The 30 most profitable towns to invest in France
One Place tracks 518 towns in France with more than 10,000 residents and enough live apartment listings to price both sides of a rental yield. The median across all of them is 6.5% gross. Here are the highest scoring.
Market figures last recomputed on October 6, 2026.
Every town, scored
A town qualifies with at least 25 apartment sale listings and 15 apartment rental listings priced per square metre. The badge next to each name says how much data stands behind that town's figures.
Counted on the thinner of a town's two sides: whichever of its sale and rental listings is the smaller number.
The ranking, on the ground
All 30 towns, placed. The brighter the marker, the higher the gross yield. Hover any town for its numbers.
Markers sit on each town's administrative centre. Towns that sit close together overlap at this scale.
Put two towns side by side
The same budget in two towns. Floor area and rental income, straight from the medians in the table.
Floor area and rental income are derived from each town's median sale price per m² and median gross yield. Rental income is before tax, fees and vacancy. Yields inside a town vary by building and by size: these are town medians.
How this ranking is built
Gross yield is the median asking rent per m² per month multiplied by twelve, divided by the median asking sale price per m². Both sides are apartments only, and both are converted to euros before anything is compared.
The score out of 100 blends three measured quantities: the gross yield (60%, scored from 3.0% upwards and topping out at 12.0%), the town's population (25%, which stands in for how deep the tenant and resale markets are), and how many listings sit behind the estimate (15%).
What these numbers are not
- Both sides are asking prices, not signed prices or achieved rents. Where public transaction data lets us check, asking and sold prices per m² track within a few percent, but the level is an asking level.
- Nothing here is net of property tax, service charges, management, insurance, maintenance or vacancy. A net yield usually lands somewhere around two thirds of gross, and the gap varies far too much between countries to publish a single conversion.
- Rental listings are smaller than sale listings almost everywhere, and price per m² rises as flats get smaller. That lifts a yield built from two independent medians above what a town's typical sale stock would return. Towns where the size mismatch is extreme are dropped rather than adjusted.
- Population comes from Wikidata, which mirrors each country's own statistics office. A town we hold no population for cannot be ranked, however good its price data.
Prices and rents: live listings indexed by One Place. Population: Wikidata (CC0). Administrative boundaries: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Questions about this ranking
How is the gross rental yield for towns in France calculated?
We take the median asking rent per square metre per month for apartments in the town, multiply it by twelve, and divide it by the median asking sale price per square metre for apartments in the same town. Both figures come from live listings indexed by One Place, and a town only appears once each side carries enough listings to be meaningful.
Which towns in France are included?
Every municipality with at least 10,000 residents that carries enough live apartment listings to price both sale and rent. 518 towns in France currently qualify; the table shows the highest scoring of them.
Is this a net yield?
No. These are gross figures, before property tax, service charges, management fees, insurance, maintenance and vacancy. A net yield is usually somewhere around two thirds of gross, but the gap varies enough between countries and between individual buildings that we do not publish a single conversion.
How often does the ranking change?
It is rebuilt from the live listing base, so it moves as prices and inventory move. The date above the table is the last time the underlying market aggregates were recomputed.
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