22OCT

French panel voids tourist-let tax move

2 min read

16:46UTC

The Assemblée nationale finance committee voted to end depreciation relief on new tourist lets, then threw out the budget's whole revenue half.

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SocietyAssessed

Key takeaway

A French committee vote to end tourist-let depreciation relief fell with the budget's revenue half.

France's Assemblée nationale finance committee adopted amendment I-CF776, which would have ended depreciation relief on tourist lets acquired from 2027⁠¹. On 9 October the same committee rejected the whole revenue part of the 2027 budget bill by 31 votes to 3, with 2 abstentions, so the amendment has no effect. Depreciation relief lets an owner offset the cost of a furnished let against its rental income. It is the second turn in France's tourist-let rules since August, when the top court upheld the fast eviction of occupants who overstay a tourist let.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

In France, people who let furnished flats can reduce their taxable rental income by writing off the cost of the property over time. For many landlords that means they pay almost no tax on rents. A committee of France's lower house of parliament voted to stop that write-off for tourist lets bought from 2027. Later the same day it voted down the whole tax half of next year's budget, so the change it had just agreed vanished. The full house is now debating the government's original budget, which reportedly limits the write-off rather than ending it.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

France's furnished-let regime, known as LMNP, lets a landlord deduct the depreciation of the property from rental income. That makes most furnished lets tax-free in practice, and tourist lets earn more per night than long lets, so the relief has favoured them.

Without a stable majority in the Assemblée nationale, budget amendments adopted in committee often die when the committee or the plenary rejects a whole section of the bill. Tax changes for tourist lets therefore depend on the government's own text or on a separate law.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Depreciation relief on tourist lets remains available unless the plenary adopts a similar amendment or keeps the government's reported cap.
Risk
Buyers of tourist flats in 2027 face uncertainty over tax treatment until the 2027 budget is passed.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In France, the Le Meur law of November 2024 cut the flat-rate tax allowance for unclassified furnished tourist lets to 30% and lowered the revenue ceiling to €15,000. A dedicated law, passed outside the budget, changed the tax treatment of tourist lets and stuck.

Counter-parallel: The 2024 finance law, forced through without a vote in December 2023, carried an amendment that cut the same allowance by mistake. The tax administration then told taxpayers they could keep using the old rules, until the Conseil d'État struck that guidance down in July 2024, after most returns were filed. Budget amendments on furnished lets have a messy record in France.

Consensus view: The amendment, tabled by Iñaki Echaniz and fellow Socialist deputies, followed the rental-tax mission of Annaïg Le Meur with the finance and environment inspectorates, which recommended ending the deduction. The amendment's own grounds say 68% of landlords on the real-expenses regime for furnished lets pay no tax on their rental income, because depreciation wipes out the profit.

Counter-view: Guillaume Kasbarian backed a second amendment, I-CF1588, to take principal-residence, student and mobility leases out of the government's cap. His approach protects furnished long lets rather than singling out tourist ones, a different theory of which landlords the relief should reward.

Key tension: Whether France ends depreciation relief only for tourist lets, or tightens it for all furnished lets and risks pushing landlords of student and mobility flats out too.

Sources:Assemblée nationale

Mentions:Assemblée nationale →France →Le Meur law →Conseil d'État (France) →

First Reported In

Update #15 · Spain prices the owner, not the listing

Assemblée nationale· 22 Oct 2026

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.