The bail mobilité, plainly

Landlords sometimes describe the bail mobilité as a short-term lease for anyone passing through. It isn't. The law names specific situations a tenant has to be in when the lease starts, and getting that wrong is how people end up signing a contract that doesn't actually fit them.

Who it's actually for

At the point the lease begins, the tenant has to be in one of these situations, and able to show it with paperwork rather than just state it:

• professional training
• higher education studies
• an apprenticeship contract
• an internship
• a civic service engagement
• a professional transfer or relocation
• a temporary work assignment

That list is exhaustive, not illustrative. Someone moving to Strasbourg for reasons outside it needs an ordinary lease, not this one, whatever a landlord's listing calls it.

What the ten months actually means

One month minimum, ten months maximum, and neither renewable nor tacitly extended. A single avenant can adjust the length within that window, but the ten-month ceiling holds regardless. When the term ends, if the same landlord and tenant agree to carry on in the same property, the law requires that the new contract be an ordinary furnished lease, not another bail mobilité. The short-term form exists once per tenancy, not on a loop.

The deposit that isn't allowed

This is the detail most people get backwards. A bail mobilité is the one French housing contract where a security deposit is explicitly prohibited, not merely uncommon. If your contract has a clause requiring one, that clause has no legal effect even though it is written down and even though you signed it.

A landlord can still ask for a guarantor. If you don't have a French one to offer, the Visale guarantee from Action Logement was built with this exact lease in mind and is free to use, including for students.

Leaving before the end date

A tenant can end a bail mobilité early with one month's notice. It has to go by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, a bailiff's act, hand delivery against a signed receipt, or an electronic registered letter if both sides had already agreed to that route. There's no early-exit penalty beyond giving that month.

Where this comes up in Strasbourg

This lease turns up constantly around a professional mutation or a first few months of a posting near the German border, where someone needs a real address quickly and a full search would take longer than the job's start date allows. It's a genuinely useful tool for that specific situation. It's a much worse fit for someone who just wants a shorter commitment for its own sake, and a landlord who offers it for that reason is either mistaken or hoping the tenant won't check.

If a bail mobilité is one step in a longer settling-in file, the fuller picture is on the relocation and mobility page.

What I do and where I stop

I'm not a lawyer, and a dispute over a lease clause is a matter for one, not for me. What I do is check, before you sign anything, whether your situation actually fits one of the eligible categories, read the contract for a deposit clause that shouldn't be there, and help you put a Visale file together if that's the guarantee you need. For property owners on the other side of this, keyholding and inspections between tenancies are covered on the property intendance page.

Sources

• Quelles sont les règles d'un bail mobilité ?, Service-Public
• Articles 25-12 à 25-18, Loi n° 89-462 du 6 juillet 1989, Légifrance
• Article 25-17 — interdiction du dépôt de garantie, Légifrance

Rules change. This page was checked in September 2026; if you're reading it much later, check the sources before signing anything.