Watermark a rental application in France: what to write, on which documents

Why watermark a rental application?

A French rental application (dossier de location) gathers everything needed to steal an identity: ID, address, employer, salary, tax notice. It travels by email, sometimes to several agencies at once, and sometimes to fake listings. The CNIL, France's data protection authority, advises applicants not to send any personal document until they have checked that the listing isn't a scam, and says agencies and private landlords should not make a viewing conditional on handing over supporting documents, particularly financial ones.

A watermark doesn't replace that caution, but it limits the damage. Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr, France's national cybercrime-assistance service, advises systematically marking copies of your documents before sending them, with the purpose, the date and the recipient. An ID card marked “for agency X, rental of property Y” is hard to reuse to open an account or take out a loan elsewhere, and if it resurfaces, you know where it came from.

What it doesn't do is make anything unreadable. The landlord has to be able to read your income and identity; that's the point of the application. The watermarking techniques, and their limits, are covered in watermark a PDF without uploading it.

Which documents can a landlord ask for?

For an unfurnished or furnished lease of a main residence under the French law of July 6, 1989, Article 22-2 of that law refers to a decree for the list of documents the landlord may require from the applicant and their guarantor. That's Decree No. 2015-1437 of November 5, 2015, whose Annex I, in force since January 1, 2023, can be summarized as follows:

Article 1 of the decree adds three useful rules: documents may be copies, they must be written in or translated into French with amounts converted into euros, and the originals must be available for the landlord to see on request. Since Decree No. 2019-1019 of October 3, 2019, the ID no longer has to bear its holder's signature. These rules don't apply to social housing applications.

What about the guarantor?

Annex II of the same decree lists the guarantor's documents, on the same model:

• identity: an ID with a photo for an individual; for a company, a K bis extract less than three months old or its articles of association, plus proof of identity of its representative;
• address: one document only, among the last rent receipt, a water, gas or electricity bill less than three months old, a home insurance certificate less than three months old, the last property tax notice or the title deed;
• occupation and income: one or more documents, of the same kind as for the applicant.

The guarantor has the same reasons to watermark as the applicant, with their own text: “Guarantor for [applicant's first name], for agency X, rental of…”.

Which documents are banned?

Any that isn't in the annexes. Service-Public.fr says it plainly: only certain supporting documents are allowed, and the landlord is prohibited from requiring others. The CNIL gives as examples of documents that an agency or landlord cannot ask for:

• a copy of the family record book (livret de famille);
• the health insurance card (carte Vitale);
• bank statements;
• a marriage contract or a divorce judgment;
• a criminal record extract.

Before 2014, the 1989 law itself listed the banned documents; it remains a good guide, since none of them was carried over into the decree. It also included an ID photo other than the one on the ID document, a certificate of good account standing, a certificate of no outstanding credit, a direct-debit authorization, a reservation check, a personal medical file and a cohabitation certificate. Bank details (RIB) aren't on the decree's list either.

Requiring a banned document exposes the landlord to an administrative fine imposed by the prefect, of up to €3,000 for an individual and €15,000 for a company (Article 22-2 of the law of July 6, 1989). For agencies and property managers, the CNIL's reference framework on rental management says that data collected to assess applicants' solvency should, in principle, be kept for three months in the active database.

What text should the watermark say?

Three elements, as Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr advises: the recipient, the purpose and the date. The more precise the text, the less reusable the document: “property rental” fits any fake listing, “For agency X, rental of 12 rue des Lilas” fits only one.

A French landlord or agency will read French more easily, so you may prefer to write the watermark in French: “Pour l'agence X uniquement, location du 12 rue des Lilas”. A few tips on form: one short line, readable on the diagonal; a medium intensity, so amounts and numbers stay legible under the text; a tiled pattern rather than a single centered mark, so it doesn't disappear when the page is cropped. Don't add other personal data, such as your phone number: it would only add to what the document already contains.

Which documents should you watermark, and how?

All of them, starting with the ones most useful to a fraudster:

1. Your ID, front and back: it's the most sought-after. Use a stronger intensity, while making sure the photo and number stay readable for the landlord.
2. The tax notice, which shows your address, family situation and income.
3. Payslips and proof of benefits, which show the employer and the amounts.
4. Proof of address and occupation documents.

Start from the original files, kept at home without a watermark, and produce one set of watermarked copies per recipient. Phone photos are best saved as PDFs, one file per document: they're easier for the landlord to read, and PDF is the format every watermarking tool accepts.

DossierFacile or Filigrane Facile: which one?

Both are free public services, run under France's housing and planning directorate (DGALN), and they don't meet the same need.

DossierFacile (dossierfacile.logement.gouv.fr) describes itself as the government's digital rental application. You upload the documents provided for by the decree; as soon as the application is complete, the documents are watermarked. Its terms of use state that the service is free and optional, that documents are covered with the watermark “Document exclusivement destiné à la location d'appartement” (document intended exclusively for renting an apartment), and that they are stored on servers hosted by OVH and Outscale in France. You then share your application with one link per recipient, with an expiry date, which you can suspend. An agent can check the application on request, and a landlord can also create an account to invite their future tenant to use it.

Filigrane Facile (filigrane.beta.gouv.fr), run by the same team, watermarks any document, one file at a time, with the text of your choice: JPG, PNG, HEIC or PDF in, PDF out. Originals are deleted from its servers after generation, the watermarked copy after the first download or after one day.

For an applicant looking for a home, DossierFacile is the most complete option, and it's free: the application is checked, watermarked and shared through links you control. Filigrane Facile is a useful complement when a landlord asks for a document by email, with text that names them.

How do you watermark your application without uploading it?

With software installed on your computer. AnonymFiles, a local anonymizer designed for professionals who handle confidential documents, does it for PDFs, scans included, and Word documents:

1. Gather the documents as PDFs, one per file, and keep the originals separately.
2. Open Settings › Watermark; in “Watermark text”, write the recipient and the property, and tick “Add today’s date”.
3. Enter the agency under “Recipient”: that name stays in the computer's private register, never on the copy.
4. Choose the intensity (“Standard” is fine, “Strong” for your ID) and leave “Tracing code on every page” ticked.
5. Click “Choose the copy to watermark…” for each document: the app saves “document name - watermarked.pdf” next to the original, without modifying it.
6. For the next agency, start again with its name: each transfer gets a new code, and “Look up a code” will later tell you who a recovered copy was given to.

Two honest caveats. The watermark is written into the page content, not merged into the image: the text stays selectable, but an equipped fraudster can remove it with a PDF editor. And the app is paid after a 14-day trial, at €290 excl. VAT per seat per year (see pricing): for a single rental application, the free public services are enough. What the app does and doesn't do on the network is detailed on the security page. It makes sense for a professional who receives and passes on these documents all year round, and who sometimes also has to redact part of them, for example before handing them to an AI (see the use cases).

Can a landlord refuse watermarked copies?

No French text requires you to hand over unmarked copies. Decree No. 2015-1437 expressly allows copies and only requires that the originals can be shown at the landlord's request. A readable watermark that leaves the requested information visible therefore takes nothing away from the application. Filigrane Facile does point out that some organizations, such as banks or public services, may need a blank document: one more reason to keep your originals unmarked and only watermark the copies you send.

If a landlord insists on a document that isn't on the list, you can remind them of the rule and the penalty. If you've been scammed, Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr sets out the steps to take in its guide on rental scams.