You own a flat you do not live in full time: a pied-à-terre in the city, a family house, a property bought for later. It serves a few weekends, sometimes a month in summer, and stays empty the rest of the time. You want to rent out your second home, but everyone pushes their own answer: the agency a standard lease, a friend the holiday platforms, a neighbour a flatshare. There is no best option in the abstract, only the one that fits how you use the property and how much time you have. This guide walks through the five ways of renting out a second home in France: the rules of each, what they demand of you and the owner profile they suit best.
The deciding question: do you want to keep using the property?
Before comparing yields, ask yourself whether you still plan to use the home. A standard residential lease (unfurnished or furnished) gives the tenant exclusive use of the property, which becomes their main residence: you no longer set foot in it, weekends included, until the lease ends. Holiday letting and part-time renting leave you your own dates. A mobility lease hands the property back after ten months at most.
The question concerns a sizeable stock: France has 3.8 million second homes.
1. Long-term letting, unfurnished or furnished
This is the best-known framework, governed by the law of 6 July 1989. The home becomes the tenant’s main residence.
- Term: at least 3 years unfurnished for a private landlord, 1 year furnished (9 months, not renewable, for a student).
- Tenant’s notice: 3 months unfurnished, cut to 1 month in a high-demand area (zone tendue); 1 month furnished.
- Landlord’s notice: 6 months before the lease ends unfurnished, 3 months furnished, whatever the area. It is only allowed to sell, to take the home back (for yourself or a relative) or for a legitimate and serious reason.
- Rent: capped in cities that apply rent control.
- Tax: property income when unfurnished (micro-foncier with a 30% allowance up to 15,000 euros of annual rent), commercial income (BIC) when furnished.
Who is it for? The owner who no longer uses the property and wants stable income with minimal management. It is the simplest option to live with, provided you accept not getting the home back for several years.
2. The holiday let (meublé de tourisme)
The French Tourism Code defines a holiday let as a home rented to transient guests who do not make it their home, by the day, week or month. Since the Le Meur law of 19 November 2024, the regime is much more tightly regulated.
- Registration: the declaration that issues a registration number has been compulsory across France since 20 May 2026.
- Day cap: the 120-day yearly cap (which towns can lower to 90 days) only applies to the owner’s main residence. A second home is not subject to it, but in some towns, including Paris, letting it to tourists requires a change-of-use authorisation.
- Penalties: exceeding the cap on a main residence carries a civil fine of up to 15,000 euros.
- Tax: under micro-BIC, the allowance for unclassified holiday lets has fallen to 30%, within a 15,000-euro revenue limit. Classified lets keep a more favourable regime.
- Management: listings, check-ins, cleaning and linen between every stay, reviews to watch. Many owners who do not live nearby use a concierge service, which takes a commission on revenue.
Who is it for? The owner of a property in a tourist area, where demand peaks in the holidays, who accepts active management or hands it to a provider. In a seaside resort in summer, it is often the option that earns the most per night. The new framework is detailed in our article on the Le Meur law and the fixed-days lease.
3. The mobility lease (bail mobilité)
Created by the 2018 ÉLAN law, it fills the gap between the tourist stay and the standard lease.
- Term: 1 to 10 months, neither renewable nor extendable by tacit renewal. A single amendment is allowed, without exceeding 10 months in total.
- Eligible tenants: people in vocational training, higher education, apprenticeship, internship, civic service, job transfer or temporary assignment.
- Property: must be furnished.
- Guarantees: a security deposit is prohibited; the landlord can ask for a guarantor or rely on the Visale guarantee.
- Tenant’s notice: 1 month, at any time. The landlord cannot end the lease before its term.
Who is it for? The owner who knows they will take the property back on a specific date (return from abroad, planned sale) and wants to let it until then, in a city with many students, interns and employees on assignment. Our comparison mobility lease or part-time rental details how it differs from the fixed-days lease.
4. The flatshare (colocation)
Several tenants live in the home together, and it becomes each one’s main residence. The owner signs either a single lease with all flatmates or one lease per room.
- Joint liability: with a single lease and a joint liability clause, each flatmate is liable for the whole rent. A departing flatmate stays bound until a replacement joins the lease, and at most six months after their notice ends.
- Yield: letting by the room generally earns more than a single lease for the same home, at the cost of more frequent tenant turnover.
- Property: it needs lockable bedrooms and suitable shared areas, which limits it to larger homes.
Who is it for? The owner of a large home (three rooms or more) in a student city or one with many young professionals, who no longer uses it. As with long-term letting, you give up living in the property. How it differs from part-time shared housing is explained in coliving vs co-occupancy.
5. Part-time renting, under a fixed-days lease
This is the model Kowo is built on. You let your furnished home to an occupant on fixed days every week, for example Monday evening to Wednesday morning, for months on end. The occupant is a commuter, someone living apart from their partner for work, a hybrid employee: their main residence is elsewhere and they want a pied-à-terre for the nights they work far from home.
- Framework: a fixed-days lease, a Civil Code lease for a secondary residence (articles 1708 onwards), not a 1989-law lease: the occupant does not make it their main residence.
- Non-exclusive use: the occupant is only entitled to the home on the days written into the contract. The rest of the week stays yours.
- Several occupants possible: each on separate days, with their own lease and no joint liability between them. This is time-shared co-occupancy.
- Term and notice: set in the contract, renewable for as long as both parties wish.
- Guarantees: no security deposit is asked of the occupant on a Kowo lease.
- Tax: it is furnished letting, taxed as commercial income (BIC).
The limits are real. Income stays below that of a well-placed holiday let in peak season. The home must be furnished and set up for regular handovers (a lockable storage space per occupant, cleaning organised between stays). And demand concentrates in cities people travel to for work, not in holiday resorts.
Who is it for? The owner who wants to keep weekends or holidays in the property, in an employment hub, and prefers predictable monthly rent to a stream of travellers.
Renting out your second home: the comparison at a glance
| Criterion | Long-term unfurnished | Long-term furnished | Holiday let | Mobility lease | Flatshare | Part-time (fixed-days lease) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal framework | 1989 law | 1989 law | Tourism Code | 1989 law | 1989 law | Civil Code |
| Term | 3 years minimum | 1 year (9 months for students) | Short stays | 1 to 10 months, not renewable | 1 or 3 years, furnished or not | Set in the contract, renewable |
| You keep using the property | No | No | Yes, outside stays | No, during the lease | No | Yes, outside let days |
| Holiday-let registration number | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Security deposit | 1 month maximum | 2 months maximum | Free | Prohibited | 1 or 2 months maximum, unfurnished or furnished | None at Kowo |
| Day-to-day management | Low | Low | High (check-ins, cleaning) | Medium (yearly turnover) | Medium (several tenants) | Low to medium (regular handovers) |
Worked example: a one-bedroom flat used at weekends
Take a furnished one-bedroom flat in Lyon. Its owners spend their weekends there, from Friday evening to Sunday evening. That leaves five free nights a week, Sunday to Thursday. At the reference rate of 55 euros per night and 4.33 weeks per month:
- No letting: 0 euros of rent, while service charges, property tax and the second-home housing tax remain due.
- One occupant, 2 fixed nights a week: 476 euros per month, or 5,712 euros per year.
- Two occupants, 2 nights each (Monday-Tuesday for one, Wednesday-Thursday for the other): 952 euros per month, or 11,424 euros per year, without touching the weekends.
- Long-term letting: a full monthly rent, but no weekends there for at least a year when furnished.
- Holiday let: weekday demand in Lyon is mostly business and irregular; income depends on occupancy, the concierge commission and cleaning fees for each stay.
If you no longer use the home at all, a third occupant on two of the remaining nights brings the total to 1,428 euros per month. These are gross rents, before charges and tax. For your own case, the estimator on the owners page works out what your empty days can earn, and the Lyon page shows the model locally.
What it changes for your occupants
The regime you choose also decides who you attract: households looking for a home under a standard lease, travellers in a holiday let, people in transition under a mobility lease. Part-time renting attracts professionals who come back to the same city every week and currently pay a hotel for two or three nights. Rent matched to the nights they actually use and no security deposit keep them: an occupant who has found their pied-à-terre has no reason to move.
Do not confuse: part-time renting, flatsharing and holiday letting
Three confusions come up often. Time-shared co-occupancy is not a flatshare: occupants do not live together, share neither a lease nor liability, and the home is none of their main residences. Nor is it holiday letting: the occupant is not a transient guest, they return on the same days for months, under a written contract with notice. Finally, it is not a mobility lease: there is no ten-month cap and no reason to justify. The special case of Paris, where rent control only applies to main residences, is covered in our dedicated article.
What to check before choosing
- How you really use the property: count your occupied nights over the year. If you no longer go there, long-term letting or a flatshare is simpler.
- Local demand: an employment hub suits part-time renting, a tourist area suits holiday letting, a university city suits flatshares and mobility leases.
- The building’s co-ownership rules: some restrict commercial activity or tourist letting; reread them before committing.
- Local obligations: registration and possible change of use for holiday lets, rent control for main-residence leases.
- Your available time: running a holiday let is a job; running a long-term lease takes almost none.
- Your tax position: the micro or real regime is chosen on your actual figures, ideally with an accountant.
Frequently asked questions
Can you let your second home all year round as a holiday let?
The 120-day cap only applies to the owner’s main residence. A second home can therefore be let beyond it, subject in particular to registration, the building’s co-ownership rules and, in towns that require it such as Paris, a change-of-use authorisation.
Is the landlord’s notice shorter in a high-demand area?
No. A high-demand area cuts the tenant’s notice on an unfurnished lease to one month. The landlord’s notice stays at six months before the lease ends unfurnished and three months furnished.
Is part-time renting legal?
Yes. It rests on a Civil Code lease for a secondary residence, whose contractual freedom allows specific occupancy days to be set. The contract is explained clause by clause in the fixed-days lease, explained.
How many occupants can one home take?
As many as the week has separate slots, within what you keep for yourself. The topic is covered in how many occupants in the same property.
Renting out your second home does not force a choice between a year-round tenant and a stream of travellers: the right regime is the one that respects your own use of the property. If that is part-time renting, our guide to earning from a second home without holiday lets sets out the method step by step, and the Owners section gathers all our articles on the subject, including the one on the vacant housing tax.