Renting in France without a guarantor: the 2026 guide

We are the Vibe South of France community: we don’t let flats and we don’t act as guarantors, but we have put the rules together from official pages of 2025-2026 and dated each one. Renting is the first big problem after arrival, because you don’t yet have a French guarantor or a credit history. The good news is that the law is on the tenant’s side, and you can get a guarantee without a guarantor. If you have a question about your own city, ask in the Vibe South of France community chat on Telegram.

Visale - Action Logement’s free guarantee

Visale is a caution (guarantee) from Action Logement, and it costs the tenant nothing. If you don’t pay rent and charges or you damage the home, Action Logement pays the landlord first and then recovers that money from you. It is not a gift: the debt to Action Logement stays, and you repay it, if need be through a repayment plan (apurement, according to Action Logement).

In private housing, Visale covers up to 36 months of unpaid rent and charges during the first 3 years of the lease, and damage to the home up to 2 months’ rent including charges. After 3 years you need a new application (service-public F33453, 23 January 2026).

Who can get it:

Students and jobseekers over 30 are not on the service-public list. You can apply from the age of 17 years and 10 months, and a lease is signed no earlier than your 18th birthday.

There is also a rent ceiling. Outside Île-de-France, Visale is refused if the rent including charges is above €1,575 or €1,365 a month (depending on the commune); for students and alternants without proof of income, above €840 or €680. For everyone else the rent must be no more than half of the income taken into account (F33453). The simulator on visale.fr shows the figure for your commune.

How it works

1. You apply online at visale.fr before signing the lease.
2. Action Logement issues the “visa” within a few working days if the application is complete.
3. You give the visa to the landlord.
4. The landlord registers on visale.fr, enters your visa number, draws up the guarantee contract and confirms it there. The visa alone is not a guarantee: the guarantee exists once the landlord has confirmed the contract.

If a landlord has accepted Visale, they cannot demand any other guarantee: neither a guarantor nor unpaid-rent insurance (ANIL). If they already have unpaid-rent insurance (GLI), they cannot demand a guarantor, except for a student or an apprenti.

If Visale doesn’t fit

Then a private person can act as your guarantor. A landlord cannot refuse them for not having French nationality (ANIL). With neither a guarantor nor Visale, what remains is your income and your dossier: a tenant may be chosen only on objective criteria, and refusing someone because of their origin, spoken language or place of residence is discrimination (service-public F14750, 12 August 2025).

The tenant dossier: what can and can’t be requested

The list of documents is closed: décret n° 2015-1437 of 5 November 2015. According to service-public (F1169, 10 April 2025), it covers four points:

Three rules matter if you have just moved:

• if your income was taxed outside France, the tax notice of that country, or a document from its tax authority that replaces it, will do;
• documents may be submitted as copies, but they must be in French or translated into French, with amounts converted into euros; the landlord may ask to see the original;
• a foreign passport is enough as proof of identity: a residence permit is not always needed.

A landlord cannot demand, among other things, bank statements and a RIB (ANIL), a marriage contract (F14750), a criminal record certificate and medical documents (ANIL). For a document outside the list, the landlord risks a fine of up to €3,000 (€15,000 for a company), set by the prefect. An agent can be fined too, if the agent asked for the document.

The deposit (dépôt de garantie)

The legal maximum is 1 month’s rent excl. charges for an unfurnished home (vide) and 2 months for a furnished one (meublé); the amount is stated in the lease (service-public F31269, 9 June 2026). The other rules:

• the deposit cannot be raised during the lease or at renewal;
• if rent is paid in advance for three months or more, no deposit may be taken; with a bail mobilité lease a deposit is forbidden too;
• after you move out, the deposit is returned within 1 month if the exit état des lieux matches the entry one, and within 2 months if not; the clock runs from the day the keys are handed back;
• for lateness, 10% of the monthly rent excl. charges is added to the deposit for each month begun, but not if you failed to give your new address when handing back the keys.

Agency fees

The tenant pays the agency only for the viewing, the dossier and drawing up the lease: no more than half the total and no more than a cap per m² of living space - €12.10 (very tight zone), €10.09 (tight zone) or €8.07 (other communes). If the agency draws up the entry état des lieux, your share is also no more than half the bill and no more than €3.03 per m² (service-public F375, 12 January 2026). These rates apply to leases signed from 1 January 2026 (A18576, 5 November 2025). The agency’s other services are paid by the owner.

Montpellier: the rent cap

Of the cities in Occitanie and PACA, only Montpellier has a rent cap (encadrement des loyers). For the provinces, service-public (F1314, 1 August 2026) names Bordeaux, part of Grenoble-Alpes métropole, Lille, Lyon with Villeurbanne, Montpellier and the Pays Basque agglomeration. According to the Senate report of 14 October 2026, Aix-Marseille-Provence métropole applied for Marseille in November 2022, but nothing came of it.

How it works in Montpellier (service-public F36437, 1 July 2026; ADIL de l’Hérault):

• the rule covers unfurnished and furnished homes used as a main residence, and bail mobilité, for leases signed or renewed from 1 July 2022;
• the base rent excl. charges must not exceed the loyer de référence majoré: according to ADIL de l’Hérault, that is the median rent plus 20% for your category of home (number of rooms, period of construction, vide or meublé);
• the prefect approves the table every year: the current table applies from 1 July 2026 until the experiment ends;
• if the rent is above the cap, you can demand a reduction and a refund of the overpayment through the commission départementale de conciliation, then through the court, and report it to the prefecture; the owner risks a fine of up to €5,000, or €15,000 for a company.

The experiment ends in late November 2026, and Parliament is debating an extension. The extension law has not been passed yet (Senate file as of 17 October 2026):

The texts differ: the Assembly version removes the words “à titre expérimental” (the experiment becomes permanent), while the Senate committee keeps the experiment and lengthens it from eight to ten years. Neither has come into force. If you are signing a lease this autumn, check the current F36437 and the ADIL de l’Hérault page: what happens to the cap after November is still for Parliament to decide.

Where there is no cap, in most communes in a zone tendue the growth of rent is limited: an owner cannot freely raise it when the tenant changes or the lease is renewed (service-public F1314).

Insurance

A tenant must insure the home at least against risques locatifs and give the landlord an attestation when collecting the keys, and then once a year on request (service-public F31300, 16 April 2025).

Watch out: rental scams

Newcomers are a favourite target for scammers. Warning signs: a price noticeably below the market, the same photos in different listings, an “owner abroad” who asks for a transfer in order to “reserve”.

The law is on your side: before the lease is signed, neither a landlord nor an agency may take any money, including for a “reservation” (F1169). So the main rule is this: don’t transfer money until you have seen the home and signed the lease.

If you have been a victim, you can report a fake listing and file a complaint on the THESEE platform if you never met the author in person and they asked for money. You have 6 years from the last fraudulent act to file a police complaint (F34092, version of 16 October 2024).

Where to look for housing, and the APL benefit

You look for listings on websites and through agencies, and for student housing at CROUS. After moving, apply for the housing benefit through the CAF site. From 1 July 2026, APL is not always due to students from outside the EU holding a permit “for studies”, and the sources disagree on the list of exceptions: the guide “CAF and APL: housing benefit in France” goes through it.

What people say in our chat

These are the experiences of members of our chat in 2026: not rules, and no promise that it will go the same way for you. The law and the paperwork are in the sections above. We cite an experience only where at least three different members confirmed it.

• Without a French CDI. The law does not ask for such a document: a landlord may request only papers from a closed list (see the dossier section above). According to chat members, 2026, when you have no CDI in France, private landlords are more accommodating than agencies, so it is worth looking at adverts without an agency too, on pap.fr and Leboncoin.
• Paid guarantee. Garantme is a service that on its own website calls itself a guarantor in your place (“Garantme se porte garant pour vous”). Not every landlord accepts such a guarantee, so ask in advance whether yours does. If you meet the Visale conditions (table above) and the landlord has accepted it, the landlord may not demand any other guarantee.

In the Vibe South of France community chat you can ask about housing and neighbourhoods in Montpellier, Nice and Marseille: someone may have been looking for a flat in your city recently.

The “Vibe South of France” community chat on Telegram - housing, moving and life in the South

See also:

• Your first 30 days in France
• CAF and APL: housing benefit in France
• Buying property in France as a foreigner
• How to move to France: every legal route
• Cities of the South of France
• Social housing (HLM): who can get it and how to apply