Cannes property market guide

The average asking price for an apartment in Cannes reached €10,744/m² in Q3 2026 according to CASAFARI Area Insights (indexed listings, outliers excluded), up 4.4% on Q3 2025 and 13.9% since Q1 2023. These are asking prices, not sale prices, and regional transaction indices point to a much flatter market. Structurally, 44.2% of Cannes' 73,529 dwellings are second homes and 92.4% are apartments (INSEE census 2023). Below, we examine the quarters, non-resident purchase costs and the 2026 tourist-let rules.

What does an apartment in Cannes cost in 2026?

Imagine a buyer from London or Geneva who has rented the same Croisette flat every May for the film festival or MIPIM, and finally sits down to ask what it would cost to own it. The starting point is the city-wide figure: CASAFARI Area Insights, the source of the Cannes price series, puts the average asking price for apartments in Cannes at €10,744/m² in Q3 2026 (location id 493185, queried 23 October 2026).

That figure stands 4.4% above Q3 2025 (€10,287.6/m²) and 13.9% above Q1 2023 (€9,429/m²). Yet the headline percentage hides the true shape of the market over the past three and a half years.

Almost all of the appreciation happened in a single initial step. Between Q1 2023 and Q3 2023, average asking prices moved from €9,429/m² to €10,285.8/m². From Q1 2024 right through to Q2 2026, the market sat on a remarkably steady plateau, oscillating in a narrow band between €10,119.7/m² (Q2 2024) and €10,445.1/m² (Q3 2024).

The move in Q3 2026 to €10,744/m² represents a 3.9% jump on Q2 2026 (€10,345.5/m²). Buyers and advisers should read that single quarter with care. It coincides with the summer listing season on the Côte d'Azur, when prime seafront stock is refreshed, and may reflect the mix of apartments brought to market rather than a sudden repricing. The Q4 2026 reading will show whether the step holds.

Just as importantly, CASAFARI Area Insights measures asking prices on active, deduplicated listings, whereas notaries record completed deeds months after a sale is agreed. Official transaction data shows a quieter picture: the Notaires-Insee index for Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur stood at a provisional 128.9 in Q2 2026 against 128.7 in Q2 2025 (+0.2% year on year, published 8 September 2026), while the Notaires-Insee house price index, Q2 2026 (INSEE Informations rapides), recorded a 0.8% year-on-year decline across France as a whole (apartments -0.1%, houses -1.3%, across 958,000 transactions over the 12 months to June 2026).

Where to buy in Cannes: Croisette, La Californie, Le Suquet, Palm Beach and La Bocca

For a visitor who knows Cannes primarily from the Palais des Festivals, the town's geography is compact, wedged between the Mediterranean and the hills, with the Îles de Lérins lying just offshore. Yet the character of the stock—and who competes for it—shifts street by street.

• Boulevard de la Croisette and the Carré d'Or: The seafront promenade is the emblem of the international second-home market, lined with post-war residences and belle époque façades looking out to the bay. Immediately behind it, between the seafront and the Rue d'Antibes, the Carré d'Or draws buyers who want a lock-up-and-leave pied-à-terre within walking distance of the beach clubs and the congress halls.
• Palm Beach (Pointe Croisette): At the eastern tip of the bay, the peninsula feels more residential and relaxed than the central Croisette, with beaches on both sides and steady demand from European families.
• La Californie and Super Cannes: Rising into the hills to the east, La Californie is the historic quarter of landscaped parks, former grand hotels converted into gated residences, and sea-view villas.
• Le Suquet and the Vieux-Port: The steep, medieval old town west of the Palais looks down over the yachts of the Vieux-Port. Its narrower streets and older walk-up buildings attract buyers seeking historic character and proximity to the Forville market.
• Inland of the Rue d'Antibes and La Bocca: North of the railway line and west towards La Bocca, the market shifts from international resort to working town. According to the INSEE Dossier complet for the commune of Cannes (2023 census), only 47.4% of Cannes' 38,787 households own their main residence; local families compete actively for two- and three-room apartments in these residential quarters.

The town is served by Nice Côte d'Azur international airport to the east, the A8 motorway, and Cannes railway station right in the centre on the Marseille–Ventimiglia line with direct TGV connections. Alongside leisure buyers from the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Italy, the Middle East and North America, the year-round congress calendar—the Film Festival, Cannes Lions, MIPIM and MIPCOM—sustains consistent demand for central apartments.

Because the CASAFARI series is a commune-wide average, it blends La Bocca with the Croisette front line. Before making an offer, buyers and their advisers should always pull street- and building-level evidence.

Houses and villas: why the price series jumps about

Cannes is overwhelmingly a vertical market. The INSEE 2023 census counts 67,960 apartments (92.4% of the housing stock) and just 5,141 houses (7.0%) across the entire commune.

Because the stock of houses is so small, very few villas are on the market in any single quarter, and the statistical series is naturally volatile. In Q3 2026, CASAFARI Area Insights recorded an average asking price for houses in Cannes of €12,561.1/m², up 7.7% on Q3 2025 (€11,662.4/m²), 13.0% above Q1 2023 (€11,115.9/m²), and 6.5% higher than Q2 2026 (€11,797.1/m²).

Look back across the chart and you see similar quarterly swings whenever a handful of large estates in La Californie or Croix des Gardes enter or leave the listings. A city-wide average per square metre is never the right tool to price a Riviera villa; advisers rely on valuations and Comparables for a specific building or street to weigh land area, view, privacy and condition.

Why 44.2% of Cannes homes are second homes, and what that does to prices

According to the INSEE Comparateur de territoires, Cannes (2023 census), the commune has 74,350 inhabitants and 73,529 dwellings—almost one home per resident. Of those dwellings, 52.5% are main residences, 3.4% are vacant, and 44.2% (32,466 homes) are second homes or occasional dwellings.

That concentration has crept up from 40.9% in the 2012 census and 44.1% in 2017. It stands far above the wider Cannes Pays de Lérins intercommunality (36.8%), the surrounding bassin de vie (29.6%), and France as a whole (9.7%, INSEE 2023 census).

Area	Share of second homes (2023)	Source
Commune of Cannes	44.2% (32,466 dwellings)	INSEE 2023 census
Cannes Pays de Lérins (intercommunality)	36.8%	INSEE 2023 census
Cannes bassin de vie	29.6%	INSEE 2023 census
France (national average)	9.7%	INSEE 2023 census

For a buyer, this structure explains why Cannes behaves differently from a domestic commuter city, and how it compares with broader property market trends across Europe. First, sellers of second homes are rarely forced to move by a job change or a local credit squeeze; when the national market softens, many simply hold their price or withdraw the listing, which kept asking prices on their plateau through 2024 and 2025. Second, new building land is scarce between the sea and the hills, keeping supply tight.

What it costs to buy and own in Cannes as a non-resident

France places no legal restriction on foreign or non-EU buyers. Whether you reside in London, Zurich or Dubai, you buy through a French notaire under the same property law and acquisition tax rules as a resident, though non-residents should always ask their notaire and a cross-border tax adviser to model capital-gains tax and social charges (prélèvements sociaux) on an eventual resale, as rates and exemptions vary by country of residence.

On purchase costs, buyers in Cannes benefit from a notable local decision. When the 2025 national finance law allowed French départements to raise their share of transfer tax (droits de mutation à titre onéreux, or DMTO) from 4.50% to 5.00%, 89 départements did so. Under the Alpes-Maritimes département budget 2025 (DMTO decision), the council kept its departmental rate at 4.50%. As confirmed in the 2026 transfer-tax rates by département (as at 1 June 2026), total registration duties on a resale property in Cannes remain 5.81% of the purchase price, compared with 6.32% across most of France.

On a €1,000,000 resale apartment, those registration duties come to €58,100 in Cannes rather than €63,200 in a département at the higher rate—before adding the notaire's regulated emoluments and disbursements.

For ongoing ownership taxes, Cannes lies in a designated zone tendue, which entitles the municipal council to vote a surcharge of between 5% and 60% on the communal share of the taxe d'habitation sur les résidences secondaires (THRS). According to the DGFiP list of communes applying a second-home surcharge in 2026, 1,666 of the 3,689 eligible French communes apply a surcharge in the 2026 tax year (688 of them at the maximum 60%), but Cannes has voted no surcharge for 2026. Because a council deliberation taken before 1 October can introduce one for the following tax year, second-home owners should check the status each autumn.

Finally, pay close attention to the energy performance certificate (Diagnostic de Performance Énergétique, or DPE). Much of Cannes' apartment stock dates from before 1975; dwellings rated F or G face strict letting constraints under French law, which makes requesting the DPE one of the first steps in any due diligence. You can compare these national rules in the France property market guide.

Can you let a Cannes apartment to tourists in 2026?

Many buyers weigh whether congress and summer rentals can offset the running costs of a pied-à-terre. In 2026, short-term letting is governed by a much tighter national regime under the loi n° 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024 (loi Le Meur) on Légifrance.

At the national level, the rules in force in 2026 are strict:

• Compulsory registration: Every furnished tourist let (meublé de tourisme) must carry a registration number on all advertisements, backed by a national register in 2026 (Code du tourisme art. L.324-1-1).
• Change-of-use authorisation: Letting a second home on a short-term basis requires prior changement d'usage authorisation from the municipality under articles L.631-7 and L.631-10 of the Code de la construction et de l'habitation. Letting without authorisation carries a civil fine of up to €100,000.
• Energy efficiency hurdle: Since 21 November 2024, change-of-use authorisation is refused for dwellings rated F or G on their DPE.
• Taxation: Under the loi Le Meur, the flat-rate micro-BIC tax allowance has been reduced to 30% for unclassified furnished tourist lets (50% for classified accommodation).
• Main residences: Nationally, a primary residence may be let for up to 120 days a year, which a commune may vote to reduce to 90 days.

At the municipal level in Cannes, local property-management and legal sources report compensation requirements in saturated sectors, quotas announced by the town hall for application from autumn 2026 in the most pressured quarters, and a prohibition on buildings wholly dedicated to tourist lets, while sources differ on whether the main-residence cap stands at 90 or 120 days. Because municipal deliberations evolve, prospective buyers should confirm the exact local sector rules directly with the service urbanisme via the Ville de Cannes, urbanisme and tourist-let rules portal before relying on short-term rental income.

In addition, always ask your notaire to check the building's règlement de copropriété. Many prime residences along the Croisette and in La Californie include clauses (clause d'habitation bourgeoise) that restrict or forbid commercial and short-term tourist lets regardless of municipal permits. Taken together, these rules are nudging a growing share of private buyers towards pure personal use, longer-term furnished lets, or a focus on capital preservation—a shift that shapes how investors use CASAFARI data when underwriting an acquisition.

Asking prices versus sale prices: how to read the Cannes numbers

When an asking-price series rises 4.4% year on year while regional transaction indices sit nearly flat at +0.2%, the gap itself is valuable market intelligence. It tells a buyer that while sellers in Cannes remain confident, negotiation room exists for well-advised bidders who arrive with hard evidence.

CASAFARI tracks the market by aggregating, deduplicating and cleaning listings across portals and agency feeds weekly, excluding statistical outliers so that a single mispriced penthouse does not skew the commune. Advisers, family offices and analysts who build their own market models can review the Area Insights documentation on developers.casafari.com and the Comparables and valuation documentation on developers.casafari.com to see how the series and property-level valuations are queried via the API.

If you are comparing Cannes with its larger neighbour up the coast, read our guide to the Nice property market for a side-by-side view of the department's principal urban market.

Whether you are searching for a terrace on the Croisette or advising a client on a villa in La Californie, the discipline is the same: use the city-wide series to understand the cycle, then price the exact floor, view and building before you bid. You can open an account on the CASAFARI platform to query the Cannes series yourself and run a street-level valuation in minutes.