Paris has evergreen appeal for travellers: it welcomes millions of visitors a year, and many of them rent apartments to lay their heads in at night. However, the ease with which you can book a holiday rental in Paris may be about to change.
That’s because the French government have passed a law that will crack down on rental companies that offer short-term lets, and Paris is the first place to roll out the new rules.
From January 1 2025, unlicensed hosts will be fined up to €100,000, while properties not correctly registered as tourism rentals could be fined up to €20,000. Concierge companies, which are often used to manage rentals, could also face fines, according to euronews.
There will also be new limits on the number of nights a short-term tourist rental can have bookings: it’ll be reduced from 120 to 90 nights a year, which is already the limit in cities like London and San Francisco, and hefty fines for renting a property out for more than the 90 night cap will be in place, too.
The change is an attempt to curb the number of apartments and homes being used as holiday lets, regulate the rental industry and help solve affordable housing issues in the city.
So, what will it mean for travellers? Well, hate to break it to you, but it might be harder for you to find somewhere to stay in the City of Love. It could also mean that small, boutique hotels in Paris see an uptick in bookings in place of holiday lets, or that Paris’s visitor numbers are redistributed to other French cities instead. We’ll have to wait and see.
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