What a DPE F rating means when you buy a house in France

By Phil, French House Check. 16 September 2026.

An F on the energy certificate (DPE) means three things for a buyer: the house cannot be let on a new tenancy from 1 January 2028, the seller must supply an energy audit with the sale, and the heating is often an old oil boiler that can no longer be replaced like for like. Each one belongs in the price.

The certificate itself

The DPE rates a dwelling from A to G on energy use and on greenhouse gas, and states an annual running cost at a reference price year. It also records what the diagnostiqueur found: the insulation of walls, floor and roof, the windows, the boiler and its age band, the ventilation. Every certificate since 2021 is in the national ADEME register, and the running-cost figure in the advert usually identifies it.

What F triggers

• Letting. G-rated dwellings have been barred from new tenancies since 1 January 2025. F follows on 1 January 2028. If letting is any part of the plan, the insulation work is required, not optional.
• The audit. Since April 2023 the sale of an F or G rated house must come with an energy audit that sets out a works programme and its cost. Ask for it with the certificate.
• The boiler. Since 1 July 2022 a new oil-fired boiler cannot be installed in France. When an old oil boiler goes, the replacement is a fuel change, in practice a heat pump at roughly EUR 15,000 to EUR 25,000, against a third of that for the swap that is no longer allowed. On a house with radiators sized for oil-fired flow temperatures the emitters may need changing too.

What the work costs

Figures we use until a builder quotes: mechanical ventilation EUR 3,000 to 6,000; insulation of walls, floor and roof on a 110 m² house EUR 25,000 to 45,000; a targeted package of heating and ventilation EUR 20,000 to 30,000. Where a certificate rates the windows average and the walls insufficient, the money already spent went where it shows least, and the label will not move until the fabric is done.

Reading it against the area

In one Normandy commune, 44% of the houses built before 1948 are rated F or G. An F there is typical, not a warning about that house. The certificate register lets you see the distribution for any commune, which is the context an advert never gives.