A month in Marseille

France has one short furnished lease, the bail mobilité. It runs from one to ten months, cannot be renewed, allows no deposit and can be ended by the tenant at any time on one month's written notice given by registered letter, by a commissaire de justice or by hand. It is reserved for professional training, higher education, an apprenticeship, an internship, civic service, a professional transfer or a temporary mission, with a document to prove it, so a month by the sea does not qualify.

A holiday month therefore stays a tourist let. In Marseille the host declares the lodging entirely online through the city's taxe de séjour site, which replaced the paper CERFA form, and that declaration produces the registration number which must appear in the listing. National law also forbids letting a main residence to the same guest for more than 90 consecutive nights.

The ministry's 2025 guide set May 2026 as the date registration became compulsory everywhere in France through a single national portal; whether that portal is live was unverified as of September 2026. A listing for a long stay that cannot show its number is worth questioning before a deposit is paid.

The taxe de séjour is charged per person per night, and the Marseille rate sheet in force since 1 January 2023 sets no ceiling on the number of nights; whether a later sheet replaces it was unverified as of September 2026. A three-star room is EUR 2.16 a night per person with the additions included, a four-star room EUR 3.25.

Most whole-flat listings are unclassified, and those are charged at 4 per cent of the cost of the night per person before tax, which becomes 5.76 per cent once the 10 per cent departmental addition and the 34 per cent addition for the Société de la Ligne Nouvelle Provence Côte d'Azur are counted, capped at EUR 5.76 per person per night. From EUR 100 a night per person before tax the cap applies and the tax stops growing.

The host has to display the rates in the lodging and to show the tax on the invoice as a separate line from its own services, without VAT and without rounding. When a platform takes the payment, the platform collects the tax instead.

A guest who is not a French national fills in a fiche de police at check-in, in a hotel and in a flat alike, and the host keeps it for six months and gives it to the police or the gendarmerie on request.

Non-EU visitors, which includes British and American travellers, may stay 90 days in any 180 across the whole Schengen area, and the EU Entry/Exit System has registered those stays since 10 April 2026. Days spent in Spain or Italy before arriving count against the same allowance. EU and EEA citizens need no visa and travel on an identity card or passport.

No vehicle may stand on the same space for more than 24 consecutive hours anywhere in Marseille, and inside the paid central zone the limit falls to 4 hours 30 on a yellow or orange street and 2 hours 30 on a red one. A month therefore needs an off-street space, and it is worth asking the host for one in writing before paying.

La Joliette and Euroméditerranée suit a month with a car, about 2 km from the Vieux-Port. Castellane and the Prado, on the southern boulevards, are the same distance from the port. Notre-Dame-du-Mont and the Cours Julien suit a month spent mostly on foot.

Les Goudes suits a month built around the Calanques, about 11 km from the port, but the park's own measures shape the days: barriers and control points on the roads beyond, Cap Croisette closed to cars since March 2021, and a prefectoral fire-risk rating from 1 June to 30 September that can close the massifs entirely at a day's notice.

Airbnb calls 28 nights or more a monthly stay. It charges the first month up front and releases it to the host 24 hours after check-in, then charges each later month 10 days before it starts. None of that changes the tax, which Marseille charges per person per night either way and the platform collects when it takes the payment.

How other platforms word their long-stay terms for Marseille was not verified as of September 2026.

Assuming a bail mobilité is available for a holiday. It is open only to study, training and work mobility, and the owner may ask for proof.

Booking more than 90 consecutive nights in one tourist flat. National law forbids it with the same guest.

Planning on street parking. The city-wide maximum on one space is 24 hours, and far less in the centre.

Building a month around the Calanques without checking the daily fire rating. From 1 June to 30 September a red day closes the park on land.

Counting Schengen days only in France. The 90 days in 180 run across the whole area, and the Entry/Exit System records them.