Housing seasonal workers: a profitable alternative for your resort studio?
Every autumn the same question comes back to owners of small units in ski resorts: should you let to seasonal staff from November to April instead of managing sixty short-term arrivals? Demand is real and the legal framework exists, but the financial trade-off is far less obvious than it looks.
A captive market that supply does not cover
Resorts across Savoie and Haute-Savoie recruit thousands of seasonal workers every winter — lift operators, restaurants, hotels, ski schools, shops — and housing remains their first bottleneck. Since France's Loi Montagne II, tourist municipalities must sign a state convention covering seasonal worker accommodation, which made the issue visible without solving it: in most Tarentaise and Grand Massif resorts, available supply covers only a fraction of the need. In practice, a decent furnished studio within walking distance of the slopes or on a ski bus route finds a tenant within days from September onwards. Employers themselves look for units for their teams and will often act as guarantor, or sign the lease directly. It is the one Alpine rental segment where vacancy is structurally zero across six months.
The right legal framework: mobility lease or standard furnished tenancy
For a single season, the bail mobilité created by the Loi ELAN is the best-suited instrument: one to ten months, non-renewable, open in particular to employees on temporary assignment or seasonal contracts, with no security deposit permitted — though the state-backed Visale guarantee and a personal guarantor remain available. The property must be furnished as defined by the 2015 decree, and the rent is quoted inclusive of a fixed service charge. Two points deserve attention. First, no tourist tax is due: this is no longer tourist accommodation. Second, the tax treatment changes: receipts stay within the BIC regime, but you leave the furnished tourist rental category and therefore the enhanced allowance reserved for classified properties. Finally, check your co-ownership rules and your landlord insurance policy, sometimes drafted for exclusively touristic use.
The honest maths, figures in hand
A 25 m² resort studio lets to a seasonal worker for €550 to €850 per month including charges depending on altitude and distance to the lifts, so roughly €3,000 to €5,000 across a six-month season. The same property run as a short-term rental over December to April routinely produces €12,000 to €20,000 in gross revenue, from which you deduct platform commission, cleaning, linen, energy and management. Even after costs, the gap almost always favours short-term letting in a high-demand resort. The seasonal tenancy becomes relevant in three specific cases: a property that is off-centre or without a view and plateaus in short-term letting, an owner who refuses any operational logistics, or a season where your listing starts with no review history. Add genuine non-financial benefits: zero changeovers, slower wear, predictable cash flow.
The blended approach we recommend
A mobility lease and an Airbnb calendar cannot share the same four walls: you cannot take the property back for the Christmas holidays. The right approach is therefore to decide unit by unit. If you own several properties, assign the weakest performer to seasonal worker housing — it secures a revenue floor — and run the others as short-term rentals across the premium weeks. If you own a single property, two structures work: a short mobility lease from November to mid-December followed by tourist letting over the school holidays, or letting to the employer directly, who pays, guarantees and manages the rotation of their own staff. At SmartStay we model both scenarios on your actual occupancy and rate data before the season opens, then handle the inventory, condition report and technical follow-up whichever route you choose.
Get a revenue estimate for your property →