Running a gîte in France is a fantastic way of generating income, whether you just want to top up your pension, make your second home pay its bills, or run a serious business to live from. Whilst there is a general description of what a gîte is, there are many variations and target groups to match. What choices are you going to make in creating a gîte? Rupert Springfield from Gîte Guru walks us through some of the choices in this essential Guide to creating a gîte in France.
Gîtes or chambre d’hôtes, that is the question?
Which suits you and your property better? Both offer accommodation to travelers, but that is where the similarities end. A chambres d’hôtes is a B&B offering a bedroom in the owner’s home, bedding, breakfast and daily cleaning. A host is required to be present for checking-in and caring for guests.
A gîte is a self-contained unit with its own entrance where guests can cook for themselves. A gîte does not have to offer bedding, breakfast, or daily cleaning. You can live away from the gîte, even in another country, with a third party acting as a contact person for your guests. So the property already determines which type of accommodation you’ll offer – is it an independent dwelling, or rooms in your own house?
A single chambre d’hôtes is limited to offering a maximum of 5 rooms and accommodating a maximum of 15 people. A gîte is unlimited, but like a chambres d’hôtes, if it accommodates more than 15 people, it is considered an ERP (Etablissement Recevant du Public) and must comply with high safety standards, such as fire doors, emergency exit signs, automatic safety lighting, etc.
Table d’hôtes
B&B guests like to be able dine nearby, so if your location is quite isolated, offering table d’hôtes will help increase your B&B bookings, your income and of course, your workload. Table d’hôtes means that you welcome your guests to your table for an evening meal. A single choice of 3 courses is offered (perhaps with a vegetarian option) unlike a restaurant menu with varied dishes.
Only guests of the chambres d’hôtes are allowed to join you at the table—passers-by or local residents are not allowed, otherwise you will have to comply with restaurant regulations. If you plan to serve alcohol, you must apply for a liquor license called a petite licence de restaurant and complete a compulsory training course called a permis d’exploitation.
Consider the rental options
A gîte is often rented out for a week, especially in the summer months, and you’ll perhaps get twenty to forty bookings a year. A chambres d’hôtes room is rented out per night, so will require many more bookings to make a good amount of income. If there are several B&B rooms, you may need hundreds of bookings per year.
Each booking requires communication with your guest before they arrive, arranging payments, preparing the room or house, welcoming your guests, answering their questions, and finally checking them out. And all this usually once a week for a gîte, but several times for a chambres d’hôtes. In addition, a chambres d’hôtes owner may offer table d’hôtes and certainly breakfast (which means an early start!) and daily cleaning of the room. So running a B&B requires a much greater investment of your time than a gîte.
Hospitality is a quality for both types of owner – being warm, friendly, helpful and respectful to all your different guests. But an owner of a chambres d’hôtes is required to be on site to welcome guests and let them share their home, whilst a gîte owner never even has to meet them. Are you the type of host who relishes sharing your space and being on hand for your guests, or would you view that as an invasion of your privacy?!
What’s your customer base
Will the facilities and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in your gîte attract couples, families or intergenerational families? We have a 5-bedroom gîte and a 1-bedroom cottage next door; the cottage is perfect for grandparents who want to holiday with their children and grandchildren but want to be able to retreat to their own space when they want to!
What nationalities will your guests be? This will partly be determined by the ease of travel to your area from other countries; the Dordogne has a lot of Brits, Dutch and Belgians (all served by Bergerac airport) whilst Provence has better flight connections with a wider range of nationalities.
You could also decide to obtain labels for your gîte to be able to welcome specific groups, such as the Tourisme et Handicap label (adapting your gîte so that it’s accessible to guests in wheelchairs, or visually impaired people) or an Eco label. There are a number of these, such as Gîtes de France’s own Ecogîte label, or Clef Verte or the EU Ecolabel. These labels help you promote your gîte’s environmental performance, for instance focusing on reduced energy/water use, sustainable materials, and waste management,
Does VAT shape what you offer?
Most gîtes are (fortunately) exempt from charging 10% VAT to their guests. If your gîte business earns under €85,000 p.a. (2026), you are exempt. If you earn over this, then you must not accept stays of over 30 nights, and not offer 3 or 4 of the following 4 para-hotelier services:
- Breakfast – most gîtes don’t offer this
- Bed linen – most gîtes do offer this
- Reception – all gîtes offer this, as either a welcome in person or a key left in a keybox meets this criterion
- Regular cleaning – there has been much debate by the Conseil d’Etat about the definition of this. The 2026 definition is that one clean a week (which is the changeover clean) is not considered regular cleaning.
If you earn over €85,000 p.a., don’t offer midweek cleaning, and don’t take bookings over 30 nights, you can remain exempt from charging VAT.
Gîte Guru
Rupert recognises how complicated the rules and regulations for fellow gîte owners are, and how staying up to date with the continual changes is difficult. He posts regularly on Instagram @gite.guru with updates and important info to help you, and in The Gîte Podcast (on YouTube youtube.com/@TheGitePodcast and all good podcast platforms) he discusses the ups and downs or registration and running gîtes with other owners. All this information and inspiration is free!
However, for advice tailor-made to your gîte and plans, you can find out more or book a consultation with him at giteguru.com
