France Rent Reference Index (IRL): Quarterly Data Since 2002

The rent reference index (indice de référence des loyers, IRL) is the only index French law allows a landlord to use when revising the rent of a primary residence. INSEE publishes it quarterly, in base 100 at the fourth quarter of 1998, and it is derived from the twelve-month moving average of the consumer price index excluding tobacco and excluding rents. This Eco3min dataset provides the full metropolitan France series, 95 quarterly observations from the fourth quarter of 2002 to the second quarter of 2026, as a single downloadable file.

Dataset: France Rent Reference Index — IRL (2002–2026) · Updated 2026-04-01

Source: INSEE · rent reference index, metropolitan France, base 100 = Q4 1998

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV, Excel and JSON files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full IRL series is available in CSV and Excel formats.

Direct Data Access

INSEE publishes each quarterly IRL release individually and in its BDM database; the value is also published in the Journal officiel. The Eco3min structured dataset returns the whole history as one file:

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-rent-reference-index.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool. JSON and XLSX are available at the same path with the corresponding extension.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-rent-reference-index.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["irl_index"].describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-rent-reference-index.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$irl_index)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The series is retrieved daily by an Eco3min pipeline from INSEE’s BDM time-series database. INSEE publishes the IRL roughly ten days after the end of the reference quarter — the second quarter 2026 index was released on 10 July 2026 — and the value is subsequently published in the Journal officiel.

No transformation is applied: the published index is the index, rounded by INSEE to two decimals. One scope note matters for reuse. Since the third quarter of 2022, INSEE publishes two additional IRL series for the overseas departments and regions covered by Article 73 of the Constitution and for Corsica, which carry their own values. This dataset contains the metropolitan France index only, which is the one applicable to the large majority of leases.

Historical Regimes

• 2002–2005 — before the IRL existed. The series is backcast to the fourth quarter of 2002 at 105.61. The IRL itself was only created by the law of 26 July 2005, replacing the construction cost index, which had proved far more volatile than consumer prices and had produced sharp rent increases.
• 2008–2009 — the first stress test. The index reached 117.03 in the third quarter of 2008, up 2.95% year-over-year, then the moving-average construction pulled the rate to virtually zero (−0.06% in the fourth quarter of 2009) as consumer prices fell. Rents were mechanically frozen without any policy decision.
• 2010–2020 — the flat decade. From roughly 118 to 130.57, tracking a consumer price index that itself gained barely 1% per year. Over this period the IRL was rarely a political subject, precisely because it produced no visible increase.
• 2021–2024 — inflation and the rent shield. The year-over-year rate reached 3.60% in the second quarter of 2022, its series high. A statutory cap held quarterly variations at 3.5% until mid-2024; without it the index would have risen faster, since the underlying consumer price index was running above 6% at the peak.
• 2025–2026 — deceleration, then a rebound. The annual increase fell steadily from 1.40% in the first quarter of 2025 to 0.78% in the first quarter of 2026, before rising to 1.15% in the second quarter of 2026 at an index level of 148.37. The rebound reflects a base effect in the twelve-month consumer price average rather than a change in underlying rent dynamics.

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Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

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Sources

• INSEE — rent reference index (IRL), metropolitan France, base 100 = fourth quarter 1998. Dataset IRL, retrieved from the INSEE BDM time-series database.
• Legal basis: Article 35 of law no. 2005-841 of 26 July 2005, as amended by Article 9 of law no. 2008-111 of 8 February 2008.
• Reuse: INSEE public statistics may be reused, including commercially, subject to acknowledgement of the source and preservation of the integrity of the information.

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). France Rent Reference Index — IRL (2002–2026). Source: INSEE.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/france-rent-reference-index-dataset/