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Rent increase in France: how the IRL works

Plays from YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode) once you press play. General information, not legal advice for your situation. Voice-over and music generated with ElevenLabs.

Every year, a French lease lets you raise the rent, but only if you ask, on time, with the right index. How the IRL rent index works, with the Q3 2026 figure (148.06, up 1.57 percent), and the three traps landlords fall into: the one-year deadline, the F or G energy-rating freeze, and the wrong quarter. Voice-over and music generated with ElevenLabs.

Julien Maurice · AdminLanding

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The full script

Every year, your lease lets you raise the rent. Miss it… and that increase is gone. For good. Here's how the French rent index works — and the three traps landlords fall into.

First, check your lease. You can only revise the rent if it has an indexation clause. No clause, no increase — furnished or unfurnished. And it's once a year, on the date written in the lease, or the lease's anniversary.

The increase follows one number: the IRL, the rent reference index, published by INSEE every quarter. Your lease names a reference quarter. Take the new index for that quarter, divide it by the same quarter a year earlier, and multiply your rent. Example: the latest index, third quarter 2026, is 148.06 — up 1.57 percent in a year. A 900-euro rent becomes 914.14 euros. That's the maximum — never more.

Trap one: the deadline. It isn't automatic. You have to ask your tenant, ideally by registered letter. You have one year after the revision date. And it's never backdated: ask three months late, and you lose three months of increase. Wait more than a year, and that year's increase is lost for good.

Trap two: the energy rating. If your home is rated F or G on its DPE, rent is frozen. No annual revision for leases signed or renewed since the 24 August 2022 — since July 2024 in the overseas departments. Improve the rating, and you can revise again.

Trap three: the wrong index. Use the quarter written in your lease, not the latest headline figure, and compare it with the same quarter one year earlier. Mix up the quarters, and your tenant can contest the increase.

Or… you let Rent do it — Lease and Short-Term, AdminLanding's rental app. It knows your lease's revision date and reference quarter, reminds you 30 days ahead, pulls the official index, calculates the new rent, and writes the letter for your tenant. If the energy rating blocks the increase, it tells you before you send anything. Green stamp. iOS and Android.

Rent is free for your first property. Six euros a month — or fifty-nine a year — unlocks everything, including the other AdminLanding toolboxes. The free rent-increase calculator is at adminlanding dot com — link just below. See you there.

What the film simplifies

  • The clause. The yearly revision exists only if the signed lease provides for it (law of 6 July 1989, article 17-1; article 25-9 applies the same rule to furnished leases). A mobility lease (bail mobilité) is the exception: its rent cannot be revised during the lease.
  • The date. The revision applies on the date written in the lease or, failing that, at the end of each year of the lease.
  • The quarter. If the lease names no reference quarter, the reference is the last index published on the day the lease was signed. The same quarter is then used every year.
  • The figures. The index quoted is the INSEE series for mainland France, the one the calculator on this site uses: 148.06 for the third quarter of 2026, against 145.77 a year earlier. 900 × 148.06 ÷ 145.77 = 914.14 euros.
  • The maximum. The result is a ceiling. You may apply a smaller increase, or none.
  • The deadline. You have one year from the revision date to ask. A revision asked late takes effect on the day of the request: the months before it are not recoverable, and after a year that year's revision is lost.
  • The letter. The law imposes no form. A written, dated notice showing the old rent, the two indices, the calculation and the new rent is what proves the date of your request; a registered letter is the usual way to have that proof.
  • The energy rating. In mainland France the freeze covers leases signed, renewed or tacitly renewed since 24 August 2022 for homes rated F or G; in the overseas departments, since 1 July 2024. It also blocks a rent increase between two tenants.
  • The app. Rent is free for a first property. The reminder, the calculation and the letter described in the film use the revision date and the reference quarter you enter for the lease; the index values are the official INSEE figures.

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