Paris & the Île de France

Paris is France's biggest city, and one of the most expensive places to live in the world. For the same price as a studio in Paris you could rent a flat with two rooms in the outskirts, a large three room flat in a city such as Lyon, Marseille and Strasbourg, or even a flat with five rooms in smaller cities like Belfort in Franche-Compté or Quimper in Brittany (see Regional Variation).

The average rent per square metre in Paris and the Île-de-France is about €20. Prices vary considerably, but usually remain high, depending on the district. There is a price divide in the city, with the most wealthy residents living in the west and south-west of the city, and those with less money living in the east and north-east. The first, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth district are wealthy, and rent is between €23 and €27 per square metre. Renting is much cheaper in the fourth, tenth, nineteenth and twentieth districts, where you pay between €17 and €20 per square metre. With regard to rental price, the other districts lie somewhere in between.

The suburbs of the three 'departments' neighbouring Paris show large price variations too. In the Hauts-de-Seine, enclosing the western half of Paris, renting is between €17 and €26 per square metre. In contrast, in Seine-Saint-Denis which lies in the north-east, rent will be only €12 to €16 per square metre. The south-eastern Val-de-Marne offers rental prices between €13 and €20 per square metre.