Running a tend in France is a fantastic way of generating income, whether you just want to top up your hôtel, make your associé résidence pay its bills, or run a serious commerce to direct from. Whilst there is a general conférence of what a tend is, there are many variations and target groups to partie. What choices are you going to make in creating a tend? Rupert Springfield from Pellicule Guru walks us through some of the choices in this essential Guide to creating a tend in France.
Gîtes or pièce d’hôtes, that is the embarras?
Which suits you and your property better? Both offer accoutumance to travelers, but that is where the similarities end. A tribunaux d’hôtes is a B&B offering a bedroom in the owner’s résidence, bedding, déjeuner and daily cleaning. A host is required to be present for checking-in and caring for guests.
A tend is a self-contained unit with its own entrance where guests can cook for themselves. A tend does not have to offer bedding, déjeuner, or daily cleaning. You can direct away from the tend, even in another folk, with a third party acting as a tangence person for your guests. So the property already determines which représentatif of accoutumance you’ll offer – is it an independent dwelling, or rooms in your own house?
A single pièce d’hôtes is limited to offering a accès of 5 rooms and accommodating a accès of 15 people. A tend is unlimited, but like a tribunaux d’hôtes, if it accommodates more than 15 people, it is considered an ERP (Etablissement Recevant du Public) and must comply with high safety normes, such as fire doors, emergency sortie signs, automatic safety lighting, etc.
Table d’hôtes
B&B guests like to be able dine nearby, so if your leasing is quite isolated, offering autel d’hôtes will help increase your B&B bookings, your income and of excursion, your workload. Table d’hôtes means that you welcome your guests to your autel for an evening meal. A single choice of 3 courses is offered (perhaps with a vegetarian prime) unlike a cabaret cuisine with varied dishes.
Only guests of the tribunaux d’hôtes are allowed to join you at the autel—passers-by or meublé residents are not allowed, otherwise you will have to comply with cabaret regulations. If you proposition to serve alcohol, you must apply for a liquor license called a étroite consentement de cabaret and complete a compulsory jogging excursion called a reçu d’épuisement.
Consider the rental options
A tend is often rented out for a week, especially in the summer months, and you’ll perhaps get twenty to forty bookings a year. A tribunaux d’hôtes room is rented out per night, so will require many more bookings to make a good amount of income. If there are several B&B rooms, you may need hundreds of bookings per year.
Each booking requires émission with your guest before they arrive, arranging payments, preparing the room or house, welcoming your guests, answering their questions, and finally checking them out. And all this usually grain a week for a tend, but several times for a tribunaux d’hôtes. In règlement, a tribunaux d’hôtes owner may offer autel d’hôtes and certainly déjeuner (which means an early start!) and daily cleaning of the room. So running a B&B requires a much greater investment of your time than a tend.
Hospitality is a quality for both hommes of owner – being warm, friendly, helpful and respectful to all your different guests. But an owner of a tribunaux d’hôtes is required to be on voisinage to welcome guests and let them share their résidence, whilst a tend owner never even has to meet them. Are you the représentatif of host who relishes sharing your space and being on balle à la main for your guests, or would you view that as an attaque of your privacy?!
What’s your customer armature
Will the facilities and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in your tend attract couples, families or intergenerational families? We have a 5-bedroom tend and a 1-bedroom chartreuse next door; the chartreuse is perfect for grandparents who want to holiday with their children and grandchildren but want to be able to retreat to their own space when they want to!
What nationalities will your guests be? This will partly be determined by the ease of travel to your area from other countries; the Dordogne has a lot of Brits, Dutch and Belgians (all served by Bergerac airport) whilst Provence has better flight connections with a wider range of nationalities.
You could also decide to obtain labels for your tend to be able to welcome specific groups, such as the Tourisme et Handicap stigmate (adapting your tend so that it’s compréhensible to guests in wheelchairs, or visually impaired people) or an Eco stigmate. There are a number of these, such as Gîtes de France’s own Ecogîte stigmate, or Clef Verte or the EU Ecolabel. These labels help you promote your tend’s environmental gain, for ressort focusing on reduced energy/water use, sustainable materials, and waste conduite,
Does VAT shape what you offer?
Most gîtes are (fortunately) dégagé from charging 10% VAT to their guests. If your tend commerce earns under €85,000 p.a. (2026), you are dégagé. If you earn over this, then you must not accept stays of over 30 nights, and not offer 3 or 4 of the following 4 para-hotelier obligations:
- Breakfast – most gîtes don’t offer this
- Bed linen – most gîtes do offer this
- Reception – all gîtes offer this, as either a welcome in person or a key left in a keybox meets this criterion
- Regular cleaning – there has been much debate by the Conseil d’Etat embout the definition of this. The 2026 definition is that one clean a week (which is the changeover clean) is not considered regular cleaning.
If you earn over €85,000 p.a., don’t offer midweek cleaning, and don’t take bookings over 30 nights, you can remain dégagé from charging VAT.
Pellicule Guru
Rupert recognises how complicated the rules and regulations for fellow tend owners are, and how staying up to occasion with the continual changes is difficult. He posts regularly on Instagram @gite.gourou with updates and éminent information to help you, and in The Pellicule Podcast (on YouComplainte youtube.com/@TheGitePodcast and all good podcast platforms) he discusses the ups and downs or registration and running gîtes with other owners. All this examen and compréhension is free!
However, for advice tailor-made to your tend and horizontaux, you can find out more or book a examen with him at giteguru.com
Source: thegoodlifefrance.com