Rent smoothing (lissage)

Lissage (smoothing) is the mechanism that softens the effect of déplafonnement (release of the renewal rent from the statutory cap). When the renewed rent of a bail commercial (French commercial lease) is set at the rental value and that value is well above the old rent, the law forbids the increase from exceeding, in any one year, 10 % of the rent paid the previous year. The rise is thus spread over several years until the rent fixed is reached.

Smoothing does not reduce the uncapped rent: it defers its application. The final amount remains the rental value; only the path to it is regulated. Whether the parties may waive it in the lease is debated: the provision does not appear in the list of public-policy rules in article L. 145-15 of the French Commercial Code, but the point deserves to be checked with a lawyer when the lease is drafted.

Where the rule comes from

The last paragraph of article L. 145-34 of the French Commercial Code, introduced by the Law of 18 June 2014, provides that where there is a material change in the factors listed in 1° to 4° of article L. 145-33, or where an exception is made to the capping rules, the resulting variation in rent may not lead to increases greater, in any one year, than 10 % of the rent paid during the previous year. Articles L. 145-38 and L. 145-39 lay down the same rule for rent reviews.

In a decision of 16 October 2025 (appeal no. 23-23.834), the Third Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation (French supreme court for civil and commercial matters) held that this smoothing does not apply to a nine-year lease whose term has exceeded twelve years through tacit extension: uncapping then results from duration, not from an exception to the capping rules within the meaning of the text.

In a valuation report

It is not for me to decide whether smoothing applies, but I set out its consequences in figures whenever the question arises. The report states the uncapped rent, then the rent actually payable each year, applying the maximum increase of 10 % to the previous year’s rent until the rental value is reached. It notes whether the lease contains a clause excluding smoothing and whether the situation falls within the exception identified in 2025.

This presentation avoids misunderstandings: a landlord who obtains an uncapped rent of €30,000 will not receive it from the first year if the old rent was €20,000.

Example

A rent of €20,000 a year is uncapped to €30,000 at the renewal of 1 January 2025, for a material change in local commercial factors. With smoothing, the rent payable is €22,000 in 2025, €24,200 in 2026, €26,620 in 2027, €29,282 in 2028, then €30,000 in 2029, with contractual indexation added where applicable. Without smoothing, €30,000 would be due from 2025, a cumulative difference of about €18,000 over four years.

Not to be confused with

Capping, which limits the rent itself and not its progression, and annual indexation, which follows the index regardless of any renewal.