Furnished or Unfurnished? The Tax & Lease Decision for Foreign French Property Owners (2026)
Most foreign owners of French rental property face the furnished-versus-unfurnished question once and resolve it from intuition: furnished feels easier ("I can keep my own things in there"), unfurnished feels more committed. The tax and lease consequences of that intuition are larger than most owners realise, and they cut in opposite directions. Furnished sits under the BIC regime (Bénéfices Industriels et Commerciaux) with the LMNP statute — a commercial-income tax frame that allows building amortissement large enough to drive taxable rental income close to zero in the early years. Unfurnished sits under revenus fonciers with simpler accounting but no amortissement, and a 3-year lease with a more stable tenant. The choice is irreversible only in one direction (opting out of micro-foncier into régime réel binds you for 3 years; the reverse is automatic). This guide walks through the tax math, the lease-duration trade-off and the operational footprint each path produces, framed for foreign owners specifically — where the choice is made remotely, often without a French accountant, and where the wrong default can cost meaningful tax efficiency every year for the life of the lease.
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