Some major rental deals despite a (still) bearish market

With just 768,400 sq.m in the 1st half of 2025, take-up of office space in the Paris Region is once again on a downward trend, reveals Immostat, with a 12% year-on-year drop and a 25% fall compared to the ten-year average. The downturn was particularly severe in the^2nd quarter of 2025, with 337,300 sq.m marketed over the period, representing a 22% fall on the previous year.

In a recent note, Cushman & Wakefield emphasized that "the segment of large surface areas over 5,000 m² is particularly hard hit, with the volume sold falling to its lowest half-yearly level in 20 years, at less than 200,000 m², representing a 30% drop compared to the first half of 2024. "

Conversely, Éric Siesse, deputy managing director of BNP Paribas Real Estate Advisory France's Île-de-France office leasing division, reports that "the small and medium-sized space segment (less than 5,000m²) has once again shown great resilience in the current context, with 569,500 m², down by just 2% year-on-year"

However, the^1st half of 2025 was not free of large-scale rental transactions in the Paris region office market. In inner Paris, the most iconic transaction was undoubtedly J.P. Morgan SE's lease of 15,830 m² in the Marché Saint-Honoré, owned by CBRE IM, at a rent in excess of €1,200/sq.m/year.

However, the largest rental deals in terms of surface area were mainly signed on the outskirts of Paris, such as the French Ministry of Education and Youth, which signed for 39,000 m² in Gentilly in Scor Investment Managers' Six Degrés building, or BPCE, which signed for 15,500 m² in Charenton-le-Pont in Vitura's Rives de Bercy building.

Business Immo listed 16 rental transactions over 5,000 m² in the first half of the year, presented here in an interactive map.