After a long gestation in the Assembly, the deputies adopted on Monday at first reading a text attacking the tax loophole of furnished tourist accommodation like Airbnb, accused of harming long-term rentals, while the housing crisis is alarming. Put on the agenda for the first time in the spring before being postponed indefinitely, the transpartisan bill by Annaïg Le Meur (Renaissance) and Iñaki Echaniz (PS), was adopted with 100 votes to 25.
“It’s a compromise that it took us a year and a half to put on the table,” greeted the socialist deputy in the hemicycle. “It’s a first step,” praised his co-rapporteur Renaissance. All left-wing deputies, independents from Liot, and most of those in the majority voted for. Conversely, almost all of the LR and RN voted against, invoking in particular the defense of “small owners”.
“We cannot remain in the status quo”
The most emblematic measure intends to reduce to 30% the tax reduction rate from which income from the rental of furnished tourist accommodation benefits, compared to 71% or 50% currently, with an exception in “very sparsely populated rural areas” where the reduction would remain at 71%. The device divides the presidential camp. Budget rapporteur Jean-René Cazeneuve (Renaissance) reiterated on Monday his support for “reducing the niche”, but first calls for the conclusions of a parliamentary mission on rental taxation.
“We cannot remain in the status quo,” defended the president of the Economic Affairs Committee Guillaume Kasbarian (Renaissance), calling for the measure to be voted on, even if it means refining it in the parliamentary shuttle. The Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu, called for finding an “exit point” on taxation.
The executive finds itself in a delicate situation on this subject: in the vagueness of the recourses to 49.3, it retained in its 2024 budget an article introduced in the Senate, precisely reducing the reduction to 30% in tense areas, while he was only willing to go down to 50%. But a government source claimed there was a material error and announced that the measure would not be implemented. “What democracy do we live in? », protested environmentalist Eva Sas on Monday.
The deputies’ text includes other measures: energy performance diagnosis obligations for furnished tourist accommodation, and new regulatory tools at the hands of mayors, including the possibility of lowering from 120 days to 90 days per year the maximum period during which a main residence can be rented.
Housing shortage
“Rather than complicating the current framework […] we want to work with more cities in implementing existing rules,” Emmanuel Marill, Airbnb’s Europe director, said in a statement to AFP on Monday. The director of Oxfam France Cécile Duflot welcomed the vote, and called for going further by removing “all the tax advantages which favor the rental of short-term furnished tourist accommodation”.
Many elected officials, particularly by the sea, denounce the shortage of housing in their territories due to the explosion in the number of Airbnbs. They underline more broadly the “social bomb” that housing represents, at a time when the sector is experiencing a serious crisis, and are calling for a “major law”, promised by the executive. Any announcements made by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal during his general policy declaration on Tuesday will be particularly scrutinized.
Romain Daubié (MoDem) will present a text this week to facilitate the transformation of offices into housing. The Socialists will defend a proposal for a universal rent guarantee during their “parliamentary niche” in February. Some executives of the Renaissance group regret that the subject of housing is addressed in “lots of small texts”. “We need to coordinate better,” pleads an elected official.