Finding somewhere to live in Lyon

The dossier is the only gate

France has no address registration at all, so there is nothing to file at a mairie and no certificate of residence to collect. The gate is private instead: the dossier de location, and a landlord's choice between files. The permitted list is fixed by law, being one piece of photo ID, one proof of your current housing, one or more proofs of activity and one or more proofs of income, with the same four categories again from a personal guarantor. Asking for anything outside that list is punishable by a fine of up to €3,000 for an individual and €15,000 for a company, and no money whatever may be demanded before the lease is signed, including a fee to reserve a flat.

• Proof of current housing: rent receipts, a host's attestation, a domicile election or a property-tax notice.
• Proof of activity: an employment contract, an employer attestation, a business registration or a student card.
• Proof of income: tax notices, recent payslips, benefits or housing-aid attestations.
• A corporate guarantor supplies a K-bis under three months old plus the representative's ID. If the guarantee is Visale, the visa certificate alone is enough.
• DossierFacile is the state's own free digital rental file. It watermarks the finished dossier and gives you a shareable link with an expiry date and a log of who opened it.
• PAP lists private landlords with no agency fee. SeLoger, Leboncoin and Bien'ici are the other sites people here use, alongside agency shopfronts and colocation groups.

Encadrement des loyers, and the complément trap

The base rent may not exceed the loyer de référence majoré for a comparable flat in the same area, which is set by location, number of rooms and construction period. A complément de loyer may be added only where the flat has genuinely exceptional characteristics and the base rent is already at that ceiling. The reference figures come from a préfectoral order published on rhone.gouv.fr and renewed annually, so read the ceiling in the order in force on the day you sign, or ask ADIL du Rhône, which advises tenants and landlords alike for nothing. It is also the right place to take a lease you are unsure about before you sign it.

• Three months from signing to challenge a complément de loyer, through the departmental conciliation commission. A base rent above the ceiling has no such deadline: ask the landlord for a reduction, then the commission, then the court.
• A complément de loyer is forbidden outright on leases signed since 18 August 2022 where the flat has an F or G energy rating, damp or inadequate facilities.
• A G-rated home may not be newly let in mainland France at all for leases signed, renewed or tacitly rolled over from 1 January 2025. F follows on 1 January 2028 and E on 1 January 2034.
• If you are already in a non-compliant flat, notify the landlord by recorded-delivery letter.
• Where a flat has been empty under 18 months the landlord cannot reset the rent freely; any rise is limited to the IRL revision, to 50% of the gap to market rent where the old rent was demonstrably undervalued, or to works-based uplifts.
• ADIL du Rhône: 9 rue Vauban, public entrance 47 rue Molière, 69006 Lyon, 04 78 52 84 84.

What a square metre costs, and what the agency may charge

The gap between Lyon's arrondissements is far smaller than their reputations suggest. On the state's 2025 advertised-rent indicators for one- and two-room flats the 2nd is dearest at €20.31 per square metre and the 7th sits at €18.79, a spread of about eight per cent rather than the quarter people expect. Villeurbanne at €18.07, the 8th at €18.46 and the 9th at €18.43 are all cheaper per square metre than the 7th. Family-sized flats cost less per square metre than studios everywhere in the city, running from €14.29 in the 5th to €16.73 in the 6th.

• Tenant-side agency fees are capped per square metre of living area and rose for the first time since 2014, by 0.87%, for leases signed from 1 January 2026.
• The ceilings are €12.10 per m² in zone très tendue, €10.09 in zone tendue and €8.07 elsewhere, plus a separate état des lieux fee capped at €3.03 per m² everywhere.
• Zone très tendue is the A bis list around Paris. Lyon is not on it, but it is on the taxe sur les logements vacants list that defines zone tendue, so the €10.09 band applies — a ceiling of about €787 on a 60 m² flat once the inventory fee is added. The simulator on service-public.gouv.fr prices your own case.
• The agency prices its own service, but your share may never exceed either half its invoice or the per-square-metre ceiling, whichever is lower. A fee quoted as a percentage of the annual rent tells you nothing about either, so check it against both.

Lease, deposit, notice

An unfurnished lease runs three years, a furnished one a year, and a student let nine months. The deposit is capped at one month's rent excluding charges unfurnished and two months furnished, and quarterly rent payment alongside a deposit is prohibited. Lyon is a zone tendue, so your notice on an unfurnished lease drops from three months to one, while furnished notice is one month anyway and the landlord must give six months unfurnished or three furnished, only at lease end. Rent may be revised annually on an unfurnished lease if the contract carries an indexation clause, and not at all during the term of a furnished one.

• The deposit comes back within one month of key handover if the exit état des lieux matches the entry one, two months if it does not.
• Late return costs the landlord 10% of one month's rent excluding charges for each month of delay started, so chase it.
• You may not use the deposit to pay your last month's rent.
• Assurance habitation covering risques locatifs is compulsory. The certificate is produced at signing and renewed annually.
• Taxe d'habitation was abolished on main residences on 1 January 2023, so a tenant here pays no occupancy tax.
• APL from CAF is not retroactive at all. It runs from the first day of the month after you apply and is paid on the 5th.
• Since 1 July 2026, a student from outside the EU, EEA or Switzerland on a student residence permit qualifies for APL only if they hold a means-tested grant, work, or are on an apprenticeship or professionalisation contract.

Landing before you have a dossier

The bail mobilité is the realistic first lease for someone arriving without a French file. It runs one to ten months for students, apprentices, people on a temporary professional assignment, in vocational training or on a professional relocation, is non-renewable and non-transferable, and can be extended once by amendment inside that ten-month total. No deposit may be taken, the tenant gives one month's written notice, and Visale can guarantee it. What it buys you is an address, which is what the bank, the CPAM and the school registration all want next.

• Visale is free to tenant and landlord, covers up to 36 months of unpaid rent plus two months' rent of departure damage, and must be applied for before the lease is signed.
• The visa certificate arrives in a few working days and is what you show the landlord.
• Outside Île-de-France it covers students and apprentices up to €840 rent charges comprises with no income test, and €840 to €1,575 where total resources exceed €1,680. The exact ceiling depends on the commune, and the simulator on service-public.gouv.fr gives yours.
• Other eligible tenants are covered up to €1,575 charges comprises, with rent no more than half their total resources.
• Eligibility runs from 17 years 10 months to 30 inclusive. From 31 it is limited to seasonal workers and to private-sector employees hired or transferred within the last six months, or earning €1,710 net a month or less.
• That six-month route is the one that matters for a relocating professional: an incoming employee of any age can use Visale instead of hunting for a French guarantor.

In order

1. 1Apply for Visale before you start viewing, because the visa has to be in hand before a lease is signed.
2. 2Build the dossier on DossierFacile: ID, proof of current housing, proof of activity, proof of income, and the same four from any guarantor.
3. 3Open a French bank account so you can hand over a RIB at signing.
4. 4Check the advertised rent against the loyer de référence majoré for the quartier, and ask ADIL du Rhône if you cannot find the figure.
5. 5Refuse any request for money before signature, and any document outside the permitted list.
6. 6Read the energy rating on the lease, since a G-rated flat may not be newly let and a complément de loyer on an F or G flat is unlawful.
7. 7Take out assurance habitation covering risques locatifs and bring the attestation to the signing.
8. 8Do the état des lieux d'entrée in detail and keep your signed copy, because the deposit is judged against it.
9. 9Apply to CAF the month you move in, since APL runs only from the month after the application.