Nearly 8 million French people use Airbnb, almost a third of them as hosts. They manage their advertisement on the platform as hotels do: they establish the dates of availability of their accommodation, accept or refuse reservation requests and set the price per night according to supply and demand. It may seem simple at first glance, but many regulations apply to rental accommodation, especially during the high tourist season and in the most visited French regions. What are the rules of the game in vacation rentals?

First of all, it is necessary to determine whether or not the property you wish to rent out is subject to tourist regulations. Interested in renting a private room in your primary residence? Good news, you can rent it on the platform without restriction or time limit. On the other hand, if the private room is in a second home that you intend entirely for tourist rental, the regulations apply in the same way as for entire apartments. If you have any doubts about the categorization of your property, you can consult the page designed for this purpose by the Airbnb site.

If the property you want to rent on Airbnb is not a private room in your main residence, the rental must be limited to 120 nights per year, regardless of the price of the night. Since the end of 2018, the Airbnb site has automatically blocked the calendar of hosts in order to help them not to exceed this regulatory limit. Attention ! the limitation to 120 days per year does not take into account, in the total calculation, the days rented out in “mobility lease”, which allows Airbnb hosts to rent their property for several weeks to the same traveler.

Depending on the type of accommodation you rent and the municipality in which it is located, it is advisable to check whether there are specific obligations or authorizations necessary for the reception of travellers. You can check this information with your town hall. In Paris, the rental of unregistered accommodation is punishable by fines between 5,000 and 12,500 euros. You can register your property and obtain the furnished tourist accommodation number by following this link.