How to Furnish a Studio Apartment in Paris: Rules, Budget, and Rent Impact

A furnished studio is one of the most reliable rental products in Paris. It lets quickly, it suits the city's constant flow of international professionals, and it opens the door to a favourable tax status. It also comes with a legal checklist, and missing a single item on that list can turn your one-year furnished lease into a three-year unfurnished one.

This guide explains what the law requires before you buy a single piece of furniture, what a realistic budget looks like in 2026, and how Paris rent control changes the way furnishing pays you back. It is written for owners, including those managing a studio from the United States, the United Kingdom, or anywhere outside France.

If you are furnishing to rent, the goal is not a beautiful studio. It is a compliant studio that the right tenant signs for and stays in.

Every furnished rental in France must contain the furniture and equipment listed in décret n° 2015-981 of 31 July 2015. This is not a recommendation. It is the legal definition of "furnished", and your lease type, your tax status, and your deposit terms all depend on it.

The 11-item legal furniture checklist

The tenant must be able to move in with nothing but personal belongings. In practice, your studio needs:

• Bedding, including a duvet or blanket
• Blackout window covering in the sleeping area (curtains, blinds, or shutters)
• Cooking hob with at least two rings
• Oven or microwave
• Refrigerator with a freezer compartment
• Dishes and kitchen utensils for the number of occupants
• Table and seating
• Shelving or storage
• Light fittings in every room
• Cleaning equipment suited to the property (vacuum cleaner, mop, broom)

Two details matter specifically for studios. The single main room legally counts as the bedroom, so blackout covering is mandatory there. And a quality sofa bed can replace a fixed bed, which is often the smarter layout choice under 25 m².

What happens if one item is missing

A tenant can ask a judge to requalify the lease as an unfurnished rental. If that happens, your one-year bail meublé becomes a three-year lease with six months of landlord notice, and your LMNP status (Loueur en Meublé Non Professionnel, the tax regime for private furnished landlords) can be challenged along with its deductions.

The protection is simple: a detailed furniture inventory, signed and annexed to the lease at the état des lieux, the entry inspection. The full process is covered in our guide to the Paris apartment inventory and deposit protection.

Legal minimum vs what Paris tenants actually expect

The décret list is a floor, not a standard. A studio furnished to the strict minimum is legal and spartan. The Paris market, especially the international segment, treats a washing machine, a proper desk, and quality bedding as baseline. You will see why this gap matters in the budget and tenant sections below.

Plan between €1,800 and €6,000 in 2026, depending on the standard you are targeting. The right tier depends on the tenant you want, not on the size of the studio.

Choosing the right tier for your tenant

Three levels cover the Paris market:

• Entry-level (€1,800 to €2,500): simple, functional pieces. Suits student lets and tight initial budgets.
• Mid-range (€2,500 to €4,000): the sensible default for long-term rentals. A worked example: an 18 m² studio furnished at this level lands around €2,600 all in.
• Executive-grade (€4,000 to €6,000): design-led furniture and full equipment for the corporate and diplomatic market. This is the tier where furnishing becomes a commercial asset rather than a legal obligation.

What the main items cost this year

The bed carries the budget, and rightly so: a quality bed or sofa bed runs €250 to €700 and drives tenant satisfaction more than any other purchase. Around it, count €150 to €400 for a compact table and seating, and €200 to €500 for storage, which matters more in Paris than elsewhere since most buildings have no built-in closets.

The legally required kitchen adds up quickly but predictably: €100 to €250 for a hob with at least two rings, €80 to €150 for a microwave or mini oven, €200 to €400 for a fridge with a freezer box, and €100 to €200 for dishes and utensils. Match quantities to the number of occupants, then double them so tenants are never washing up mid-week.

The finishing layer rounds out the fit-out: €100 to €250 for curtains and lighting (blackout covering is mandatory in the sleeping area), €100 to €200 for neutral décor that photographs well, and €70 to €200 for the vacuum and cleaning kit the law requires.

The tax angle on your furniture spend

If you rent under LMNP at the régime réel, furniture is depreciated over 5 to 10 years against rental income. In practice, that spreads the real cost of a €3,000 fit-out across a decade of tax returns, which changes the arithmetic considerably.

One warning from experience: under-spending is the expensive option. Cheap furniture fails fast in a rental that changes hands every year and a half, and replacement plus vacancy costs more than buying solid pieces once.

Here is the part most furnishing guides skip. In Paris, you cannot simply add 20% to the rent because the studio is furnished. The encadrement des loyers, the capital's rent control system, caps furnished rents too.

How the furnished rent cap works

Every lease signed in Paris is subject to a ceiling called the loyer de référence majoré: the median rent for comparable properties in the same zone, plus 20%. Paris is divided into 80 zones, and the ceilings are updated by prefectoral order every year (the current values apply to leases signed between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026).

Furnished properties get their own, higher reference rents, which include a fixed annual uplift. That uplift is the only furnished premium the law allows. You can check your exact ceiling on the official simulator via the City of Paris rent control page, and our article on how Paris rent control rules work walks through the mechanics in detail.

When you can legally charge above the cap

A complément de loyer, a justified rent supplement, is possible only for genuinely exceptional features: a large terrace, a remarkable view, standout characteristics that comparable properties lack. Standard good furniture does not qualify on its own.

Tread carefully here. Roughly one Paris listing in two exceeded the legal ceiling in 2025, tenants have three years from signature to contest, and fines reach €5,000 for individuals. A contested supplement is usually a lost supplement.

Where good furnishing actually pays

Since the rent itself is capped, quality furnishing pays through three other channels:

• Tenant calibre. A well-furnished studio reaches tenants who pay the full lawful rent without negotiation and treat the property well.
• Tenancy length. Furnished tenancies in Paris average around 16 months. Comfortable, durable furnishing is what pushes tenants past that mark and saves you a re-letting cycle.
• Fewer disputes. A precise inventory of quality items makes deposit disagreements rare and short.

The tenants who make a Paris studio perform are relocated executives, embassy staff, entrepreneurs on assignment, and professionals sent by American and British employers. They arrive with a suitcase, they decide fast, and they benchmark your studio against serviced apartments, not against student rooms.

What this tenant profile checks before signing

Five things come up in almost every viewing with this audience, and none of them appear on the legal list:

• A real workspace. A desk with task lighting is now a filter criterion, not a bonus. Remote and hybrid work made it non-negotiable.
• Verified internet. Corporate tenants ask which fibre provider serves the building. Check the line before you list, not after.
• A washing machine. This profile does not use a shared laverie. A compact machine fits under most kitchen counters.
• Hotel-standard bedding and towels. Diplomatic and executive postings often start the day after arrival. The first night sets the tone for the whole tenancy.
• Furniture scaled to the building. Haussmann rooms have height but not width. Low, small-footprint pieces keep the volume readable, and they fit through staircases in buildings without lifts.

Furnishing remotely as an overseas landlord

Many owners in this market live in New York, London, or elsewhere abroad. Furnishing from a distance is workable if you sequence it: confirm the DPE first (G-rated properties have been banned from new leases since January 2025, so furnish nothing before checking), then schedule deliveries in one window, then have every item photographed into the inventory before the first viewing.

If you would rather not run that sequence across time zones, our guide to managing a Paris property from abroad covers what can be delegated and what it costs.

For a Paris studio, furnished wins for most owners, but not for the reason most people assume.

The rent premium and what the cap leaves of it

Furnished studios list 10 to 20% above unfurnished equivalents, and up to 25% in central arrondissements. In Paris, however, the rent ceiling absorbs most of that headline gap: the furnished uplift built into your zone's reference rent is the entire legal premium. The decisive advantages sit elsewhere, in the lease terms and the tax treatment, compared line by line in the table below.

The turnover trade-off

Furnished tenants leave sooner. Every departure costs cleaning, small repairs, and marketing time, and if you delegate, professional management in Paris runs 4 to 10% of monthly rent including tax, as detailed in our guide to property management fees and rules in Paris. That is precisely why the executive-grade furnishing strategy above matters: it is the difference between re-letting every 16 months and keeping one excellent tenant for three years.

Relocation in Paris works both sides of the furnished market every day, and that is the honest reason this guide reads the way it does. The furnishing advice above is not theory. It reflects what actually gets signed.

From furnishing to a signed, compliant lease

For owners, our property management service covers the full chain: furnishing to legal standard, pricing within your zone's ceiling, tenant screening, the inventory, and ongoing owner reporting. Landlords who prefer to self-manage after placement can use the tenant search alone.

Why our tenant pipeline starts on the other side of the market

Our team also runs tailored property searches for executives, diplomats, and families relocating to Paris, with transparent packages for every situation. That search activity is what feeds landlords a pipeline of pre-qualified international tenants before a listing ever reaches the public platforms. When we say we know what a corporate tenant checks in a furnished studio, it is because we stood next to them at the viewing.