Student Rental Application in France: All the Documents You Need to Rent (Even Without a Guarantor)

A strong rental application is one that is complete, easy to read and proves you will be able to pay your rent. The good news: a landlord is not allowed to ask you for just anything. The list of documents they can require is exhaustive, set by Decree no. 2015-1437 of 5 November 2015 (source: service-public.gouv.fr, updated 2025). In practice, you need to gather four families of supporting documents: identity, address, situation and income. On top of those, student residences systematically require a guarantor or a rent guarantee.

No solid guarantor available? It is students' number-one worry, and it has concrete solutions that we detail further down. On Adele, a 100% free portal for students since 1997, every rent guarantee is accepted (Garantme, SmartGarant, Cautioneo, Visale): you are never blocked by this single question.

• What a strong application must prove
• The documents to provide, category by category
• Your application based on your profile
• The guarantor: who, and how much must they earn?
• Renting without a guarantor: your concrete solutions
• The documents a landlord cannot ask for
• When and how to submit your application

What a strong application must prove

When a landlord reads your application, they are trying to answer a single question: "Will this tenant pay their rent, every month, without trouble?" Everything else follows from that. A convincing application therefore demonstrates three things:

• Who you are (identity and status: student, work-study student or young professional);
• What income you have (grant, salary from a job or a work-study contract, benefits);
• What security you bring if things go wrong (a guarantor or a rent guarantee).

The student housing market is tight in big cities: at the start of term, several applicants often target the same home. So this is not just an administrative formality: a clean, complete application on the first try puts you ahead. That is exactly what you are preparing below.

The documents to provide, category by category

Here are the four families of documents a landlord can legitimately ask you for, with the supporting papers suited to your situation as a student (source: Decree 2015-1437, summarised by service-public.gouv.fr):

A few reflexes that make the difference:

• Clean, legible copies, as a PDF or a well-framed photo, with one file per document (and not everything bundled into a single file).
• Recent supporting documents: an enrolment certificate for the current year, payslips from the last three months.
• Nothing unnecessary: you do not have to overload your application with documents that were not requested. A complete, orderly application beats a thick, confusing one.

Your application based on your profile

Not every student has the same strong point. Here is the document that matters most for you and the best-suited guarantee, depending on your situation:

To dig deeper into the support available based on your status, also have a look at our guides on student grants and loans and on the two housing allowances you can claim from the CAF: APL and ALS.

The guarantor: who, and how much must they earn?

The guarantor (or surety) is the person who agrees to pay your rent in your place if you cannot do so (source: ANIL). Most of the time, it is your parents. Their file follows the same four categories as yours: identity, address, activity, income.

Two forms of guarantee exist:

• The joint and several guarantee: the landlord can claim the rent directly from the guarantor from the very first missed payment.
• The simple guarantee: the landlord must first take action against you before turning to your guarantor.

In a student residence (private management), it is the joint and several guarantee that applies: the manager can call on your guarantor from the very first unpaid rent, and the simple guarantee is almost never used there. Good to know: the Visale guarantee and rent guarantee companies also work on this joint and several basis. That is precisely why they can replace a personal guarantor.

The "three times the rent" rule: a custom, not a law

You will read everywhere that a guarantor must earn at least three times the amount of the rent. That is true in practice… but it is not a legal obligation: no text sets this ratio (source: ANIL). It is a custom landlords use to gauge the guarantor's solvency. Good to know: if your guarantor earns a little less, nothing stops you from submitting your application, and above all, alternatives exist.

Renting without a guarantor: your concrete solutions

This is the heart of the problem for many students. If your relatives cannot act as guarantors, or do not "tick the boxes", you are still not shut out of renting. Here are the solutions, compared:

On Adele, all of these guarantees are accepted. In reality, the most common case is still a joint and several guarantee from a relative, often a parent. But if you do not have a guarantor available, or if they are not considered solvent enough, the rent guarantee company is the most actionable alternative: a trusted third party acts as guarantor in your place, for a fee. This solution is growing fast and is now widely recognised by residences.

Going through a rent guarantee company (the most actionable solution)

A rent guarantee company replaces your guarantor: it commits to the landlord to cover any unpaid rent, in exchange for a fee you pay. It is the go-to solution when you have no guarantor, and the one residences accept most readily. Our partners cover most student profiles:

• Garantme: 100% online application, fast answer, widely accepted by residences.
• SmartGarant: a guarantee for students and young professionals, including without a French guarantor.
• Cautioneo: another recognised rent guarantee company.

What about the Visale guarantee?

The Visale guarantee is a free public surety provided by Action Logement. It is open to 18-30 year-olds and, for students, with no income requirement up to a rent ceiling that varies by area (roughly €680 to €1,000 including charges for students; source: visale.fr, 2026 scale). On paper, it is appealing.

A point of honesty, though: not all residences accept it, far from it. Before building your application around Visale, check that it is accepted by the residence you are targeting and test your eligibility directly on visale.fr. If the residence does not take it, a rent guarantee company remains your best option.

To go further on Action Logement's schemes, see our guide to LOCAPASS, which can finance your security deposit.

The documents a landlord is NOT allowed to ask you for

This is your protection, and many students are unaware of it. Article 22-2 of the Act of 6 July 1989 prohibits the landlord from requesting, among other things (source: service-public.gouv.fr):

• a passport-style photo (other than the one on your ID document);
• your health insurance card (carte Vitale);
• a copy of a bank statement or a certificate of good account standing;
• a direct debit authorisation;
• a criminal record extract;
• a certificate of no outstanding loan;
• a booking cheque for the home.

When and how to submit your application

Prepare your application before you even start searching: in a tight market, speed often makes the difference. As soon as you have found the residence or residences you are interested in, you can send a complete application straight away.

A few presentation tips:

• One file per requested document, ordered by category (identity, address, situation, income, then the guarantor's documents): this is what most online submission platforms expect.
• Send all the requested documents: a complete application on the first try avoids back-and-forth and saves you time.
• Stay reachable: an application that gets a quick answer to a question moves ahead.

Also think about anticipating what comes next: the security deposit (not to be confused with the guarantor) is capped at 1 month's rent excluding charges for an unfurnished rental and 2 months for a furnished one (source: Act of 6 July 1989). We explain it all in our guide to the security deposit, along with what to do once you have found your home in signing your lease and preparing the inventory of fixtures.