French Bail Mobilité for Corporate Housing: 2026 Guide

France has a lease designed precisely for a four-month executive assignment, and most global mobility teams either never use it or sign it wrong.

That lease is the French bail mobilité. It runs for one to ten months, requires no security deposit and lets the assignee leave with one month's notice. Used correctly, it is the cleanest legal route to temporary executive housing in France. Used carelessly (wrong tenant, wrong extension, a deposit under another name), it gives the landlord, the assignee and the company a dispute nobody budgeted for.

Here is what HR leaders, procurement teams and Relocation Management Companies need to know before signing one.

What Is the French Bail Mobilité?

The bail mobilité is a short-term residential lease for furnished homes only. It was created by the ELAN Law of 23 November 2018 and sits in Articles 25-12 to 25-18 of France's main tenancy statute, the Law of 6 July 1989.

It fills a gap. A classic furnished lease runs for one year and renews automatically. A holiday rental is not designed to be someone's home during a work assignment. The bail mobilité covers the space in between: a real residential lease for a defined, temporary professional need.

Its rules are public policy (ordre public). The parties cannot contract out of them, even by mutual agreement.

Who Qualifies? The 6 Eligible Situations

Not every relocating employee qualifies automatically. On the date the lease takes effect, the tenant must be in one of these situations and be able to prove it:

• Vocational or professional training
• Higher education studies
• An apprenticeship contract
• An internship
• Voluntary civic service (service civique)
• A professional transfer or a temporary assignment linked to their work

For corporate relocations, the sixth category does the heavy lifting. The lease must state the reason for using a bail mobilité, and the assignee should provide a supporting document such as an assignment letter or secondment agreement.

The Rules That Matter for Corporate Housing

Duration and the one-time extension

The lease lasts a minimum of one month and a maximum of ten months. It is neither renewable nor automatically extended.

Its duration can be changed once, by written amendment (avenant), as long as the total stays within ten months. A six-month lease can become a ten-month lease. It cannot become eleven months, and it cannot be amended a second time.

If the assignment outlasts the lease and both parties want to continue in the same apartment, the new contract is automatically a classic furnished lease, with its one-year term and standard protections. Chaining bail mobilité contracts on the same home is not an option.

No deposit: how guarantees work instead

The landlord cannot ask for a security deposit in any form. The lease must say so explicitly. A "cleaning fee", "key deposit" or "holding fee" that functions as a deposit is still a deposit: the clause is unenforceable and the money must be returned.

The landlord can, however, ask for a guarantor. In corporate mobility this is usually the employer or a partner company acting as surety. The state-backed Visale guarantee from Action Logement is also accepted, but its eligibility conditions and rent ceilings mean it rarely fits executive housing.

Mandatory flat-rate charges

Service charges are paid as a fixed monthly flat fee (forfait) alongside the rent, and there is no year-end adjustment. The amount must not be clearly out of proportion with the building's actual charges.

For finance teams, this is a real advantage: the monthly cost on day one is the monthly cost on the last day. The rent itself cannot be revised during the lease either.

Rent caps: where they apply

Outside those cities, rent is set freely, although rules limiting rent increases between tenants still apply in high-demand areas (zones tendues).

Bail Mobilité vs Company Lease vs Classic Furnished Lease

Choosing the contract is a strategic decision, not an administrative detail. The right answer depends on who signs, how long the need lasts and how much flexibility the company wants to keep.

Bail mobilité

A company lease is legitimate when the company is genuinely the tenant and houses a member of its staff. It is not a way around tenant protections for an individual's main home. French courts reclassify such contracts, and the practice is under growing public scrutiny.

For the documents landlords expect on the classic route, see our guide to decoding the Parisian rental dossier.

5 Compliance Pitfalls to Avoid

Use this checklist before any bail mobilité is signed:

• The right tenant. The assignee signs. If the company must be the tenant, switch to a company lease.
• The right reason, documented. The eligible situation is written into the lease and backed by an assignment letter or equivalent.
• One amendment, ten months maximum. Plan the end date with HR before signing, not in month eight.
• Zero deposit, under any name. Ask for a guarantor instead.
• A rent checked against local caps. Verify the reference rent where rent control applies.

Two further obligations are easy to overlook. Check-in and check-out inspections (états des lieux) and a detailed furniture inventory must be signed and attached to the lease. And when several assignees share an apartment, the lease cannot make them, or their guarantors, jointly liable for each other.

What's Next: Leases of One Week to 18 Months

Law No. 2025-1129 of 26 November 2025 created a new category of furnished housing, the résidence à vocation d'emploi (job-oriented residence). In these residences, a bail mobilité could run from one week to 18 months. The rule is not yet in force: it awaits an implementing decree. We will update this guide when it is published.

How Le Mendèlle Handles the Lease Question

For HR teams and RMCs, the lease is only one piece of a relocation. Le Mendèlle sources furnished corporate housing across France and handles the contract choice, the guarantees and the check-in with the assignee. A 30-minute brief is followed by a proposal within 48 hours, with a single point of contact throughout.

To see how housing fits into the wider package, read our guide to structuring expatriate packages and our overview of short-term executive apartments.

FAQ

Sources: Service-Public.fr – Rules of the bail mobilité · Légifrance – Law No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989