Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified French notaire, avocat, or chartered accountant before acting on anything you read here. The English Investor accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this article.
Last Updated: July 2026
There is a number buried in the French energy code that decides whether your flat is a passoire thermique, and it has nothing to do with your walls. It is the coefficient that converts the electricity your home consumes into the “primary energy” figure the DPE actually grades. Since January it has been 1.9. A draft arrêté published for consultation on 9 July would drop it to 1.7 on 1 January 2027.
Change that one figure and the calculated consumption of every electrically heated home in France falls by around a tenth. Nothing is insulated, no window is replaced, and the labels simply move. The impact note attached to the draft arrêté puts the number of principal residences leaving F or G at around 300,000, roughly 125,000 of them private rentals, and press estimates run as high as 500,000. If one of them is yours, the rent freeze lifts and the letting ban recedes, for the price of downloading a certificate.
This article explains what the coefficient is, who gains and who does not, how to claim the new label, and the significant caveat that most coverage has buried: the text is not signed. Owners of gas or oil-heated property should read to the end for a different reason, because the gap between them and their electric neighbours is about to widen again.
The most consequential number nobody has heard of
Since the reform that took effect on 1 July 2021, the DPE has run on a conventional calculation method rather than your actual bills. Part of that method converts énergie finale, the energy delivered to your home, into énergie primaire, an estimate of what had to be produced upstream to deliver it. The conversion factor is known as the PEF, and for electricity it has always been higher than one, because generating and distributing a kilowatt-hour historically consumed several.
That penalty was set at 2.58 in the 1970s and stayed there for decades, until the 2021 reform cut it to 2.3. On 1 January 2026 it fell again to 1.9. The draft now in consultation takes it to 1.7, and the ministry is explicit about why: the change sits in axis one of the government’s electrification plan, intended to push households off fossil fuels and onto a largely decarbonised grid.
Read that sequence again, because it is the heart of the story. A figure that did not move for fifty years has moved three times in five, and is scheduled to move a fourth. Whatever else it now measures, it is no longer a stable physical constant.
What actually changes on your label
The DPE grades a home on two axes, energy consumption in primary terms and greenhouse gas emissions, and the worse of the two decides your letter. Cutting the electricity coefficient from 1.9 to 1.7 reduces the calculated primary consumption of an all-electric home by about 10%, whether the heating is old convector panels, a modern heat pump or an electric water heater.
Ten per cent does not sound dramatic, and for most homes it will change nothing at all. It matters only for properties sitting close to a threshold. A flat a few kilowatt-hours inside the F band crosses into E, while one sitting deep in G stays exactly where it is. That is why the estimates vary so widely and why no owner should assume a promotion: the effect depends entirely on where your particular property sits on the scale, and only a recalculation will tell you.
The ministry’s note confirms the change applies to every DPE and regulatory energy audit carried out since 1 July 2021, which is to say essentially all of them. It also confirms something more unusual: your existing diagnosis does not need redoing.
A worked example, and the limits of it
Take a 55 m² flat in Lyon from the early 1980s, heated by electric convectors, with a DPE showing 340 kWh/m²/year in primary energy. That figure puts it in F, which under the current bands runs from 331 to 420. Strip out the conversion and the underlying final consumption is roughly 179 kWh/m²/year. Recalculate at 1.7 and the primary figure becomes about 304, which lands in E.
Nothing about that flat improved. The tenant will burn the same 179 kWh/m² next winter and pay the same bill. What moved is a multiplier, and with it the rent freeze and the 2028 letting ban.
Now change one detail. Suppose the same flat measured 400 rather than 340. At 1.7 it recalculates to roughly 358, comfortably still F, and the owner gains nothing at all. That is the whole distribution in two examples, and it explains why estimates of the effect range from 300,000 to half a million homes. Only homes already sitting close to a band boundary flip. A property deep inside F or G stays put, and most passoires, heated by gas or oil, get nothing at all.
One caution on the arithmetic above. The DPE also grades emissions, and the worse of the two axes sets your letter, so an electric home held back by its carbon score will not move on the energy axis alone. In practice electricity scores well on emissions, which is why the reform mostly bites where you would expect, but it is a reason to have your figures checked rather than assume.
Claiming the new label: free, and a download
From 1 January 2027, according to the consultation note, an owner will be able to enter their DPE number, printed at the top right of the report, on the ADEME’s Observatoire DPE-Audit and download an official attestation showing the recalculated label. There is no fee and no new site visit. The attestation replaces the old label and can be used for a sale or a letting. Energy audits get the same treatment, and the resulting attestation can be used in a MaPrimeRénov’ application filed from that date.
Two practical points follow. Your original DPE keeps its own validity period, so this does not restart the ten-year clock. And nothing arrives automatically: if you never download the attestation, your property continues to present the old letter to buyers, tenants and agents.
Why this matters more to landlords than to sellers
For a seller, a better letter is a marketing advantage and little more. For a landlord it is regulatory oxygen. Properties rated F or G are frozen out of rent revision entirely, so the annual indexation we covered in our IRL Q2 2026 update simply does not apply to them. G-rated homes have already been barred from new lettings, with F following in 2028 under the current timetable.
An electrically heated F that becomes an E therefore recovers two things at once: the right to index the rent again, and a place on the right side of the letting ban. Roughly 125,000 private rentals are estimated to be in that position. Set against a renovation bill that routinely runs into tens of thousands of euros, a free download is a remarkable piece of luck for those owners.
It also lands on top of a parliamentary bill moving in the same direction. The Senate’s version of the Relance Logement text, which we analysed in our first-reading piece, would let some F and G properties return to the rental market against a works commitment. Between a bill that softens the ban and a coefficient that reclassifies the properties, the DPE regime of 2023 is quietly being dismantled from two directions.
Gas and oil owners gain nothing
The coefficient being amended applies to electricity alone. Gas has a PEF of 1, oil the same, and neither moves. A gas-heated F stays an F, keeps its rent freeze, and keeps its date with the letting ban.
The consequence is a widening regulatory gap between two identical flats in the same building that differ only in what hangs on the wall. If you own a gas-heated property in France, the strategic reading is straightforward. The direction of French policy is now unmistakable, and swapping the heating system is increasingly the cheapest route to a better letter, rather than insulating a building you may only partly control. Our DPE guide for foreign landlords sets out how the letters and deadlines interact.
If you are buying, ask which E you are being sold
From January there will be two kinds of E-rated flat on the French market. One earned the letter through insulation, glazing and a decent heating system. The other received it from an arrêté. They will look identical on the listing, and their running costs will not be remotely comparable.
The tell is the date and the format. A label produced by the ADEME attestation route rather than a fresh diagnosis is, by definition, a recalculation of an older report. Ask for the underlying DPE, look at the final-energy figure in kWh/m² rather than the letter, and ask the seller for two or three years of actual electricity bills. The letter is a regulatory status. The consumption figure is the thing that will land on your tenant, or on you.
This matters particularly if you are buying to let. A flat that clears the letting ban on a recalculated label still heats like the F it was, which affects tenant turnover, arrears risk and the eventual cost of bringing the property up to standard if the rules tighten again. Our guide to the compromis and the pre-contract stage covers where to put these questions in the buying process, which is early.
The copropriété complication
One group gains nothing from this and deserves a warning. Flats in buildings with collective gas heating carry the building’s energy source, not a personal one, so an individual owner cannot benefit from the electricity coefficient without the building changing system. That is a decision for the assemblée générale, not for you, and it typically requires a qualified majority plus a capital works programme.
If you own in a collectively heated building rated F or G, the coefficient story is not your story. Your route runs through the copropriété’s works plan, and the practical question is whether the syndic has one. Owners in that position should read the AGM material with more attention than usual this autumn, because the vote that decides your letter is the one nobody attends.
The catch: this is not law yet
Every figure above comes from a projet d’arrêté, a draft. The public consultation opened on 9 July and closes on 6 August 2026. The Conseil supérieur de l’énergie, the consultative body that reviews energy texts, examined it on 23 July as part of a heavy agenda, and trade press reported that several electrification-related texts received unfavourable opinions at that session. Those opinions do not bind the government, which can and often does proceed regardless. But nothing is settled until the arrêté appears in the Journal officiel.
The consultation itself makes bracing reading. The published comments run heavily against the change, and not from the quarter you might expect: the objectors are largely the diagnostiqueurs who perform DPEs. Their argument is that a rating which changes by decree is not a rating at all. One writes of explaining to owners that a home is a passoire one day and not the next, with nothing altered but a number in an arrêté. Another points out the perverse effect, that the same homes losing their F status also lose access to renovation incentives and the pressure to improve, while remaining exactly as expensive to heat.
That criticism deserves weight from any owner planning around this. A label conferred by decree can be withdrawn by decree. The 2021 reform was itself sold as definitive, and the coefficient has moved twice since.
The building has not changed
Worth saying plainly, because it is the part the good news obscures. A flat promoted from F to E on 1 January 2027 is exactly as cold in February as it was in December, the tenant’s electricity bill is identical to the euro, and the single-glazed window is still single-glazed. What changed is an administrative classification and the legal consequences attached to it.
This is the mirror image of the problem we described in our piece on DPE ratings and summer heat, where well-rated homes turn out to be unbearable in July. In both cases the letter and the lived experience have come apart. For a landlord that gap is a practical risk as much as a philosophical one, because a tenant who cannot afford to heat an E-rated flat will still complain, still fall behind, and may still have arguments about logement décent that do not depend on the DPE letter at all.
What to do now
- Find your DPE number. Top right of the report. Without it you cannot download the attestation in January.
- Work out whether you are near a threshold. Only electrically heated properties within about 10% of a band boundary will move. Your diagnostiqueur can tell you where you sit.
- Do not sign anything on the assumption of a better letter. Until publication in the Journal officiel, the current label governs. A lease or a sale priced on a hoped-for E is a risk with no upside.
- Do not cancel useful works. Insulation still cuts bills, still improves comfort, and still protects you if the rules move again. Deferring a genuinely needed renovation because a coefficient may rescue you is a bet on political stability that recent history does not support.
- If you have a view, the consultation is open until 6 August. Anyone can file a comment, including non-residents.
- Diary January. If the text is published, download the attestation early and give it to your agent, because the old label will otherwise keep circulating.
Frequently asked questions
What is the DPE electricity coefficient changing to?
A draft arrêté would cut the primary-energy conversion factor for electricity from 1.9 to 1.7 with effect from 1 January 2027. It was 2.58 before 2021 and 2.3 between 2021 and the end of 2025.
Will my home automatically get a better DPE rating?
Only if it is heated by electricity and sits close to a band boundary. The change reduces calculated primary consumption by roughly 10%, which moves a home one letter only where it was already near the threshold. Gas and oil-heated homes are unaffected.
Do I need to pay for a new DPE?
No. The consultation note says owners will enter their existing DPE number on the ADEME Observatoire DPE-Audit from 1 January 2027 and download a free official attestation showing the new label, which replaces the old one for sales and lettings. The original DPE’s validity period is unchanged.
Does this lift the rent freeze on my F-rated flat?
If the property is reclassified to E, yes, the article 17-1 rent revision becomes available again, since the freeze applies to F and G properties. Until the new label is issued the freeze continues to apply.
Is the change certain to happen?
No. It is a draft under public consultation until 6 August 2026 and has not been published in the Journal officiel. The Conseil supérieur de l’énergie reviewed it on 23 July, and its opinions are consultative rather than binding. Treat the current label as the operative one until publication.
Why are diagnosticians against it?
Their published objections centre on credibility: a home that is a passoire one day and not the next, with no physical change, undermines confidence in the diagnosis. They also note the perverse effect that reclassified homes lose both the pressure and some of the financial support to renovate, while costing exactly as much to heat.
