France's 120-Night Cap on a Primary Residence

A cap on a primary residence is a rule about which property you rent, not how well you run it. That distinction changes what you track.

Last updated: October 5, 2026

A cap on a primary residence doesn't care how well you host. It cares which home you're renting out. A primary-residence rule sets a ceiling on the nights you can let your main home in a year, and it usually treats a second home under a different set of conditions. If you mix the two up, you'll track the wrong number. Here's the distinction, and what it changes about the way you count.

Key Takeaways

• The rule follows the property, not your performance. A primary-residence cap limits nights on the home you live in, whatever your rating.
• A second home sits under a different regime. A property you don't live in usually faces its own conditions rather than this allowance.
• Your total is the sum across every channel. Nights sold on one platform still count against a limit that's set per property.
• Personal nights can blur the count. The nights you occupy your own home need to stay apart from the nights a guest pays for.
• Confirm the figure locally. The number you see quoted is a starting point. The binding version comes from your local authority.

Why a primary-residence rule is different

A primary-residence rule starts with a question about identity: do you live here? If the property is your main home, the rule allows you to let it for a set number of nights a year. If it's a property you own but don't live in, that allowance usually doesn't apply, and a different set of conditions takes its place.

That's why the rule can feel arbitrary to a host who runs a tight operation. It isn't scored on occupancy, response time or review scores. It's scored on the property's status. A polished listing in a second home can sit under heavier terms than a plain listing in a primary home.

The practical effect is that two hosts on the same street can have different ceilings, because their homes mean different things under the rule. One lives there, one doesn't. The count each has to watch is set by that difference, not by how many nights either could sell.

So the first move is to classify your own property honestly. Is this where you live for most of the year, or is it somewhere you keep for guests? Get that wrong, and every number after it goes wrong too.

The rule also sets the tone for everything else. Once you know which property a limit attaches to, you know which of your listings share a ceiling and which stand alone. That single classification decides how many counts you keep, and how many files you maintain.

Counting your own nights accurately

Counting starts with a simple definition. A night is a night a guest stays, not a night you opened the calendar. Blocked dates, maintenance days and gaps between stays don't count as nights let. Only occupied nights do.

That distinction is easy to state and easy to fumble. A channel shows availability, not consumption. To know your total, you need the bookings themselves, added across every place you sell. A host on two platforms with the same property still has one limit, not two.

This is where a clear view pays off. LOCALSBNB's calendar shows the source rate and source status for each direct channel you connect, so you can see what's live on each platform instead of guessing. For the booking side, a read-only assistant answers questions about a specific booking and the room-type calendar, so you can check a stay without opening a screen for every channel.

A running total beats a year-end scramble. Keep a simple count as the year goes, with the date and the channel for each stay. When you approach your limit, you want to see it weeks ahead, not the moment a guest tries to book.

Watch the difference between a night that's booked and a night that's stayed. A cancellation that frees the dates takes the night out of the count. A no-show that keeps the booking may leave it in. Read the rule you're under before you decide which way a cancelled stay falls.

What a second home changes

A second home is a different animal. The primary-residence allowance usually doesn't extend to it, so you can't simply sell nights on your second property and count them under the same roof. Expect its own conditions, which can include registration or permission before you let.

That changes your plan in two ways. First, the ceiling you track for your main home doesn't apply here, so you're operating under separate rules. Second, the paperwork tends to be heavier, because a second home often needs its own registration before a single night is let.

Buyers sometimes assume a second home is the flexible option. In practice, the reverse is often true. A main home has a clear allowance. A second home has conditions that depend on local policy, and those conditions can shift between reporting cycles. Read the current position rather than a summary.

If you run both, keep two separate counts and two separate files. Mixing them is the fastest way to lose track of which night belongs to which property, and which rule applies to each.

If a second home needs its own permission, treat that step as a gate, not a formality. Registering before you let is cheaper than fixing it afterwards, and it keeps a guest from arriving to a problem. Keep the confirmation with the property's own file, ready for the day a reviewer asks.

Where hosts lose track of the total

Hosts lose the count in the same few places. One is the direct booking that never touches a platform, so it never appears in a channel export. Another is the personal stay that feels like it shouldn't count, when it may or may not, depending on how the rule reads.

A third is the calendar block that gets read as a night sold. A maintenance gap isn't a night let, and neither is a date you closed for a family visit. The count is about guests. Keep your own nights in a separate column so the two can't merge by accident.

A fourth is the year boundary. A stay that starts late in December and ends in January needs to land in the right year, and platforms can differ in how they split it. Pick your own rule, write it down, and apply it the same way every time.

A calendar that shows the source rate and source status for every channel you connect keeps the booking side visible. localsbnb.com keeps that view beside the count, so the total you check is the total that's real.

The reward for a clean count is simple. You stay inside your limit without watching it every week. You can answer an authority's question in minutes. And you never discover in December that a stay you'd forgotten about used up nights you were counting on.

None of this is complicated. It's just unsentimental. Count what a guest consumed, file it by property, and check the total against the rule you're actually under. Do that, and a cap stops being a surprise.

FAQ

Does the night limit apply to every property I own?

Usually no. A primary-residence rule is about the home you live in. A second home tends to face its own conditions, so check each property separately with your local authority before you assume one figure covers both.

What counts as a night against the limit?

A night a guest stays, not a night your calendar was open. Blocked dates, maintenance time and your own stays aren't guest nights. Keep them in a separate record so the running total stays accurate.

What if I go over without realising?

That's a question for your local authority and, if you have one, your adviser. The strongest thing you can hold is your own record: dates, channels, and the total as it stood. Raise the question before the year closes, not after.

Keeping one clean count is the whole job. Track guest nights by property, keep your own nights apart, and check the figure against the authority's current guidance. When you want the bookings and the channel view in one place, reach for localsbnb.com before the year-end crunch.

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This is general guidance for hosts, not legal, tax or insurance advice. Local rules, thresholds and platform terms differ by place and change over time; check the current position with your local authority and the current terms of each platform you use.