Micro-BIC vs régime réel for LMNP in 2026: how to choose

It’s the first question you face when you rent out a furnished flat in France, and it comes back every year. I settled it for my own apartment in 2025 by doing the sums by hand. Here is what you need to know for 2026 income, without the jargon.

Some vocabulary first. LMNP (loueur en meublé non professionnel) is the status of anyone who rents out furnished accommodation in France without it being their main business. The income is taxed as BIC (bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, business profits), and there are two ways to calculate it: the micro-BIC (a flat-rate allowance) or the régime réel (actual expenses plus depreciation, with proper accounts).

Micro-BIC: simple, but the allowance has shrunk

Under the micro-BIC, you report your gross rent on form 2042 C-PRO (the supplementary income tax return for business income) and the tax office applies a flat allowance, the abattement. Nothing else to keep. Since the « Le Meur » law of 19 November 2024, which applies to income from 2025 onwards, the rules are:

• Unclassified furnished tourist rental (meublé de tourisme non classé, the typical Airbnb flat without a star rating): 30% allowance, provided receipts stay under €15,000 a year.
• Classified tourist rental, chambre d’hôtes (B&B) and long-term furnished letting: 50% allowance, under a threshold of €77,700 for 2025 income. The threshold is revised every three years; the app uses €83,600 for 2026, but check the figure for the year on impots.gouv.fr before you decide.

In practice, with €20,000 of Airbnb rent on an unclassified studio, you are above €15,000: the micro-BIC isn’t available at all and the réel applies automatically. With €12,000, the micro leaves you with €8,400 of taxable profit, taxed at your marginal rate plus 17.2% social charges (prélèvements sociaux). For a French resident on a 30% marginal rate, that’s about €3,970 of tax for the year.

Régime réel: what you actually deduct

Under the régime réel simplifié, you deduct your real expenses (loan interest, insurance, building service charges, taxe foncière (property tax), CFE (the local business tax), repairs, platform commissions, subscriptions, cleaning…) and above all the depreciation (amortissement) of the property and its furniture. On a flat bought for €200,000, depreciation comes to roughly €5,000 to €7,000 a year. As a result, most landlords on the réel show a nil or small taxable profit for many years: no income tax and no social charges on their rent.

My own 2025 file, a one-bedroom flat in Nice let from April: the réel gave a profit of €3,824 on nearly €21,000 of receipts, where the unclassified micro wasn’t even an option. The tax difference runs into thousands of euros a year.

What the réel costs in return

• Double-entry bookkeeping, a chart of accounts, dated entries backed by documents.
• A liasse fiscale (the business tax return pack: forms 2031 and 2033-A to D) every spring, filed online.
• A FEC (fichier des écritures comptables, the standard ledger file) that you can hand over if you are audited.
• An accountant (expert-comptable), usually €300 to €600 a year depending on the firm, or a tool that does the job. That’s exactly why I built Meublé.

New since 2025: depreciation comes back when you sell

This is the point older articles don’t mention. The Finance Act for 2025 (article 84) provides that, for sales made from 15 February 2025, the depreciation deducted under the réel is subtracted from the purchase price when the capital gain is calculated. In other words, your taxable gain goes up by the depreciation you deducted. Serviced residences (student, senior, care homes) are excluded; for an ordinary flat let to tourists or long term, it applies, classified or not.

Keep it in proportion. Taper relief for the holding period still applies (no income tax on the gain after 22 years, no social charges after 30), and each euro of depreciation deducted today saves your marginal rate plus social charges straight away, against 19% plus social charges on a possible gain later, after taper relief. In the vast majority of cases the réel still comes out ahead. If you plan to sell within three or four years with a large gain, though, run the full numbers: see the guide on capital gains.

If you live outside France

Rental income from a French property is taxable in France wherever you live. Tax treaties almost always give France the right to tax it, and your country of residence then gives a credit or an exemption so you aren’t taxed twice. Two things change the arithmetic for non-residents:

• Income tax: non-residents pay a minimum rate of 20% on taxable income up to the upper limit of the 11% bracket, and 30% above it. If the average rate on your worldwide income would be lower, you can ask for that rate instead by declaring your worldwide income.
• Social charges: 17.2% in general, but only 7.5% (the solidarity levy alone) if you are covered by the social security system of an EU/EEA country, Switzerland or the UK.

So the €12,000 micro example costs a non-resident at least €1,680 of income tax plus €630 or €1,445 of social charges. On the réel, a nil result means nothing to pay, wherever you live. Bracket limits and rates change: check the current figures on impots.gouv.fr.

How and when to opt for the réel

The micro-BIC is the default below the thresholds. To switch, you notify your business tax office (SIE, service des impôts des entreprises) before the filing deadline of the previous year’s income tax return: for the réel to apply to 2026 income, the option had to be made by May or June 2026. If you start renting in 2026, you have until the deadline of your first return, in spring 2027. The option lasts one year and renews automatically; you can withdraw it within the same deadline. Above the thresholds, the réel applies by default.

My simple rule

• You have a mortgage, or you bought less than 15 years ago: the réel almost always wins.
• Your rent exceeds €15,000 on an unclassified tourist rental: you have no choice.
• Property paid off long ago, low expenses, modest rent, classified with a 50% allowance: the micro may be enough, and it’s simpler.

What Meublé does

Meublé keeps the accounts that the réel requires, so you don’t need an accountant for them. Before any of that, the simulator compares micro-BIC and réel with your own figures, depreciation included, in a few seconds.