the word is invariable, according to the Académie française.
Is a pied-à-terre a second home under French rules?
It depends on the facts, not the word. For housing tax, Service-Public describes a second home as a furnished home that is not your main residence and that you can occupy at any time, privately, with the situation assessed on 1 January.
Is it better to buy or rent a pied-à-terre?
If you buy, the housing tax on second homes depends on your situation on 1 January, and the occupancy declaration is due before 1 July when something has changed. If you rent, you need a contract that fits how you use the place: on the example scale outside Paris, two fixed nights a week come to about €476 a month.
If you are still torn between a hotel and a place of your own, our comparison of hotel vs aparthotel vs weekly housing starts from your rhythm, and the commuters section gathers everything about a week split between two cities.