Can you offer rentals in France when staying on visitor visa?
There are different thresholds for rentals before they are deemed as ‘professional income’
Rules also depend on the type of rental being offered
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Reader Question: Can I conduct a small rental operation in France if I am staying on a ‘visitor’ visa? When I obtained the visa I had to promise not to ‘carry out any professional activity in France’.
You are right that it is important for foreign residents in France to make sure that they do not carry out activities incompatible with their residency status.
This is especially true of the ‘visitor’ visa, which is aimed essentially at people who can live from pensions and investments and who will not be working here.
Firstly, it is possible to rent out unfurnished accommodation long-term, eg. as someone’s home, as this is deemed to be revenus fonciers (income from land) and not of a ‘professional’ nature such as a job or business.
Furnished renting to someone on a long-term lease has also traditionally been acceptable, if it did not meet ‘professional furnished rental landlord’ criteria.
These are: more than €23,000 gross turnover per year and more than most other household revenues – notably, salaries, pensions and incomes declared under the Bic category.
However, people are now routinely asked to pay business social charges (cotisations) as soon as they earn any furnished rental turnover of €23,000/year or more, regardless of other criteria. Going above this threshold should therefore be avoided.
Running a chambres d’hôtes is not advisable however.
Government site service-public.fr states they are always commercial businesses and should be set up as such.
They fall under a regime called parahôtellerie rather than location meublée (furnished rental), and business social charges are payable if annual income is above €6,123 – significantly lower than for long-term rentals.
Regarding holiday rental, anyone doing this is asked to apply for a Siret number at procedures. inpi.fr, but this is not a bar for those on a visitor visa.
In this case, you should declare yourself as loueur en meublé non-professionnel (LMNP, non-professional furnished rental landlord).
If you make less than €23,000/year, this is not ‘professional activity’, so will not break visa rules, said tax lawyer Laurent Gravelle from Sophia Antipolis, Alpes-Maritimes to The Connexion.
He said it is simplest to avoid any scenarios where business social charges become payable.
Do not create a micro-(auto-) entreprise business when registering as a LMNP.
Take care if you offer three or more ‘services’ (breakfast, changing sheets, regular cleaning, welcoming guests…) as this can be viewed as being parahôtellerie in nature, similar to a chambre d’hôtes.
