Mandatory documents for furnished tourist accommodation: the list

In short. Depending on the local council, a furnished tourist accommodation landlord must be able to produce: the acknowledgement of receipt of their declaration to the town hall or their 13-character registration number, the change-of-use authorisation and the DPE energy performance certificate where the council requires them, the insurance certificate covering holiday rental, the police registration forms for foreign guests over the past six months, and the record of tourist tax collected. These documents are not obtained from the same place and are not kept for the same length of time. The table below gives, for each one, who issues it, how long to keep it and what its absence costs.

Who can ask you for a document, and which one

There is no such thing as a single furnished tourist accommodation inspection. Five different parties each request one specific document, at moments that have nothing to do with one another.

The town hall comes first: it receives the declaration, issues the registration number and the change-of-use authorisation, and it is the body that can ask for a count of rental days. The police and gendarmerie come next, for the individual police registration forms for foreign guests. The platform you list on asks you for a sworn statement before your listing even goes live. The tax authorities want your SIRET number. And your insurer asks for nothing at all: they simply establish, at the moment of a claim, what the policy actually covered.

This scattering explains most unpleasant surprises. A host who is perfectly in order on their declaration can be caught out by a request for a DPE, because nobody told them their council had passed a resolution.

The documents you should be able to produce in ten minutes

Up to date as at 23 September 2026. Not every line in this table applies to you. Three of them depend on a resolution passed by your local council, a fourth on your tax regime. The last column is the one that settles the matter: it says what happens on the day the document is missing.

Document	Who issues it	How long to keep it	What happens when it is missing
Acknowledgement of receipt of the declaration to the town hall (form cerfa no. 14004)	Your town hall	For as long as the property is let, with a new declaration on every change	Fine of up to 450 €
13-character registration number	The council that has passed a resolution to that effect	At all times, and in every listing	Civil fine of up to 5 000 €, listing taken down by the platforms
Change-of-use authorisation	Your town hall	The entire duration of the activity, under 5 years if it is temporary	Fine of up to 100 000 € and a penalty of 1 000 € per day per m²
DPE rated between A and E in mainland France	A certified assessor	Ten years, the validity period of the DPE	Change of use refused, so no letting
Insurance certificate covering holiday rental	Your insurer	At each annual renewal	Nothing in the tourism code, everything in your policy on the day of a claim
Individual police registration forms for foreign guests	You have them filled in at check-in	Six months	No way of responding to a request from the police or gendarmerie
Record of tourist tax collected	You keep it yourself	To be produced to the local authority when the tax is paid over	Civil fine of 750 to 2 500 €
SIRET number	Insee, via the Guichet des formalités des entreprises (business formalities portal)	Permanent	No way of identifying yourself to the tax authorities
Star rating decision	An accredited assessment body	Five years, displayed in the property	Neither stars nor the tax advantages attached to the rating

Four of the nine lines cost nothing and can be sorted out in an afternoon. The two that really do cost money, the DPE and the star rating, only concern some landlords. That is why a generic list of "mandatory documents" is of no use: yours depends on your local council.

Simple declaration or registration number: which one applies to you

Two regimes coexist, and it is a municipal resolution that decides which one applies where you are. Neither the size of the council area nor the platform you use makes the slightest difference.

Your situation	What you file	What you must then be able to show
Council with no registration procedure	Form cerfa no. 14004, sent to the mayor with acknowledgement of receipt	The acknowledgement of receipt, the only proof that the declaration was sent
Council that has passed a registration resolution	The registration application, and the change-of-use application if it applies	The 13-character number, published in every listing and reported to the managing agent

The number is not a random string. It reads in three blocks: the 5 digits of the council's official geographical code, 6 identifier digits set by the council, then a 2-character check key. A copying error in a listing is therefore spotted immediately. The full procedure, with the information to supply, is set out in our article on the compulsory declaration for furnished tourist accommodation.

The simple declaration is not required where the property is your main home. Registration, on the other hand, applies to every furnished tourist let in the council area concerned, main homes included. Many hosts confuse the two and wrongly believe they are exempt.

One point remains in flux. The practical guide from the Ministry for Ecological Transition announced that, by May 2026 at the latest, municipal online services would migrate to a single national portal, with supporting documents required alongside the application and the detailed arrangements to be set by decree. On the service-public.gouv.fr page updated on 21 May 2026, the procedure still points to the online service provided by the council. Practical conclusion: ask your town hall before filling in anything, and keep the acknowledgement of receipt whichever route you use.

The DPE: who really needs one

Since 21 November 2024, a change-of-use authorisation can only be granted in mainland France if the property holds a DPE rated between A and E, under article L. 631-10 of the construction and housing code. Without that assessment, the application is refused.

The timetable is already written: from 1 January 2034, the range narrows to A to D in mainland France, and every furnished tourist let that is not the landlord's main home will have to meet the energy performance levels required for decent housing. The council will then be able to ask any owner for a valid DPE, who will have two months to provide it. After that deadline, an administrative penalty of 100 € per day accrues to the council, and a non-compliant DPE carries an administrative fine of up to 5 000 €. All of this is set out in the practical guide to furnished tourist accommodation rules published by the Ministry for Ecological Transition.

A clear position: if your council has not introduced change-of-use rules, do not commission a DPE "just in case". No legislation requires one today in order to let furnished tourist accommodation, and an assessment carried out in 2026 will be eight years old when the 2034 deadline arrives. A DPE is valid for ten years.

What has changed since 2024 goes well beyond the energy assessment: we have set out in detail what the Le Meur Act changed for landlords, from taxation to council powers.

Insurance and co-ownership, the two documents everyone forgets

Let us start with what is true: no article of the tourism code requires a furnished tourist accommodation landlord to hold specific insurance. The Directorate General for Enterprise merely recommends checking with your insurer that the policy covers holiday rental.

That does not mean you can do without it. Ask your insurer for a written certificate that explicitly mentions short-term furnished letting, and file it with the rest. A property management company will ask for it, as will a certification body and sometimes a managing agent: never the town hall.

On the co-ownership side, the rule depends on the date of the building regulations. For regulations drawn up from 21 November 2024 onwards, the text states whether furnished tourist lets are permitted or not. For older ones, it is the strictly residential use clause that governs, and a general meeting can vote for a ban. If you are a tenant and you sublet, your landlord's written consent is a precondition, not a formality.

And as soon as you obtain a registration number, you must inform your managing agent, who will inform the co-owners at the next general meeting. A policy that does not cover holiday rental, meanwhile, is discovered on the day of the water damage, never before.

What you must be able to produce during the stay

Three obligations arise during the let itself, rather than at the administrative paperwork stage.

The first concerns guests who are not French nationals. Decree no. 2015-1002 of 18 August 2015, as set out by the Directorate General for Enterprise, requires an individual police registration form to be filled in and signed at check-in, showing:

• surname and forenames;

• date and place of birth;

• nationality;

• usual place of residence;

• mobile telephone number and email address;

• date of arrival and expected date of departure.

Children under 15 may be listed on the form of an accompanying adult. These forms must be kept for six months and handed over to police services and gendarmerie units on request, including in digital form. This is far from a marginal case: 40% of views of StyQR welcome books are in a language other than French.

The second obligation is a display requirement. The tourist tax rate must be displayed at the town hall and at the accommodation itself. If your property is star-rated, the rating decision must also be displayed visibly inside the property; it is one of the concrete trade-offs that come with the stars, along with several others we listed in our article on the constraints of star rating for furnished tourist accommodation.

The third is a register rather than a document: the record of tourist tax collected. The general local authorities code requires you to record, property by property and in order of collection, the address of the accommodation, the number of people who stayed, the number of nights, the amount collected and, where applicable, the grounds for exemption. Where a platform collects the tax on your behalf, it keeps this record for the share it collects, but directly booked stays remain your responsibility.

On top of that come two safety rules that produce no paperwork but are checked on site: the approved smoke alarm, compulsory in every dwelling since 8 March 2015, and the rules on premises open to the public, which apply as soon as the property's capacity reaches 15 people. The check-in and check-out condition report, for its part, appears in none of these texts: it protects your deposit, not your compliance.

Where to keep it all so you can find it again

One file, and only one, holding the nine documents in the table and the date each one next falls due. It is less appealing than a piece of software, but it is what works for the hosts who are never caught out.

That leaves the question of what goes into the welcome book. Three pieces of information belong there: the registration number, for transparency, the star rating if there is one, and the emergency numbers. The rest has no place in it. An insurance certificate, a full DPE and above all completed police registration forms contain data that is none of the next guest's business. Attaching a PDF to a welcome book is possible with us, and we strongly advise against doing so with those particular documents.

A digital welcome book is a web page accessed by QR code that brings together the information guests need during their stay. It is not an administrative strongbox, and it will never replace your file: the town hall, the gendarmerie and the tax office deal with you, not with your welcome book. What it does do is carry the information intended for guests without you having to reprint anything, as our section-by-section welcome book template shows, along with exactly what the digital welcome book covers.

So we would advise you to keep all these documents in a wallet folder, a ring binder or a display book, because in this particular case the paper version really is ideal. It is easier to find and, when you need it, you will not have to go digging around in the depths of your computer.

Frequently asked questions

Does the registration number have to appear in the welcome book? The obligation applies to the listing, not to the welcome book. You must publish the number in every rental listing, including on the platforms, and report it to the managing agent if the property is in a co-ownership. In the welcome book, it is a matter of transparency, not of law.

Do you need an insurance certificate to let furnished tourist accommodation? No provision of the tourism code requires one. The Directorate General for Enterprise simply recommends checking that your policy covers holiday rental. Ask your insurer for a written certificate that mentions the activity: it will be a managing agent or a property management company that asks you for it, not the town hall.

How long must police registration forms be kept? Six months. They concern guests who are not French nationals, are filled in at check-in and must be handed over to police or gendarmerie services on request. They can be transmitted in digital form, which means digital archiving is allowed.

Is the DPE compulsory for all furnished tourist accommodation? No. At present it determines whether a change-of-use authorisation is granted in mainland France, with a rating between A and E. From 2034, properties that are not the landlord's main home will have to meet the energy decency criteria.

What is the risk if you cannot prove your declaration to the town hall? Failure to make the simple declaration carries a fine of up to 450 €. In a council area that has introduced registration, the absence of a number carries a civil fine of up to 5 000 €, and platforms are required to take down the listing concerned.

Who keeps the tourist tax record when Airbnb collects it? The platform keeps this record for the stays it has taken payment for and pays the tax over to the local authority. Your direct bookings remain your responsibility, with the same details to be recorded. Failure to declare or pay over the tax carries a civil fine of 750 to 2 500 €.