This article is general information for foreign owners of French property, not legal or tax advice. The bill described here has not yet been voted into law and may change. Speak to a French notaire or avocat about your own situation.
Last Updated: June 2026
Every so often the French government decides that the housing market is broken enough to warrant a single, sweeping piece of legislation, and then spends the next eighteen months arguing about it. The latest of these is the projet de loi visant la relance et la décentralisation du logement – the “Housing Relaunch and Decentralisation Bill” – presented to the Council of Ministers on 24 June 2026 by Vincent Jeanbrun, the minister for cities and housing. It is ambitious, it carries a tax sweetener that matters directly to anyone buying French property to let, and it has already been handed a long, careful, and pointedly sceptical opinion by the Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative court. So before any of it becomes real, it is worth understanding what is actually on the table, what it would change for a foreign owner, and why the lawyers are urging caution.
A quick word of warning up front, because it governs everything below: this is a bill, not a law. It was deposited, withdrawn, and re-deposited at the Senate inside 48 hours (more on that oddity later), and the Senate only begins examining it on 7 July 2026. Large parts of it will be rewritten, and some may not survive at all. Treat what follows as a map of the government’s intentions, not a description of the rules you live under today.
What the bill is trying to do
The headline ambition is enormous: two million additional homes by 2030. France genuinely has a structural housing shortage – the government’s own framing is that over ten years the average French household has lost the equivalent of 25 square metres of housing purchasing power – and the bill is the legislative spine of a wider “Relance Logement” plan. The text itself is short, just ten articles, grouped into three parts: speeding up construction, speeding up renovation, and decentralising housing policy towards mayors and local authorities.
For a foreign investor, two of those threads matter far more than the rest: the reinforced Jeanbrun tax incentive, and a proposed reprieve for F and G “energy sieve” homes that are currently being squeezed out of the rental market. We will take those first, then cover the rest in brief, then turn to the Conseil d’État’s reservations – which are the most important part of the whole story.
The Jeanbrun tax break, made more generous
The “dispositif Jeanbrun” is not part of this bill. It already exists: it was created by the loi de finances pour 2026 (loi n° 2026-103 of 19 February 2026) and runs from 21 February 2026 to 31 December 2028. It replaced the old Pinel reduction, which expired at the end of 2024, and it works very differently. Rather than a flat tax reduction, the Jeanbrun scheme lets a landlord who buys a home and lets it at a capped, “affordable” rent deduct a portion of the purchase price, plus the usual rental costs – works, loan interest, taxe foncière – from their rental income, and then set the resulting deficit against their wider taxable income. The mechanics, including the deduction rates and the annual ceilings, are set out by the finance law and explained on the government’s own Relance Logement pages; the commitment is a minimum nine-year let, in the tighter housing-tension zones.
What this bill does is make that scheme easier to qualify for, in three ways that matter to anyone eyeing an older property:
- It lowers the minimum works threshold in the existing housing from 30% to 20% of the property price.
- It opens the scheme to individual houses in the existing stock, which the current version excludes (today it is limited to flats in collective buildings).
- It attaches two energy conditions: the renovated home must reach at least DPE class D, and it must not run on a fossil-fuel boiler (oil or gas).
| What the bill would change | Detail |
|---|---|
| Lower works threshold (existing homes) | From 30% to 20% of the purchase price |
| Houses now eligible (existing stock) | Individual houses, previously excluded (flats in collective buildings only) |
| New energy conditions | Renovated home must reach at least DPE class D and have no fossil-fuel (oil or gas) boiler |
If you have ever looked at the arithmetic of buying an older French property and offsetting renovation costs against your rental income, this is the same deduct-and-amortise logic behind the Jeanbrun scheme as it already stands today, only with easier entry conditions. The Conseil d’État, notably, took issue with the government calling this a “statut du bailleur privé” – a “private landlord status” – pointing out that it is not a status at all but a temporary tax advantage, and suggesting the word “statut” be dropped. A small thing, but a telling one: the court wanted the label to match the reality.
A lifeline for F and G homes – if you commit to renovate
This is the measure most likely to affect a foreign owner of an older stone house or a tired city flat. Under the 2021 loi Climat et Résilience, France has been progressively banning the letting of “passoires thermiques” – thermal sieves – on this calendar:
- since 1 January 2025, a home rated G on its energy performance certificate (DPE) is treated as indecent and can no longer be let;
- from 1 January 2028, the same applies to F;
- from 1 January 2034, it reaches E.
That calendar has been quietly removing thousands of homes from the rental market, and it sits behind the rent freeze that already bites on F and G properties. This bill is not the government’s first attempt to ease that DPE letting-ban timetable, but it is the most concrete. The Jeanbrun bill proposes to soften it: an owner would be allowed to keep letting an F or G home provided they commit to renovation works – within three years for an individual house, five years for a property in a co-ownership (copropriété). The government’s stated target is to bring close to 700,000 homes back onto the market this way.
| DPE rating | Letting status under current law | What the bill proposes |
|---|---|---|
| G | Cannot be let since 1 January 2025 | Re-let allowed if you commit to renovate: within 3 years (house) or 5 years (co-ownership) |
| F | Cannot be let from 1 January 2028 | Same renovation-commitment reprieve |
| E | Cannot be let from 1 January 2034 | Not covered by the reprieve |
For a foreign landlord sitting on a property that has just become unlettable, or is about to, this is potentially a significant reprieve. But read the conditional tense carefully: it is a proposal, it comes bundled with a binding renovation commitment, and the Conseil d’État has already flagged equality problems in how the measure is drafted (it currently treats corporate landlords and co-ownerships differently from everyone else). Do not change your renovation plans on the strength of a bill that has not been voted.
The rest of the plan, in brief
The bill is wider than the two investor-facing measures. In short:
- A third national urban-renewal programme, PNRU3, worth 5 billion euros and running from 2026 to 2040, run by the national urban renewal agency (ANRU), targeting an initial 150 neighbourhoods.
- A new fast-track planning tool – the government called it an “opération d’intérêt local”, which the Conseil d’État renamed a “périmètre de développement du logement” – meant to shave 12 to 18 months off local building projects.
- A push to build 125,000 social homes a year from 2026, partly funded by energy-renovation works whose cost is partly passed through to rents.
- A specific provision to make it easier to convert offices into homes in the La Défense business district.
Mayors get more power
The third part of the bill is its political heart: it moves housing decisions closer to the ground. It would hand the status of “organising authority for housing” (autorité organisatrice de l’habitat) to larger local authorities, on a “one competence, one responsible body” principle. It would put mayors in the chair of social-housing allocation commissions, let them propose and rank candidates (though not set the criteria themselves), and give them a veto over allocating social housing to people convicted of violent offences against public order. Volunteer towns would also be able to take back the 20% of social housing currently allocated by the prefect, mainly under the enforceable-right-to-housing (DALO) rules.
Why the Conseil d’État is waving yellow flags
Here is the part most coverage skips, and the part that should shape how seriously you take any of the above. When the government asks the Conseil d’État to review a bill, it gets a candid legal verdict. On this one, delivered in sittings on 11 and 22 June 2026 (avis n° 410923), the verdict was, in effect: yes, but. The court validated the overall design while filling the margins with reservations, rewrites, and requalifications. A few stand out:
- On the planning derogations, the court warned of a “worrying tendency to multiply exceptions” that gradually undermine the coherence of France’s urbanism rules. That caution runs through the whole opinion.
- On the 5 billion euros for urban renewal, it noted the figure is only indicative and cannot bind the budget. The Conseil économique, social et environnemental, reviewing the same article, went the other way and asked for the sum to be treated as a guaranteed floor.
- On the mayor’s veto, the court was at its firmest, calling the provision legally under-defined (“entaché d’incompétence négative”) because it does not sufficiently frame a power that heavily restricts some applicants’ right to social housing.
- On decentralisation, it made a subtle but expensive point: forcing large authorities to take on housing competences is not a delegation but a transfer – which constitutionally obliges the State to compensate them, at an estimated 27.5 million euros a year.
The court itself singled out three questions for Parliament to settle: how tightly to frame the new building perimeters, how to qualify and compensate the transfer of powers, and how to delimit the mayor’s veto. That is your watch-list for whether this bill ends up helpful or merely well-intentioned.
Where the bill stands now
One procedural curiosity worth knowing, because it tells you how fast the government is moving. The text was deposited at the National Assembly on 24 June 2026 (as bill n° 2981), withdrawn the very next day, and re-deposited the same day at the Senate (as bill n° 801). That was not a collapse – it was a deliberate choice to send the bill to the upper house first, under the accelerated procedure. The Senate begins its examination on 7 July 2026 (debates are scheduled for 7 and 8 July).
So the honest summary for a foreign owner is this: there is a genuinely useful tax incentive here and a potential reprieve for energy-poor homes, but both are still proposals, both come with conditions, and the country’s top administrative court has asked Parliament to tighten several of them before they pass. Worth watching closely. Not yet worth betting on.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use the Jeanbrun tax break right now?
The base scheme created by the 2026 finance law is already in force, from 21 February 2026 to 31 December 2028. The more generous version – the lower 20% works threshold, houses in the existing stock, the energy conditions – is part of this bill and is not law yet.
Can I re-let my F or G property if I promise to renovate?
Not today. A G-rated home has been unlettable as “indecent” since 1 January 2025, with F following in 2028. The bill proposes to let you keep letting an F or G home if you commit to renovate within three years (a house) or five years (a co-ownership), but that is a proposal under debate, not a current right.
Does any of this apply to non-residents and foreign owners?
The measures are tied to the property and the letting, not the owner’s nationality or tax residence, so a foreign owner letting a qualifying French home would in principle be affected in the same way as a resident. The precise tax interaction with your home-country situation is exactly the kind of thing to check with a French tax adviser.
When could the bill become law?
There is no fixed date. The Senate starts examining it on 7 July 2026 under the accelerated procedure, after which it goes through the usual back-and-forth between the two chambers. The minister has said he wants it adopted before 2027, but parliamentary timetables slip, and the Conseil d’État’s reservations guarantee a substantial debate.
