Short-term rentals in Nice: what the city actually applies in 2026

Main residence: 120 days, after a detour through 90

A main residence is the home occupied for at least eight months a year. Its owner may let it to short-stay guests without asking the city for anything, as long as the total number of rental days stays below the cap set by the municipality. In Nice that cap is 120 days per calendar year.

The figure has moved twice in thirteen months. By a decision of 23 May 2025, the city council had lowered it to 90 days from 1 January 2026, as the law of 19 November 2024 now allows. On 19 June 2026, decision no. 5.2 brought it back to 120 days, and the metropolitan rules in force from 1 September 2026 adopted it. An owner who planned the year around 90 days therefore has a month more than he thinks.

The exemption covers the authorisation, nothing else. The home must still be declared and carry a registration number shown on every listing, and the tourist tax is collected as for any furnished holiday let. Letting a room in the home one lives in at the same time remains possible with no cap.

One last limit applies to every furnished holiday let, main home or not. A stay by the same guest cannot exceed 90 consecutive days. Beyond that, the arrangement stops being a short-term let and becomes a furnished tenancy, with its own rules on term and notice.

Second home: an authorisation from the first night

A home that is not its owner's main residence changes use as soon as it is let to tourists, even for a single night. Nice has regulated this change since 2014, and the rules in force since 1 September 2026 are those adopted by the metropolitan council in decision no. 2.1 of 22 June 2026. Applications are filed online, on changementdusage.fr/nice. Processing takes four months, and silence from the administration at the end of that period counts as a refusal.

For a private individual, the rules provide a temporary authorisation, without compensation, lasting five years. It cannot be renewed, split, sold or moved to another property. It is attached to the person rather than the home, and only one is granted per tax household. Where a property is jointly owned, the applicant certifies that all co-owners agree, and they are then treated as holding the same authorisation.

Beyond those five years, or from the second home onwards, the owner must compensate. Compensation means converting to housing a space that had another use, an office or a shop, with at least the same floor area, anywhere in Nice. It can also be bought as a commercial-use title, sold by a third party who carries out the conversion himself. An authorisation obtained this way is permanent and stays with the property. Companies whose main business is letting property face this rule from the first home.

There is one more route, specific to Nice: mixed letting. The home is let to a student for the academic year, five to six months, then to tourists for three summer months, June to August or July to September. The authorisation is renewed every year and requires no compensation, in return for an agreement with the city and a capped student rent. It sits outside the quotas.

Three-year authorisations applied for from January to August 2026, under the previous rules, can be extended by two years without exceeding five years from the date they were issued. The renewal request must be filed in the two months before expiry, not afterwards.

Four areas under quota, and a window to apply

The law of 19 November 2024 allowed municipalities to cap the number of temporary authorisations where holiday lets have overtaken ordinary housing. Nice has used it. Four zones, made up of 39 Insee statistical blocks, are under quota: Vieux-Nice, Riquier-Port-Mont Boron, Centre-Ville and Ouest.

For 2026 the cap is 691 authorisations, or 0.9% of the homes in these zones. It breaks down as follows: 47 for Vieux-Nice, 204 for Riquier-Port-Mont Boron, 324 for Centre-Ville, 116 for Ouest. Centre-Ville brings together blocks as different as the Musiciens and France-Negresco, and Ouest runs from Carlone to La Californie by way of Magnan.

In these zones, a first application can only be filed during a window opened once a year, online only. For 2026 it has been open since 1 September and closes in December: the rules say the 31st, the public notice of 15 August says the 21st, and prudence suggests aiming for the earlier date. Files are handled in order of arrival, provided they are complete. Each owner may file one, for a single home, and there is no waiting list.

Renewals, mixed letting, compensated applications and homes in serviced residences fall outside the quota. Outside the four zones, applications can be filed all year round.

This timetable stems from litigation over the rules of December 2025, which based the quotas on main residences only. On an application by two organisations of professional hosts, the urgent-applications judge of the Nice administrative court suspended that point on 29 January 2026, and the Métropole froze filings in quota zones until 31 August, pending the Conseil d'État. The rules of 22 June 2026 widen the base to all homes and announce a review of the quotas for January 2027. The figure of 691 therefore holds for 2026 only.

What the law of 19 November 2024 added

Law no. 2024-1039, known as the Le Meur law, made the energy performance certificate part of the file. To obtain a change-of-use authorisation, the home must be rated between A and E, then between A and D from 1 January 2034. Nice's rules require a certificate less than ten years old, carried out after 30 June 2021 by a certified assessor.

Holiday lets that are not the host's main residence must also meet the energy standard of a decent home. As with year-round letting, this requirement follows the timetable for energy decency standards. The mayor may ask for the certificate, and if it is not received within two months a penalty of €100 a day applies.

Co-ownership has gained a say. Building regulations drawn up since 21 November 2024 must state explicitly whether holiday lets are allowed. In older buildings, a clause restricting use to private residence excludes them; and where the regulations already forbid any commercial activity outside the units intended for it, the general meeting can vote to ban them by a two-thirds majority of votes, where unanimity used to be required. A co-owner who declares a holiday let informs the building manager, who reports it at the next meeting. In Nice, the applicant certifies on his honour that the project does not breach the regulations.

For registration, a national online service is due to replace the municipal procedures; Service-public announces it for the fourth quarter of 2026, and numbers issued by municipalities will then have to be renewed after a transition period. Until then, the Nice number is obtained on the Métropole's tourist tax portal, once the authorisation has been secured for a second home. It is not the same as the authorisation number. The tourist tax, its rates and its reporting are covered in a separate Gazette article.

Penalties, and what a file must contain before the listing

Letting a second home without authorisation exposes the owner to a civil fine of up to €100,000 per property, imposed by the president of the judicial court on a claim brought by the municipality. The judge can order the return to residential use under a daily penalty of up to €1,000 per square metre. A false declaration is a criminal matter: up to one year in prison and a fine of €80,000.

Other breaches, whether a listing without a number or a day cap exceeded, carry smaller civil fines, which the 2024 law raised. We do not put figures on them here, for want of consistent sources: the official fact sheets do not all give the same amount.

A holiday-let file is prepared before the first listing goes online. It gathers the status of the home (main or second) and the authorisation with its expiry date, then the building regulations and the energy certificate. It takes the area into account, because an address in a quota zone does not follow the same calendar as another. Promenade Holiday, the group's short-term letting service, guides owners through these steps from 107 Promenade des Anglais.