Furnished tourist accommodation classification: stars, grid and tax 2026
- Care Concierge
Furnished Tourist Accommodation Classification
The classification of a meublé de tourisme — a furnished tourist rental in France — is an official rating from 1 to 5 stars, awarded at the owner’s request after an inspection by an accredited body. It is voluntary, valid for five years, and based on a national grid of 133 criteria. Its most concrete effect: it raises the micro-BIC tax allowance from 30 % to 50 %, and it is a precondition for accepting Chèques-Vacances.
This article explains what the classification actually is, who awards it today — the answer has changed, and a good deal of what you will read elsewhere is still out of date — how the grid works, what the classification is worth, what it costs, and when it is not worth applying for.
Written for owners of property in the Chamonix–Megève valley. The rules described here are French national law and apply wherever your property is in France, and whether or not you are a French resident.
1. What the classification is
The classement is an official recognition of the comfort and service level of a property let on short stays. It runs from one to five stars, against a grid defined nationally and applied identically across the country: a 3-star in Chamonix meets exactly the same requirements as a 3-star in Biarritz.
Three things matter from the outset.
It is voluntary. No law obliges an owner to have a property classified. You do it because it pays, not because you must.
It is not the same as registering with your mairie. These two procedures are routinely confused. Registration with the town hall — form Cerfa n° 14004 — is compulsory for every meublé de tourisme and gives you a registration number. Classification is applied for separately, through an inspection body, using form Cerfa n° 11819*03. You can be registered without being classified; you cannot be classified without being registered.
It lasts five years. Article D324-4 of the Code du tourisme is explicit: « Le classement est prononcé pour une durée de cinq ans » — the classification is granted for a period of five years. After that a new inspection is needed. A classification obtained in 2021 has therefore already lapsed: if you are still claiming the 50 % allowance on that basis, check your date.
2. Who awards the classification in 2026 — and what changed
This is where most of what you will find online is wrong, including some of the answers generated automatically by search engines.
For years the procedure was described as going through Atout France. It no longer does. The agency’s own site now states that the classification of meublés de tourisme is not handled directly by it, and points to the entreprises.gouv.fr portal.
The arrangement today works like this:
- COFRAC, the French accreditation committee, accredits the bodies permitted to carry out classification inspections.
- Atout France still has a role: it maintains and publishes the registers of accredited and approved bodies.
- The owner deals directly with a body of their own choosing from those registers. Article D324-3 of the Code du tourisme puts it plainly: the owner submits the application « à un organisme de son choix » — to a body of their choice.
- Every body applies the same national reference framework. Your choice of body therefore has no bearing on the number of stars awarded. It affects price, lead time and the quality of the support you get — not the outcome.
- If no body operates in your département, you may use one from a neighbouring territory.
In Haute-Savoie, the departmental body carrying out these inspections is Innovation & Développement Tourisme (IDT74), based in Annecy. It is not the only option — several national bodies also operate in the department, and asking for more than one quote is entirely normal.
3. The grid: 133 criteria in three chapters
Classification is assessed against a table approved by ministerial order. The current framework contains 133 inspection criteria, arranged in three chapters.
Worth knowing: some pages, including institutional ones, still refer to 112 criteria. That figure belongs to the original framework, before the revision that took effect in 2022. If you are preparing an application, work from the 133-criterion version, which your inspection body will send you.
Chapter 1 — Equipment and fittings. The largest. Floor area relative to the number of occupants, beds and bedding, furniture, the kitchen and its equipment, the bathroom, heating, sound insulation, lighting, storage, television, internet connection, outdoor space. This is the chapter where a well-kept mountain property scores naturally: double glazing, effective heating, a ski locker, a boot dryer, a parking space. It is also the most expensive chapter to improve, because it is about equipment.
Chapter 2 — Services offered to guests. Welcome and check-in, how keys are handed over, the information provided to the guest, languages spoken, cleaning, linen provision, breakfast where offered, and whether someone is contactable during the stay. This is the chapter that matters most to an owner working with a property management company, because most of these criteria depend on organisation rather than on the building: they can be earned without any building work.
Chapter 3 — Accessibility and sustainability. Accessibility for guests with disabilities, waste sorting, water- and energy-efficient fittings, guest information on environmental practice, proximity to public transport. A shorter chapter, but several of its criteria cost very little to satisfy — clear signage, recycling bins, low-energy bulbs.
How the points are counted
Every criterion is either compulsory or optional (« à la carte »). To reach a given category you must obtain the compulsory points required for that category and reach a proportion of the optional points. A small number of unmet compulsory criteria can be offset; your inspection body will confirm the exact rule it applies. According to the accredited bodies, that proportion is:
- 1 star — 5 % of the optional points
- 2 stars — 10 %
- 3 stars — 20 %
- 4 stars — 30 %
- 5 stars — 40 %
Here is the logic worth remembering: optional points offset one another. A property that cannot tick certain optional criteria can make up the difference by ticking others, often much cheaper ones. That is why a modest-sized apartment that is very well equipped and very well run reaches a category you would not expect.
What actually separates 3 stars from 4
The difference rarely comes down to one dramatic feature. It comes down to accumulation: a little more floor area per occupant, better bedding, a more complete kitchen, a higher level of service — linen provided, end-of-stay cleaning included, a personal welcome, information in several languages — and an optional-points requirement that rises from 20 % to 30 %.
Put another way: moving from 3 stars to 4 is usually decided in the services chapter, not the equipment chapter. Which is good news, because service can be changed in a season. A bathroom cannot.
4. What the classification changes for your tax
This is the main argument, and it was considerably strengthened by the Loi Le Meur (law n° 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024).
Since that reform, which applies to income received from 1 January 2025, the gap between a classified and an unclassified property under the micro-BIC regime is as follows:
- Unclassified — flat-rate allowance of 30 %, income ceiling €15,000.
- Classified — flat-rate allowance of 50 %, income ceiling €77,700 for 2025 income, raised to €83,600 for income from 2026 to 2028 following the three-yearly revaluation of the thresholds.
What that means in practice. Take an owner receiving €30,000 in rent over the year:
- Unclassified, they exceed the €15,000 ceiling and drop out of micro-BIC altogether. They move to the régime réel, with a requirement to keep accounts — not necessarily a bad outcome, but no longer a simplified return.
- Classified, they stay in micro-BIC, declare €30,000 and receive a 50 % allowance, leaving €15,000 of taxable income instead of the €21,000 that a 30 % allowance would have left.
The difference in the taxable base is €6,000. Depending on your marginal rate and social contributions, the annual saving is commonly several times the cost of the inspection.
The limit to be aware of: above the ceiling, micro-BIC no longer applies, classified or not. Classification does not exempt you from moving to the régime réel — it simply pushes the threshold from €15,000 to a much higher figure, and doubles the allowance below it.
The régime réel also remains the better option in many situations, particularly where the property is mortgaged or recently renovated, because it allows actual costs to be deducted and the property to be depreciated. Classification and the choice of tax regime are two separate decisions: the second is one for your accountant.
5. What it changes for the tourist tax
Two regimes exist for the taxe de séjour, and they work in completely different ways.
Unclassified property: the tourist tax is proportional. It is 5 % of the nightly rate excluding tax, per person, subject to the national ceiling of €4.90 per person per night.
Classified property: the tourist tax is a fixed rate per person per night, voted by the commune for each star category, within a national band.
The consequence is mechanical, and it bites hardest in a valley where nightly rates are high. Take a chalet let at €600 a night for six people: that is €100 per person, so €5 of tax under the proportional regime — which means the €4.90 ceiling, reached every night for every occupant. A classified property pays the fixed rate voted by its commune, whatever the nightly price.
The higher your nightly rate, the more the proportional regime penalises you. That argument counts for far more in Chamonix, Megève and Saint-Gervais than it does elsewhere. Because the rate is set commune by commune, check your own before doing the arithmetic.
6. Chèques-Vacances: a requirement, not a perk
Chèques-Vacances are holiday vouchers issued to French employees and widely used to pay for domestic stays. Many articles present accepting them as a “bonus” of classification. It is stricter than that.
To be conventionné with the ANCV and accept the vouchers, a furnished-rental owner must meet several conditions — an eligible activity, a SIRET number, a bank account domiciled in France or the European Union — and, for a furnished rental, hold a classification.
No classification, no agreement. In a market where a share of French guests pay for part of their stay in Chèques-Vacances, that is an entire customer channel closed off.
7. How to get classified, step by step
- Check that your registration with the mairie is current. It is the prerequisite, and its registration number will be asked for.
- Choose an inspection body from the registers of accredited and approved bodies published by Atout France. Compare on price and lead time: the framework applied is the same everywhere.
- Self-assess the property using the grid the body sends you. This step is optional but strongly advised: it tells you which category is genuinely within reach, and which few optional criteria would take you to the next one.
- Submit your application using form Cerfa n° 11819*03.
- Receive the inspection. The inspector works through the grid criterion by criterion. The property must be presented as it would be let — furnished, equipped and ready to receive guests.
- Wait for the inspection certificate. The body has one month from the end of the visit to provide the certificat de visite together with its proposed classification (article D324-4 of the Code du tourisme).
- Accept or refuse. You have 15 days to refuse the category proposed. After that, and without a reply from you, « le classement est acquis » — the classification stands. Silence counts as acceptance.
- Record the expiry date. The classification runs for five years. Note the date immediately: letting it lapse unnoticed is the most common way owners lose the 50 % allowance.
8. What it costs, and what it asks of you
The inspection fee depends on the body and the size of the property. Published rates in our region give a reliable order of magnitude:
- IDT Haute-Savoie: from €150 incl. VAT for a one-room property to €290 incl. VAT from seven rooms upwards.
- Gîtes de France Savoie: €150 incl. VAT per property, covering travel, inspection and administrative follow-up, quoted as valid until 31 December 2026.
So for a typical mountain apartment, budget €150 to €250 every five years — €30 to €50 a year.
That is not where the real cost sits. It sits in bringing the property up to standard. If it already meets the target category, the fee is the whole expense. If compulsory criteria are missing, they have to be acquired — and depending on what is missing, that runs from a few tens of euros to several thousand.
The next real cost is time. Assembling the file, preparing the property, being there for the inspection, and then keeping the standard up: a classified property that slides stays classified until expiry, but renewal can be refused.
We would rather say this plainly, including where it does not suit us: in some cases classification is not worth applying for.
9. Is it worth it? Three situations
Situation 1 — Regular letting, income above €15,000. Yes, without hesitation.
This is the clearest case. Without classification you leave micro-BIC as soon as you pass €15,000. With it, you stay in micro-BIC with a 50 % allowance. The annual tax saving comfortably exceeds the inspection fee spread over five years. Add the fixed-rate tourist tax, which is favourable as soon as your nightly rate is high, and access to Chèques-Vacances.
Situation 2 — Occasional letting, a few weeks a year, modest income. Probably not.
Below €15,000 of receipts, the difference between a 30 % and a 50 % allowance applies to a small base. On €8,000 of rent, the difference in taxable income is €1,600. Classification still pays, but the margin is thinner, and you have to add the upgrade work and the five-yearly renewal. If you let three weeks a year with no intention of doing more, the question deserves to be asked rather than assumed.
Situation 3 — A property that does not yet reach the target category. It depends on the works.
Do the self-assessment before committing. If the gap closes with inexpensive optional criteria — kitchen equipment, linen provision, guest information, waste sorting — the exercise pays for itself immediately. If it means rebuilding a bathroom to gain a star, that is a renovation calculation, not a tax calculation, and should be treated as one.
10. Where we stand
We look after properties between Chamonix and Megève, and since the Le Meur reform we have seen the same pattern: for a property let seriously through the year, classification has become one of the few decisions where the gain is immediate, quantifiable and lasting. It changes the taxable base, it changes the tourist tax, it opens a customer channel, and it costs the price of one night’s stay every five years.
That said, the process takes time — and the services chapter of the grid, the one that most often decides a category, covers precisely what a management company handles: welcome, key handover, linen, cleaning, guest information, and someone contactable during the stay.
If you would like to know which category your property could reach, and what it would take to move up one, get in touch. We know the grid, we know the inspection bodies in the valley, and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth it in your case.
Not letting on short stays, or without a tourist-rental authorisation? Long-term property management follows a different logic, and classification plays no part in it.
11. Frequently asked questions
How do you get a furnished tourist accommodation classified?
You submit an application, using form Cerfa n° 11819*03, to the inspection body of your choice from those accredited by COFRAC or approved, whose registers Atout France publishes. The body inspects the property against the 133-criterion grid. It then has one month to provide the inspection certificate and its proposed classification. You have 15 days to refuse it; without a reply from you, the classification stands for five years.
What are the drawbacks of classification?
Three, mainly. The inspection fee, €150 to €290 depending on the body and the size of the property, repeated every five years. The possible cost of bringing the property up to standard, if it does not meet the compulsory criteria for the category you want. And the obligation to maintain it: classification commits you to a level of comfort and service that has to be sustained, or renewal can be refused. For very occasional letting on modest income, the tax gain may not justify those constraints.
What is the 2026 classification grid for furnished tourist accommodation?
It is a national table approved by ministerial order, containing 133 inspection criteria across three chapters: equipment and fittings, services offered to guests, and accessibility and sustainability. Each criterion is either compulsory or optional. To reach a category you must obtain the compulsory points required and reach a proportion of the optional points — roughly 5 % for one star up to 40 % for five. Every inspection body applies the same framework.
Why classify a furnished tourist rental?
For three measurable reasons. The micro-BIC allowance rises from 30 % to 50 %, and the income ceiling from €15,000 to €83,600 for 2026 income, under the Le Meur law of 19 November 2024. The tourist tax moves from a proportional regime — 5 % of the nightly rate excluding tax, capped at €4.90 per person per night — to a fixed rate voted by the commune, which is favourable as soon as the nightly rate is high. And classification is a compulsory condition for an ANCV Chèque-Vacances agreement on a furnished rental. On top of that there is a commercial effect: stars are an immediate signal to guests, on the platforms and at the tourist office.
Official sources: Code du tourisme, articles D324-2 to D324-6-1; law n° 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024; entreprises.gouv.fr; service-public.gouv.fr; ANCV. Last updated: September 2026.
To go further on taxation: our complete para-hôtellerie guide (VAT, worked examples).
Our property management pages, commune by commune: Chamonix · Argentière · Les Houches · Saint-Gervais-les-Bains · Les Contamines-Montjoie · Megève · Combloux · Sallanches
A second property, or no tourist-rental authorisation? Long-term rental management falls outside the authorisation regime: a year-round lease, 7 % commission incl. VAT.
