You find the flat, and the agency announces "one month's rent in fees". That was the norm fifteen years ago. Today it's illegal: since the ALUR law, the tenant's share of agency fees is capped per square metre, and split with the landlord.
What the agency can charge you
Only four services can be shared between you and the landlord:
- the viewing;
- putting your dossier together;
- drafting the lease;
- the check-in report (état des lieux d'entrée).
Everything else is the landlord's alone: advertising the listing, marketing the flat, management, and a check-out report done by mutual agreement.
The 2026 caps
For the viewing, dossier and lease, per square metre of living space:
- €12.10 in very high-demand areas (Paris and part of the inner suburbs);
- €10.09 in high-demand areas (most large cities);
- €8.07 elsewhere.
For the check-in report: €3.03 per m², everywhere.
These caps are revised every year on 1 January, in line with the rent reference index (IRL).
The calculation for your flat
Your share is the lower of these two amounts:
- the per-m² cap × the living space;
- half of what the agency charges in total.
In other words, you never pay more than the landlord.
Example: 30 m² in Paris.
- Viewing, dossier, lease: €12.10 × 30 = €363 at most.
- Check-in report: €3.03 × 30 = €90.90 at most.
- Total: €453.90 at most. A long way from one month's rent at €1,200.
Service-public.fr offers an official calculator to work it out to the euro.
What an agency can never charge you
- application fees on top of the cap, or simply for reviewing your application;
- "reservation" or "brokerage" fees;
- a check-out report done by mutual agreement;
- the cost of advertising or photographing the listing;
- anything before the lease is signed.
A serious agency displays its fees on its listings and in its window. If the amount announced is above the cap, ask for the breakdown: quoting the cap is often enough for the bill to drop.
To check an amount before you sign, our agency fees and deposit calculator sets each sum asked against its cap, in seconds.
And without an agency?
If you rent directly from a private landlord, there are no agency fees at all. The landlord can't replace them with "application fees" or "lease drafting fees": those are simply forbidden.
Either way, check the rent itself too: in Paris it has a cap, and the rent checker gives it to you in seconds.
Sources: service-public.fr, ANIL.
