The 1 October Lease Checklist: What a Compliant French Rental Contract Must Contain (2026)

This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change and individual situations differ. Always confirm the current position with a qualified professional before acting.

Most foreign landlords in France have never read their own lease. The agent produced it, the tenant signed it, and the document went into a drawer with the diagnostics. That habit becomes expensive on 1 October 2026, when décret n° 2026-596 rewrites the contrat type (the compulsory lease template) for every unfurnished, furnished and single-lease colocation contract concluded or renewed from that date. We covered the headline change, the six-week unpaid-rent clause, when the décret appeared in July. This is the companion piece: what a compliant French lease must actually contain when you sign this autumn, which contracts the new template catches, and the one omission that voids the whole document. There is a printable checklist at the end.

Which leases the new template catches

The templates annexed to décret n° 2015-587 govern the three contracts most foreign landlords use: the three-year unfurnished lease, the one-year furnished lease, and the colocation à bail unique (a single lease signed by all the sharers). All three are résidence principale leases under the loi du 6 juillet 1989, whose article 3 requires the contract to be in writing and to follow the template. Your second home let for a few months under a bail code civil sits outside this regime entirely, and so do the rules that govern it, which we set out in our bail code civil guide.

The décret’s own commencement clause is precise: article 1 applies to contracts concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026. Two words in that sentence do most of the work, and they are not the same word.

Renewal is not rollover

French leases end in one of two ways when nobody serves notice. Under article 10 of the 1989 law, an unfurnished lease reaching its term is either renouvelé or reconduit tacitement. Renewal means the landlord proposes new terms at least six months ahead, typically to revise an under-market rent. Tacit rollover means silence: the lease continues on the same terms for another three years. Furnished leases roll over for a year under the same logic. A tacit rollover creates no new document, so nothing obliges you to re-paper a lease that quietly renews itself on 1 November. A renewal does: the moment you propose new terms and the tenant accepts them, you are concluding a contract, and from 1 October that contract must follow the new template.

What changed in the template itself

Four edits, one of them large. The clause résolutoire (the automatic-termination clause) gets fixed wording for the first time, where the 2015 template only told drafters what to cover and left the delay to them. The lease now ends by operation of law for unpaid rent, unpaid charges or an unpaid deposit, six weeks after a commandement de payer (a bailiff’s formal demand) has gone unanswered. The template then lists the optional grounds a landlord may add: missing tenant insurance, nuisance established by a final court ruling, and, where the dwelling carries the main-residence servitude described below, failure to live in it. Both parties may now give a mobile number, marked optional, so that arrears can be discussed before they harden. The destination clause, the line that says residential or mixed use, gains a mention for the main-residence servitude. And a stale reference to the housing-benefit code is corrected. The six-week mechanism, the commandement’s required mentions and the procedural timeline that follows are all in the July article, so we will not repeat them here.

The servitude clause: the one omission that voids the lease

Here is the change that matters most to anyone buying new-build in a tourist area. The loi Le Meur of November 2024, the same law that let your copropriété vote out your Airbnb, gave town halls a new planning tool. Under article L. 151-14-1 of the code de l’urbanisme, a local plan may designate sectors in which every new home, and certain homes converted from offices or shops, must be used exclusively as a main residence. The tool is only available in communes where the tax on vacant homes applies, the same list that may vote the second-home surcharge, or where second homes exceed a fifth of the housing stock, which describes most of the coast, the Alps and the larger cities.

Two consequences follow for a landlord. A home in such a sector can never be let as a meublé de tourisme, beyond the limited letting of one’s own main residence. And the code states, in terms, that every sale, promise of sale and lease of such a home must carry an express mention of the obligation, à peine de nullité (on pain of nullity). The new template gives that mention its slot. Leave it blank on a servitude-zone dwelling and you have signed a void lease, with a tenant in place and no valid contract to enforce against them. Whether your property is caught is a matter of the plan local d’urbanisme and the building permit: the notaire who sold you a new-build after 2024 should know, and the mairie’s urbanism desk will tell you for a phone call. The direction of travel is clear enough that Brussels is now writing the same idea into EU law.

Everything else a compliant lease carries in 2026

The décret changed four lines. The law already demanded a good deal more, and an outdated template tends to fail on the old requirements as often as the new one. Article 3 of the 1989 law lists the mentions every lease must contain. The names and addresses of landlord, tenant and any agent. The start date and duration. The surface habitable (the legally defined habitable floor area), the rent and its revision rule, and the deposit. The rent paid by the previous tenant if they left less than eighteen months earlier, and the works done since. An indication of the property’s theoretical energy costs. Miss the surface or the previous rent and the tenant has a month to demand they be added. Under article 3-1, a surface overstated by more than five percent earns them a proportional rent reduction.

Then come the annexes. Article 3-3 requires a dossier de diagnostic technique attached at signature and at each renewal. It holds the DPE, the lead survey for pre-1949 buildings and the asbestos statement. It adds the electricity and gas installation reports where the installations are over fifteen years old, the état des risques et pollutions for properties in a designated risk zone, and the airport noise plan where one applies. The ministry’s notice d’information on the parties’ rights and remedies must be annexed too. In a copropriété, you must hand over the extracts of the règlement de copropriété on the building’s use and the lot’s share of charges. The état des lieux (the check-in inventory) is drawn up with the tenant, and in a furnished let the inventory of furniture as well. The tenant’s insurance attestation is due at signature, and the courts now let landlords act on its absence. In the cities running rent control, the contract must state the loyer de référence majoré and justify any complément de loyer, a point we cover in the rent-revision guide. Some communes also require a permis de louer before any new tenant moves in. And the person signing must have the right to sign, which in an indivision, a usufruct or an SCI is less obvious than it looks. If the landlord is an SCI, remember that article 10 sets the minimum unfurnished term at six years for a legal person, not the three years an individual signs for.

One more check that is not a mention at all. The letting bans tied to the energy label move on their own calendar, and a lease that is formally perfect on a home that may no longer be let is not a document you want to sign. Our DPE explainer has the current position.

What happens if you sign on the old form anyway

There is no fine for using last year’s template, and the lease does not fall for that reason alone. The consequences are more specific. On unpaid rent, the statute has said six weeks since 2023, so a clause that still reads two months is simply read down to the law, and a lease with no clause résolutoire at all sends you to the slower judicial route. On the servitude, silence is fatal, as above. On every other mention, article 3 gives either party the right, at any time, to demand a contract that complies, and the tenant is the party that tends to remember this right when a dispute is under way. The agent who handed you a stale form carries professional liability for it, which is worth raising in writing if you discover the problem later, and the commission départementale de conciliation hears exactly this kind of quarrel for free.

The printable checklist

Everything above fits on one page, in the order you will meet it at the signing table: the template version, the mentions, the annexes, the servitude question and the signature check. Subscribe to The France Brief below and the checklist arrives in your welcome email, together with the one-page tax calendar and the taxe foncière réclamation letter, with one short email from us when the lease rules move again.

Readers, have you signed or renewed a French lease since 1 October, and did your agent hand you the new template or the old form? Does your property sit in a commune where the main-residence servitude could apply, and did anyone check before you signed? What would you add to the one-page checklist?

FAQ: French leases from 1 October 2026

Do I have to re-sign my existing tenant on the new template?

No. The décret applies to contracts concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026. A lease already running keeps its document, and a tacit rollover creates no new contract. Only a formal renewal on new terms, or a new tenant, triggers the new template.

Where do I get the new template?

There is no separate government form. The template is the text of the two annexes to décret 2015-587, and Légifrance publishes the version in force from 1 October 2026, which service-public.fr points to as the modèle réglementaire. In practice, agents and property managers use the models their software or professional federation issues, so ask for the version conforme au décret 2026-596 and check section VIII yourself against the Légifrance text.

Does the new template apply to a furnished lease?

Yes. Décret 2015-587 carries two annexes, one for unfurnished lettings and one for furnished, and each covers both a single tenant and a colocation à bail unique. Décret 2026-596 amends both. The furnished template additionally requires an inventory of the furniture.

How do I know whether my property carries the main-residence servitude?

The servitude can only exist in sectors designated by the local plan, in communes where the tax on vacant homes applies or second homes exceed twenty percent of the stock. It attaches to new homes and certain conversions authorised after the loi Le Meur of November 2024. The notaire who handled your purchase and the mairie’s urbanism department can both confirm it. If it applies, the lease must say so, on pain of nullity, and the home cannot be let as a tourist rental.

Is a lease signed on the old template void?

Not for that reason alone. The unpaid-rent clause is read in line with the statute, either party can demand a compliant contract at any time under article 3 of the 1989 law, and the only automatic nullity is the missing servitude mention on a dwelling that carries one.