Taxation, powers of mayors... The Assembly adopts a text to regulate Airbnb type accommodation

Europe 1 with AFP 11:09 a.m., January 30, 2024

The National Assembly adopted on Monday at first reading a text attacking the tax loophole for furnished tourist accommodation like Airbnb, accused of harming long-term rentals. The most emblematic measure intends to reduce to 30% the tax reduction rate from which income from rentals of furnished tourist accommodation benefits, compared to 71% or 50% currently.

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.

“A concrete response to the housing crisis”

Put on the agenda for the first time in the spring before being postponed sine die, the transpartisan bill by Annaïg Le Meur (Renaissance) and Iñaki Echaniz (PS), was adopted with 100 votes against 25. "It's is a compromise that we took a year and a half to put on the table", greeted the socialist deputy in the hemicycle, hoping on not", praised his co-rapporteur Renaissance, welcoming a "concrete response to the housing crisis".

The left, the independents of Liot, and most of the majority voted for. Almost all LR and RN voted against, in particular invoking the defense of “small owners”.

Reduce the tax reduction rate to 30% compared to 71 or 50% currently

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. The Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu, called for finding an “exit point” during the parliamentary shuttle. A parliamentary mission was launched on rental taxation. The executive finds itself in a delicate situation: 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 it does not 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. “Rather than making the current framework more complex (...) we want to work with more cities in implementing existing rules,” Airbnb said on Monday in a press release to AFP.

Oxfam France calls for removing “all tax advantages which favor the rental of short-term tourist accommodation”

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 tourist accommodation”.

Many elected officials, particularly on the seaside, denounce the shortage of housing in their areas due to the explosion in the number of Airbnbs. They underline more broadly the "social bomb" represented by the housing sector, which is experiencing a serious crisis, and demand a "major law", promised by the executive. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's general policy declaration on Tuesday in the Assembly will be particularly scrutinized.