The dépôt de garantie: France's deposit rules, from the source

Service-public.fr defines the dépôt de garantie as the sum the landlord holds against future tenant defaults, and sets the arithmetic for the standard unfurnished lease: at most one month's rent, excluding charges, written into the lease itself. Two protections ride with the cap: the amount cannot be increased during the lease or at its renewal, and at the end of the tenancy the landlord must return it under the restitution rules. The page also notes the common vocabulary error — French speakers say caution, which legally means a guarantor, not the deposit.

The rhythm of payment matters at the edges: where the lease has rent payable every two months in advance, the deposit mechanics differ — the same source covers that case, and furnished leases run under their own ceiling. When a listing asks for more than the applicable cap, the number itself is the red flag.

Source: Service-public.fr, F31269 — dépôt de garantie, read 4 September 2026.

Deposit disputes are end-of-tenancy disputes, and they are won at move-in: the état des lieux (inventory of condition) signed at entry is the document the exit comparison runs against. Pay the deposit traceably, keep the lease stating the amount, photograph what the inventory describes — the boring file is the winning file.

For the wider first-apartment picture in France — the guarantor culture, the dossier — the France hub and our moving-to-France guides carry the context; deposits elsewhere run different caps, as our Germany page shows with triple the ceiling.

Housing proof threads through French immigration paperwork — an address underpins the OFII validation, the prefecture file and the practical life around both. The rental file and the visa file are separate tracks with one shared discipline: complete papers, on time, every time. Our checklist prints the whole arrival sequence in order:

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