Paris's €110,000 Fine: One Flat, 864 Nights and a 90-Night Cap

The judgment reads like four numbers and one structure. The structure is the part that turned a single studio into a record fine.

Last updated: October 19, 2026

On 5 October 2026, the City of Paris published a judgment about a 33-square-metre studio in the eighth arrondissement. The court counted 864 nights let between 2021 and 2025, estimated the revenue at €271,296 and set a fine at €110,000, according to the city's announcement. It's the highest penalty the city has reported against a single property. The interesting part isn't the figure. It's what the figure was measured against.

Key Takeaways

• One flat can carry a record fine. The city describes €110,000 as its highest penalty for a single property, according to its announcement.
• Nights are the unit of account. The court measured 864 nights across five years, not the number of bookings.
• Two companies didn't create two allowances. The letting was split between entities, and both were penalised, as reported.
• The ceiling fell, not rose. Paris cut the main-residence limit from 120 nights to 90 on 1 January 2025, according to the city.
• The calendar is the evidence. A running night count per property answers the question the city actually asked.

The four numbers in the judgment

Four figures carry the decision: the size of the flat at 33 square metres, the 864 nights let between 2021 and 2025, the €271,296 in estimated revenue, and the €110,000 fine. All four come from the judgment as the city described it.

Each one does a different job. The size rules out the hotel comparison. This was one studio in a residential building, not a small apart-hotel. The night count measures use, which is the thing a cap regulates. The revenue estimate establishes scale, and it's the number a penalty is usually built on. The fine is what the city got.

The ratio is more informative than any single figure. On the reported numbers, 864 nights over five years works out at about 173 nights a year. The main-residence ceiling was 120 nights a year until 2025, then 90, according to the city. The activity sat above both ceilings for the whole period, and not by a small margin.

There's a second layer the four numbers don't show. The city's account puts the breach on use of the flat without prior authorisation, not only on the count of nights. In Paris, letting a main residence within the annual cap is one thing; letting beyond it, or letting a property that isn't a main residence, sits under a separate approval. That's the distinction the judgment turned on, as reported. Check the current text with the competent authority.

Why splitting ownership didn't help

The operator divided the letting between two companies. One held the property. The other handled the short-term subletting. According to the city's account, both links in that arrangement were penalised.

Be careful about what that proves. A single judgment doesn't set a rule for every structure, and it doesn't tell you how a different arrangement would be read. What it does show is the unit of analysis. The court looked at a flat, a night count and a revenue figure. The corporate boundary sat inside that picture rather than around it.

The practical reading matters for anyone holding property through more than one entity. If the same flat, the same calendar and the same guests sit behind two companies, the calendar still adds up to one number. A second company is an accounting structure. It isn't a second allowance, and it doesn't produce a second set of nights.

There's a cost side that rarely gets counted. Two companies mean two sets of accounts, two filings and two document trails to produce if anyone asks. In this case the structure added administration and didn't add a defensible answer to the question the city asked.

The case also isn't isolated. In April the city reported a €585,000 penalty over an entire building in the ninth arrondissement converted to short-term lets. In July it reported €220,000 against the owner of four flats, with the management company also penalised. The city estimates about 25,000 illegal short-term lets in Paris and says dozens of cases are pending, as reported. The enforcement pattern is consistent: one property, one count, one file.

The cap that moved from 120 to 90

The annual ceiling for letting a main residence in Paris was 120 nights until 2025. From 1 January 2025 it's 90, according to the city. The judgment covers a period that spans both ceilings, which is why the reported night total matters more than any single year inside it.

A moving cap creates a specific trap. A host who built a year around 120 nights had a calendar that was within the rules in 2024 and outside them in 2025, without changing a single habit. Nothing in the booking flow announces that. The number in the rule changed, and the calendar kept producing the same shape.

The count runs per calendar year, according to the city's account, rather than as a rolling twelve months. That distinction matters at the boundary. A strong December doesn't borrow against the following January, and a quiet January doesn't repay a busy December. Each year starts at zero and each year has its own ceiling.

One more thing about the ceiling: it isn't the whole regime. A main residence let inside the cap still needs its registration, and a property that isn't a main residence sits under a different approval altogether. The city's account of this case is about use. Nights were the measure, not the only test.

A fine is the part that gets reported. The order attached to it is the part that changes the property. The court directed that the flat be returned to residential use, according to the city's announcement.

That order is worth reading as a signal about what the city wants from a case. A penalty transfers money. A use order transfers the flat back into the housing stock, which is the stated point of the policy. The city's deputy mayor for housing described dozens of pending cases and said the pace of penalties would accelerate, as reported.

For a host, the sequence inside a case is the useful part. A listing appears. A night count is assembled. The property's authorisation is checked. A file is built. The outcome includes both a number and an instruction about how the property may be used from then on.

What a compliant calendar looks like

Start with one number per property: nights let in the current calendar year. Not bookings, not revenue, not occupancy percentage. Nights. A seven-night stay is seven. A two-night weekend is two.

Then decide where that number lives. If you list on more than one channel, the count has to be assembled across all of them, because the ceiling doesn't care which platform took the booking. A property that looks compliant on one channel can be well over the line once the others are added in.

A monthly read is enough to keep it honest. On the first of each month, write down the year-to-date night count and the dates already booked for the rest of the year. If the count plus the forward bookings crosses the ceiling, you have a decision to make in the current month rather than in December.

LOCALSBNB connects four channels directly — Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and Trip.com — and shows each channel's source rate and status on one calendar. The Home dashboard reports occupancy, ADR and RevPAR for any date range, so the night count and the average rate sit in the same view. You can start on localsbnb.com and connect the channels you already use, rather than rebuilding the count by hand each month.

Two habits make that count survive an inquiry. Keep the source of every night — channel, guest, dates, nights — in one file you can produce without reconstruction. And write down the rule you applied, including the date the ceiling changed, because a five-year review can span two different ceilings and the same calendar will read differently under each.

None of this is a reason to panic about a compliant listing. It's a reason to know which four facts about your property someone could assemble from public sources: its size, its nights, its rate and its approval status. Three of those are in your own records. The fourth is in a file you should be able to find.

FAQ

Does the cap count bookings or nights?

Nights. A single seven-night stay uses seven nights of the allowance, and a two-night weekend uses two. That's why a booking count can look healthy while the night count is already over the line.

Can I split a flat between two companies to stay under the cap?

The city's account of this case treats the flat, not the company, as the thing being measured. Both entities in the arrangement were penalised, as reported. Whether a specific structure changes anything is a question for a local professional, not for a calendar.

What happens if a year runs over the ceiling?

The exposure is set by the authority and the court, not by the calendar. In this case the penalty was set against an estimated revenue, and the court ordered the flat back to residential use, according to the city. If a year is running close to the ceiling, the useful move is to stop taking short bookings for the rest of that year and to check your position with the city before the year closes.

The judgment is four numbers attached to one studio, and they're legible enough to copy into your own record: size, nights, estimated revenue, ceiling. Most hosts will never see a courtroom. Every host with a calendar is keeping those figures anyway, whether or not anyone has asked for them yet. Reading your own night count from a dashboard takes less time than reconstructing it from memory, and localsbnb.com is where the property data behind that count already lives.

---

This article is general guidance for hosts and isn't legal, tax or insurance advice. What counts as a night, which approval a property needs, and how a local authority enforces its rules differ by place and change over time. Check the current text with the competent authority and take advice from a local professional before you act.