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Last Updated: July 2026
Nobody reads the termination clause of a French lease on signing day. It sits near the end of the contract, in language neither side chose, and it only starts to matter on the first month the rent does not arrive. That clause has just been rewritten. Décret n° 2026-596 of 6 July 2026 amends France’s compulsory lease templates so that a tenant served with a commandement de payer (a formal demand for payment served by a court officer) has six weeks to clear the debt before the lease terminates by operation of law. The old template said two months. The change applies to leases concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026.
If that were the whole story it would be a footnote. It is not, because the two-month figure in the template has been legally wrong for three years, and thousands of leases signed since 2023 carry a clause that does not match the statute. This article explains what the clause does, which deadline governs your particular lease, what a valid commandement de payer must contain, and why six weeks is the start of a recovery procedure rather than the end of one.
The ejector clause in every French lease
The clause résolutoire is the provision that terminates a lease automatically, without the judge having to weigh whether the breach is serious enough, once a defined default has occurred and a formal demand has gone unanswered. Under article 24 of the loi du 6 juillet 1989, the law that governs long-term lettings of a principal residence in France, the clause covers three defaults: unpaid rent, unpaid service charges, and a dépôt de garantie (security deposit) that was never handed over.
Two things about that sentence deserve a second look. First, since the loi anti-squat of 27 July 2023 (loi n° 2023-668), the clause is mandatory: article 24 now states that every residential lease contains it. Before that law it was merely near-universal drafting practice, and an omission could sink a landlord’s fast-track procedure. Second, the unpaid deposit is a stand-alone trigger. A tenant who moved in without ever paying the agreed deposit is in default from day one, although the landlord carries the practical burden of proving a negative if the tenant claims to have paid in cash.
Even so, the clause does nothing by itself: it only produces its effect a fixed period after a commandement de payer has been served and has gone unanswered. That period is the subject of this article.
What actually changed on 6 July
The detail that gets lost in the headlines is chronological: the statute has said six weeks since 2023. Article 24, as amended by the loi anti-squat, provides that the clause “ne produit effet que six semaines après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux” (Légifrance, art. 24 I). What parliament forgot to update was the contrat type, the compulsory lease template annexed to décret n° 2015-587 that almost every unfurnished, furnished and single-lease colocation contract in France reproduces. The template kept saying two months, so landlords who signed leases from it after July 2023 hold contracts whose termination clause contradicts the very statute the clause implements.
Décret n° 2026-596 closes that gap: from 1 October 2026, the template’s clause résolutoire reads six weeks, covers the same three defaults as the statute, and applies to every lease concluded or renewed from that date. As Me Valérie Moulines Denis, a property lawyer interviewed by Le Figaro, puts it, the reduction is anything but cosmetic: the clause becomes actionable sooner, and in a file where the debt grows every month, two weeks often means one further unpaid rent instalment avoided. Her other observation is the one landlords should frame: updating the template means everyone finally aligns, private landlords and professional managers alike.
Which clock governs your lease
The décret does not touch leases already running. Its application article is explicit: the new template applies to contracts concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026. For everything signed earlier, the deadline to state in a commandement de payer is the one in the clause the parties actually signed. That produces three vintages of French lease, and it is worth knowing which one you hold before there is ever an incident.
| Lease signed | Clause résolutoire | Deadline after commandement |
|---|---|---|
| Before 29 July 2023 | Optional, present if drafted in | Whatever the clause says, typically two months |
| 29 July 2023 to 30 September 2026 | Mandatory by statute | Read your clause: the statute says six weeks, but many contracts copied the old two-month template |
| Concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026 | Mandatory, new template wording | Six weeks |
The middle row is where the practical doubt lives. For a lease signed in, say, 2024 whose clause recites two months, prudent practice is to serve the commandement with the deadline the contract states, because a commandement citing a shorter deadline than the signed clause invites a nullity argument. For leases signed between the décret’s publication in July and the October switch-on, nothing prevents the parties from adopting the six-week wording immediately, since it simply mirrors the statute in force since 2023. If you manage remotely and have not looked at your termination clause since signing day, this is the moment. Our guide to who can validly sign a French lease covers the other clause-level traps in the same document.
One quiet consequence of the “concluded or renewed” wording deserves a note. French residential leases renew tacitly at the end of each term, yearly for furnished lettings, every three years for unfurnished ones let by individuals or family SCIs (six years where the landlord is another type of company), and a tacit renewal is a renewal for these purposes. A furnished lease running today will therefore roll onto the new regime at its first anniversary after 1 October 2026, and the unfurnished stock will migrate within one renewal cycle. In other words, the two-month vintages are a wasting class: within a few years, six weeks will simply be the French rule, whatever your contract said the day you signed it.
The commandement de payer: six mentions or nothing
The formal demand that starts the clock is not a letter you write yourself. It is served by a commissaire de justice (the officer formerly known as a huissier) and article 24 prescribes its content on pain of nullity. A valid commandement must state: the six-week deadline itself, the monthly rent and charges, a full breakdown of the debt, a warning that without payment or a request for time the tenant faces termination and eviction proceedings, the address of the departmental fonds de solidarité pour le logement the tenant can ask for financial help, and the tenant’s right to ask the court for a grace period under article 1343-5 of the Code civil (art. 24 I).
Miss one mention and the whole act can fall, taking months of procedure with it. Two further rules hide in the same paragraph and catch foreign landlords in particular. If the lease has a guarantor, the commandement must be served on the guarantor within fifteen days of service on the tenant, failing which the guarantor cannot be held to penalties or late-payment interest. And where the landlord is a private individual or a family SCI, the commissaire de justice must flag the file to the departmental commission for the prevention of evictions (the CCAPEX) once the arrears run two months without interruption or reach twice the monthly rent excluding charges. None of this is optional, and little of it survives improvisation from another time zone. The related question of what happens when a judgment finally exists and the tenant has organised their insolvency is one we covered in our piece on the criminal pathway against tenants who hide assets.
Six weeks is a fuse, not an eviction
The six weeks make the clause produce its legal effect. They do not put keys in anyone’s hand. If the tenant neither pays nor obtains time, the landlord must still summons the tenant before the juge des contentieux de la protection to have the termination recorded and the eviction ordered, and the summons must itself be notified to the préfet at least six weeks before the hearing, on pain of the claim being inadmissible (art. 24 III). At the hearing the judge can spread the debt over up to three years, but since the 2023 reform only for a tenant who has resumed paying the full current rent before the hearing date. Where the debt is repaid on that schedule, the clause is suspended and the lease survives. Where it is not, the eviction order comes with its own sequence: a commandement de quitter les lieux, a two-month period to leave, the possible refusal of state assistance that must then be sought from the préfecture, and the trêve hivernale, the winter moratorium during which evictions cannot be enforced from 1 November to 31 March (Justice.fr).
| Stage | Minimum delay |
|---|---|
| Commandement de payer served | Day 0 |
| Clause résolutoire takes effect | + 6 weeks (new template) or per your clause |
| Summons, notified to the préfet before hearing | + 6 weeks minimum before the hearing date |
| Hearing and judgment | Court diary, commonly several months |
| Commandement de quitter les lieux | + 2 months to vacate |
| Trêve hivernale | Enforcement suspended 1 Nov to 31 Mar |
Add the stages together and a realistic contested case still runs a year or more from first missed rent to recovered keys. The décret shortens exactly one segment of that pipeline and leaves every other stage where it was. One warning belongs in bold for any landlord tempted to shortcut the queue: changing the locks, cutting utilities or muscling a tenant out without a judgment and state-sanctioned enforcement is a criminal offence under article 226-4-2 of the Code pénal, punishable by three years’ imprisonment and a €30,000 fine. However slow the court route feels from abroad, it is the only route that ends with the property back in your hands.
What else the new template slips into your lease
The same décret makes three quieter changes worth thirty seconds of your attention. The template now provides an optional field for the tenant’s mobile number, the thinking being that a landlord or social services able to reach a tenant early resolves more arrears before they harden. The list of optional termination grounds gains a new entry for homes subject to the servitude de résidence principale, the principal-residence-only designation that communes can impose on new housing under the 2024 loi Le Meur aimed at holiday-let saturation: a tenant who uses such a home as anything other than a principal residence can face the clause, after a mayoral formal notice. And the pre-existing optional ground for failure to insure keeps its shorter one-month deadline after a commandement. If your French property is a second home let outside the 1989 regime altogether, this template does not govern you, and the rules that do are in our bail code civil guide.
What to do before October
- Pull out your leases and read the termination clause. Note which deadline each one states. That number, not the news, is what your commandement will need to respect.
- Use the new wording for anything signed or renewed from now on. Tacit renewal counts as renewal, so long-standing tenancies will migrate to the six-week clause over time without any action on your part.
- Act at the first missed month. The procedure rewards early formality: a friendly written reminder immediately, the commissaire de justice at month one or two rather than month five. The debt only grows, and the CCAPEX signalement threshold arrives at two months regardless.
- Serve the guarantor within fifteen days. The forgotten guarantor is the most expensive procedural slip in the article 24 machinery.
- If you carry rent-default insurance, follow the insurer’s calendar to the letter. GLI policies routinely require declaration within a fixed window and a strictly compliant procedure, and pay nothing when the file is late or the commandement defective.
- Collect the deposit before the keys, every time. The unpaid deposit is now a clean termination trigger, but proving non-payment is messier than never being in that position.
The routine end of rent management, revision letters and ceilings included, lives in our landlord’s guide to revising a French rent and this quarter’s IRL Q2 2026 update.
Frequently asked questions
Can I evict a French tenant six weeks after a commandement de payer?
No. After six weeks the clause résolutoire takes effect, meaning the lease is terminated by operation of law, but eviction still requires a court judgment and, if the tenant does not leave, enforcement with state assistance. Self-help eviction is a criminal offence under article 226-4-2 of the Code pénal.
Does the six-week deadline apply to my existing lease?
Not automatically. The new template applies to leases concluded or renewed from 1 October 2026. For an existing lease, the deadline to respect is the one in the clause you signed, which for many post-2023 leases is still the old two-month wording copied from the previous template. Renewal, including tacit renewal, brings the lease under the new regime.
What must a commandement de payer contain?
Six mentions, on pain of nullity: the six-week deadline, the monthly rent and charges, the breakdown of the debt, the warning of termination and eviction proceedings, the address of the departmental fonds de solidarité pour le logement, and the tenant’s right to seek a grace period under article 1343-5 of the Code civil. It must be served by a commissaire de justice.
My tenant never paid the security deposit. Can I terminate?
Non-payment of the dépôt de garantie is one of the three defaults covered by the mandatory clause résolutoire, alongside unpaid rent and charges. The procedure is the same: commandement de payer, the applicable deadline, then the court. Expect to carry the burden of showing the deposit was never received.
What about the guarantor?
The commandement de payer must be served on the guarantor within fifteen days of service on the tenant. If it is not, the guarantor remains liable for the principal debt but cannot be pursued for penalties or late-payment interest.
Can the judge give the tenant more time despite the clause?
Yes. The judge can spread the debt over up to three years, but only for a tenant who is in a position to repay and who has resumed full payment of the current rent before the hearing. While the schedule is respected the clause is suspended. If the tenant defaults on the schedule, the termination revives.
