The Ministry of Housing is trying to reassure rental investorsthe day after the filing of a amendment to the draft finance law (PLF) for 2026 creating a tax status for the private lessor judged minimalist. It is about “from a starting point subject to the National Assembly»promises the ministry in a press release published this Friday, October 24. While a sustainable tax status of private landlords has been demanded for around ten years by the National Union of Real Estate Owners (Unpi) and the National Real Estate Federation (Fnaim), among others, the government amendment arouses in the latter a “deep disappointment”. And for good reason: it proposes, for any rental investment in new properties made from January 1, 2026, to allow the lessor to deduct each year from the rent received only 2% of the purchase price of the accommodation, according to the principle of depreciation, provided that the property is rented bare for at least nine years.
On the one hand, this depreciation rate of 2% is more than twice lower than the 5% recommended by the Daubresse-Cosson parliamentary report, submitted last June to the former Minister of Housing Valérie Létard. On the other hand, so that this device “does not result in an unreasonable tax advantage in view of the expectations of our fellow citizens in terms of tax justice”the government amendment caps the amount of deductible depreciation at 5,000 euros per year.
An amendment written 90% by Bercy
Above all, while the Daubresse-Cosson mission recommends a depreciation rate of 4% for old homesnothing of the sort appears in the government’s amendment. For the energy renovation of old housing, it offers “extend for two years the exceptional system for doubling the capacity to charge the land deficit to overall income”. As a reminder, the property deficit, which exists when your charges are greater than your rental income, is deductible from your overall income, up to a limit of 10,700 euros per year. An amount which had been increased to 21,400 euros for the expenses of energy renovation work carried out between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025.
But Fnaim does not budge, “the government’s amendment focuses exclusively on the new, a total contradiction while the old stock represents the first reservoir of immediately available housing”. “The government amendment was 90% written by Bercy, hence its minimalist version” in a context of degraded public finances, recognizes a ministerial source. While ensuring that “the desire of Housing Minister Vincent Jeanbrun is to find a compromise“, during the parliamentary debate on the PLF, between budgetary constraints and the demands of the real estate sector, so that “rental investments in old properties can also benefit from the depreciation mechanism”.
Better parliamentary amendments
The government amendment “constitutes a common basis for discussionthe Prime Minister recalled that the government proposes and that parliamentarians vote”insists the Ministry of Housing. Parliamentarians determined to make their voices heard, relaying those of the real estate federations: several deputies, from various sides (Libertés, independents, overseas and territories (Liot), Horizons, Republican Right, Democrats), tabled amendments better than that of the government, proposing depreciation rates of between 3.5% and 5% for rental investments in new properties and between 3% and 3.5% in old properties, with rate bonuses in the event of rents below those of the market, as proposed by the Daubresse-Cosson report.
