You take over a business “with a twenty-cover terrace”. The price reflects it, of course: twenty extra covers in good weather is a serious share of the season.
Then the sale goes through, and you find out the terrace was never for sale.
What you buy, and what you do not
The right to a terrace is not part of the goodwill. It is an administrative permit to occupy part of the public domain — the pavement belongs to the town, not to your landlord and still less to the person selling you the business.
And that permit is personal, precarious and revocable. Three words that decide everything:
- Personal: it is granted to a someone, not attached to a property. It cannot be sold, sublet or passed on.
- Precarious: it is temporary, and comes up for renewal.
- Revocable: the administration can withdraw it.
Two permits, and one criterion that tells them apart
- The permis de stationnement covers occupation with nothing fixed to the ground: tables, chairs, free-standing parasols, a display. It falls under traffic policing, so usually the mayor.
- The permission de voirie is required as soon as something is fixed to the ground: decking, an anchored pergola, an enclosed terrace. You are no longer merely occupying the pavement, you are altering it — different authority, different procedure, different timescales.
The word that tips you from one regime into the other is anchoring. One screw into the pavement changes the file.
The fee
Any private occupation of public land is subject to a fee (redevance). The rate is set by a decision of the municipal council: per square metre, often per season, with zones depending on location.
It is not negotiated case by case, but it is worth checking before you work out what the terrace will earn you. On a small terrace in an expensive zone, the arithmetic is not always the one you had in mind.
Heating is over — with one exception
One exception remains: a space that is covered and closed with rigid side walls, sealed, and provided the authority managing the land does not object.
But read what that implies: it is no longer an open terrace, it is an enclosed volume. So it is fixed to the ground, so it needs a permission de voirie — and it will probably count towards the capacity of your public-access building.
→ Your capacity does not depend on the number of chairs
Putting walls round your terrace so you can heat it is not a bit of fitting-out: it is a project, with a file to match.
What the local bylaw decides, and it decides a lot
Every town has its terrace bylaw, and it is far more precise than people expect:
- the clear width to leave for pedestrians, which dictates how deep your terrace can be;
- the furniture: materials, colours, parasols, screens, planters, what is allowed and what is not;
- the hours for setting out and clearing away;
- the season, where the terrace is only allowed for part of the year.
None of this is decoration. A non-compliant terrace is removed, and putting the pavement back is at your expense.
The neighbours
The terrace is the first cause of neighbour complaints against a restaurant — ahead of the kitchen, ahead of the music. Hours are set by municipal or prefectoral order, and the noise-emergence rules apply to conversation as much as to anything else.
→ Noise impact study: who is actually concerned
A complaint costs nothing to file and can cost you your permit — which is, remember, revocable.
What to check yourself
- Your town's terrace bylaw. It exists, it is public, and it answers almost every question in this article for your specific case.
- The fee and how it is calculated, before you count the covers you gain.
- If you are taking over a business: file your application before you sign, or make it a condition of the sale.
- If you are thinking of enclosing the terrace: the effect on your building category and on which permit you need.
- The hours that apply to your street, which are not always those of the town as a whole.
The full running order of the steps to opening: Opening a restaurant in France: what nobody tells you in time.