As we hit the summer season, you might have had a couple of bookings already for your French property and just realised that it should be declared in some way. Oops! Never mind, it’s not too late to fix this.
Gites can basically be registered in two ways in France - as a professional or a non-professional. A professional is someone with a full-time activity, i.e all year long as a business with a health cover. And a non-professional is someone for whom the gite is a secondary source of income, i.e. someone already employed, self-employed, retired or a non-resident. This will impact both on how to register and on your taxes.
Do I need to declare my gite in France?
It may sound like a silly question, but it isn’t. And the answer is Yes! You need to declare and register your gite before you start charging for stays and the income will have to be declared in France, even as a non-resident.
Who do I need to inform of my gite rental?
First of all, you need to inform the Mairie by filling in a declaration de meublé. But don’t be fooled, this is just an administrative step to confirm that you can rent your property as a holiday let.
You then need to register your gite with the taxman in order to pay your taxes in the future on the rental income. Yep, the taxes on your gite are due in France and not in your country of origin. If you are using a platform such as Airbnb to promote your gite, the platform will also inform the taxman at the end of the year of how much you have collected. So, better to be declared to start with.
Registering your gite as a non-resident or non-professional
This option is for you if you want to rent your French property but plan to keep living in the UK, US or anywhere else in the world. It’s also for you if your gite is a secondary source of income, i.e. you are retired, have a business or are employed in France. In both cases, the gite is considered as a top-up income, provided the yearly takings are below 23,000€ per year.
You will register your gite as a Loueur Meuble Non Professionnel (LMNP) with Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce. All you need for this is a copy of your passport and proof of ownership of the property, such as titre de propriété issued by the notaire when you purchased the property. For UK citizens post-Brexit, there is no carte de séjour to be requested for this.
You are not considered as a business and will therefore pay your taxes the following year via your French income tax form. For more information on this setup and taxation, check my gite course.
Registering the gite as your main activity
You have a large property with several gites or plan to add extra activities, such as chambres d'hôtes, table d'hôtes, changeover services to other gite owners, bike rental, workshops or picnic hampers. You definitely plan to be working full-time on this project and also need a health cover.
You are looking at registering as a professional, i.e. set up a business with Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie (CCI). This could be a micro entrepreneur or entreprise individuelle au reel simplifie.
We are talking about registering a business here, so there is quite a bit of paperwork to prepare, such as a non-condamnation attestation, proof of ownership, utility bill in your name, carte de séjour or business visa, etc.
As a rule of thumb, the taxman expects you to be making over 23,000€ of bookings per year for a gite and over 5,000€ for a B&B, chambres d’hôtes.
Full training on how to set up and run a gite in France
In this article, I have given you the basics about registering a gite in France. But if you want to know the nitty-gritty about gite and chambres d'hotes regulation, business types and taxes, you can sign up for my course How to create a gite or chambres d’hôtes in France. It covers both professional and non-professional set-up so you can make an informed decision.
Help to register your gite or chambre d’hotes
You are ready to register your gite as a professional or non-professional, but don’t want to be dealing with the hassle of the paperwork. Let me do this for you. I will help you gather the necessary documents, provide you with templates for compulsory attestations, and handle the registration with Greffe du Tribunal / Chambre de Commerce, so all you have to worry about is getting your property ready for your first guests.
Get my help to register your gite, complete my online form.
