Furnished or unfurnished in Nice: the tax calculation, regime by regime

Two tax categories, and two rates of social levies

Furnished and unfurnished lets differ in their lease, and in the box they fill on the tax return. Rent from an unfurnished home is property income. Rent from a furnished home is business income, and the owner becomes, for tax purposes, a furnished landlord, non-professional in the vast majority of cases.

That difference of category governs everything else: the flat-rate allowance, the deductible costs, what happens to a deficit, how the capital gain will be computed on the day of sale. The legal regime of a furnished let, its lease term and its compulsory inventory, is covered in our article on renting out in Nice. Here we speak only of tax.

A further gap has opened recently, and it shows in the social levy scale. The Social Security Financing Act for 2026 raised the CSG on investment and property income from 9.2 % to 10.6 %. Unfurnished rental income and property capital gains were kept out of the increase and remain at 17.2 % in total. Non-professional furnished rents were not: 18.6 %.

That is 1.4 points more, on an income already reduced by the allowance or by depreciation. Modest on its own, the gap weighs more once added to the differences that follow.

Flat-rate regimes: 30 % on one side, 50 % on the other

For an unfurnished let, micro-foncier applies automatically when gross property income does not exceed €15,000 a year. The tax office then retains 70 % of the rent: a 30 % allowance stands in for all costs, with no receipts and no calculation.

For a furnished home let as a main residence, micro-BIC deducts 50 % of receipts. The ceiling is €83,600 for 2026 income, after €77,700 for 2025 income. Furnished holiday lets follow other thresholds: €83,600 and 50 % if the property is classified, only €15,000 and 30 % if it is not. For a property let by the week, the classification question therefore has a price.

Take €12,000 of annual rent, a figure chosen for the example. Unfurnished, €8,400 is added to taxable income. Furnished and let by the year, €6,000. At the same marginal rate, the furnished let is taxed on a quarter less, before a single account has been opened.

The flat rate can be left by option. For an unfurnished let, opting for actual expenses binds you for three years and cannot be reversed before then. For a furnished let, the option is made before the filing deadline and then renews tacitly each year. In both cases, the flat rate is a sound choice only if real costs stay below the allowance.

Under actual expenses, the difference is called depreciation

An unfurnished let under actual expenses deducts what it spends: loan interest, property tax, non-recoverable service charges, insurance, management fees, maintenance and improvement works. When costs exceed rent, the deficit excluding interest is set against total income up to €10,700 a year. The limit rises to €21,400 for energy renovation works that move the home from class E, F or G to class A, B, C or D, paid by 31 December 2027 on a quote accepted since 5 November 2022. The deduction is clawed back if the property stops being let within three years.

A furnished let under actual expenses deducts the same costs, and adds depreciation. The price of the building, excluding the land, which does not lose value, and the price of the furniture are deducted in annual fractions over their useful life. The landlord splits land from building and must be able to justify the split.

Depreciation has a limit that many projections forget. It can only be deducted up to the rent minus the other costs: it can bring the result to zero, never below. The excess is not lost, it carries forward to later years. A deficit from non-professional furnished letting, for its part, can only be set against income of the same kind, for ten years, never against a salary or a pension.

An unfurnished let does not depreciate, except within a new and narrow framework. The 2026 Finance Act created a housing relaunch scheme, open to acquisitions from 21 February 2026 to 31 December 2028: a flat in a collective building, new or old with at least 30 % of the price spent on works, let unfurnished for nine years as a main residence, under an intermediate, social or very social rent cap. A flat let at an open-market rent does not qualify.

Resale: what the 2025 Finance Act changed

Until February 2025, the non-professional furnished landlord combined two advantages. He depreciated under actual expenses, and he resold under the private capital gains regime, computed on the original purchase price as if nothing had been deducted. Article 84 of the 2025 Finance Act ended that combination.

For any sale completed since 15 February 2025, the acquisition price is reduced by the depreciation deducted. The date the letting began does not matter: a property let since 2012 and sold in 2026 brings back the depreciation of all those years. The only exclusions are residences for students or elderly people and certain care establishments. A seafront flat let furnished by the year falls under none of these exceptions. Under micro-BIC, no depreciation is deducted, so there is nothing to bring back.

The effect can be put in figures. Take ten years of depreciation at €8,000 a year, a textbook assumption: €80,000 is added to the capital gain. Held for ten years, the property benefits from a 30 % allowance for income tax and 8.25 % for social levies. Those €80,000 then cost €10,640 in income tax, 19 % of €56,000, and €12,625 in social levies, 17.2 % of €73,400. A surtax applies on top when the taxable gain exceeds €50,000.

Depreciation has not become a bad bargain for all that. In the same example, €8,000 deducted each year by a taxpayer in the 30 % bracket, with 18.6 % in social levies, saves €3,888 a year, €38,880 over ten years. The advantage remains, but part of that saving is now only deferred tax. The holding period erases it after twenty-two years for income tax, after thirty for social levies.

LMNP or LMP: the threshold that changes the whole regime

A furnished landlord becomes professional when two conditions are met at once: the household's annual receipts exceed €23,000, and they exceed the household's other earned income. If either is missing, the landlord stays non-professional. A salaried owner letting a large flat in Nice can cross the first without coming near the second.

Professional status opens two doors. A deficit is set against total income with no cap. And the capital gain falls under the business regime, with a possible exemption after five years of activity if receipts stay below €90,000, partial up to €126,000.

In return, above €23,000 of receipts, the professional landlord pays social security contributions, where the non-professional pays only social levies. And the business capital gain has always taken depreciation into account, which is precisely what the 2025 reform extended to non-professionals. Moving from one status to the other is prepared with an accountant, not at filing time.

What the tax calculation does not tell you

A comparison table stops at the tax, yet management weighs on the choice too. A furnished home let by the year is relet more often and needs an inventory kept up to date, with furniture to be replaced as it wears. The actual-expenses regime means keeping accounts, often entrusted to a professional whose fees are deductible. An unfurnished let changes tenant less often, for a less favourable tax treatment.

The law, finally, moves every autumn. The 2027 Finance Bill is before Parliament as this article is published, and the taxation of furnished letting has returned with every budget for several years. The rates and thresholds given here are those in force in October 2026; what is voted in December will usually apply to the following year's income.

Between furnished and unfurnished, an owner therefore picks a way of managing as much as a tax regime. Promenades Services manages properties let furnished and unfurnished in Nice and along the nearby coast, from 107 Promenade des Anglais. The statements we produce also serve to complete the tax return, whichever regime you settle on with your adviser.