If you have looked at French rental listings and seen a figure labelled honoraires, or noticed that different properties quote very different amounts, you are not alone. French law sets out exactly what agencies can charge tenants, how fees are calculated, and what the landlord must cover. Understanding the rules means you can check in seconds whether any fee is legitimate.
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Navigating the French rental market
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Talk to the Ibanista teamWhat agencies can legally charge you
When a rental is handled by a professional intermediary, an agency, a mandataire, or any paid third party, only four specific services can be shared between the landlord and the tenant. Everything else falls to the landlord alone.
- Organising viewings: time and costs involved in showing you the property
- Assembling your application file (constitution du dossier)
- Drafting the lease (rédaction du bail)
- Conducting the incoming inventory (état des lieux d’entrée)
Advertising costs, property diagnostics, and ongoing management fees cannot be passed on to you. They are the landlord’s cost alone.
How the cap works: Fee limits by zone
Fees for the first three services (viewings, dossier, lease) are capped per square metre of surface habitable, the liveable floor area. France is divided into three zones:
What zone tendue and très tendue actually mean
Zone très tendue applies to Paris and its closest suburbs, areas where rental demand is persistently higher than supply.
Zone tendue covers most other major French cities and surrounding communes where the housing market is under pressure. This includes Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and many more. If you are moving to a large city, assume zone tendue or très tendue applies. You can check whether a specific commune is classified using the government’s official tool at service-public.fr.
In practice
Take a 40 m² apartment in Bordeaux, which sits in zone tendue. The agency fee cap for viewings, dossier and lease drafting is:
The tenant can never pay more than the landlord. There is a second rule that sits on top of the zone cap: whatever the total agency fee, the tenant’s share can never exceed the landlord’s share. If the agency charges €600 in total and your cap is €402.80, the landlord must cover at least €300 of that total. You cannot be charged more than half, regardless of the zone.
What you can be charged per zone
The table below shows the maximum a tenant can legally be charged for all permitted services on a 40 m² property. The inventory cap is the same in every zone.
| Zone | Visit, dossier & lease | Incoming inventory | Total max (tenant) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone très tendue | €484.00 | €121.20 | €605.20 |
| Zone tendue | €402.80 | €121.20 | €524.00 |
| Reste du territoire | €322.80 | €121.20 | €444.00 |
Based on a 40 m² property. Scale proportionally for different sizes.
What agencies must display
Agencies are legally required to make their fee schedules clearly visible: in their window, on their website, and on every listing they publish online. Each listing must include:
- Monthly rent and charges (with charges comprises noted where applicable)
- The security deposit amount
- Whether the property is furnished or unfurnished
- The tenant’s share of agency fees (sometimes shown as HCL – honoraires à la charge du locataire)
- The property’s floor area and location
This requirement exists so you can check fee legitimacy before committing time to a viewing. If a listing does not show the agency fee clearly, ask for it in writing before you visit.
No agency fees at all: renting direct
If you rent directly from a private landlord, through platforms such as PAP (Particulier à Particulier) or Le Bon Coin, or through a direct introduction, no agency fees apply whatsoever. The landlord handles the process themselves and there is no intermediary to pay. Renting direct is increasingly common in France and is worth including in your search alongside agency listings.
Frequently asked questions about agency fees in France
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