France Michelin Keys 2026: 26 Gained, 8 Lost
France gained 26 Michelin Keys in the 2026 selection and lost 8. Every hotel that lost a Key was verified against its own MICHELIN Guide page.
France gained 26 Michelin Keys in the 2026 selection and lost 8. The country ends the year at 220 Key hotels against 204, a net gain of 16.
Two hotels reached the top tier: Château de la Chèvre d'Or and Le Couvent des Minimes. One property has left the Guide altogether: Le Château de Beaulieu.
Chart: hotels in France whose MICHELIN Key standing changed between the 2025 and 2026 selections. Source: MICHELIN Guide 2026 Key selection, released 18 September 2026. Every loss shown was re-checked on that hotel's own MICHELIN Guide page.
The scoreboard
| Movement | Hotels |
|---|---|
| New Keys awarded | 22 |
| Upgraded a tier | 4 |
| Dropped a tier | 2 |
| Key removed | 6 |
| Key hotels, 2025 → 2026 | 204 → 220 (+16) |
What France gained
| Hotel | Where | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Les Sources de Vougeot | Gilly-lès-Cîteaux | no Key | Two Keys | New Key |
| Rosewood Courchevel Le Jardin Alpin | Courchevel | no Key | Two Keys | New Key |
| Airelles Val d'Isère | Val d'Isere | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Armancette | Saint-Gervais-les-Bains | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Château Louise de La Vallière | Reugny | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Clos Vauban | Langres | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Domaine de Locguénolé & Spa | Kervignac | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Grand Hotel de Courtoisville | Saint-Malo | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Hostellerie Cèdre | Beaune | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Hostellerie de Levernois | Levernois | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Hotel La Ponche | Saint-Tropez | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Hôtel de la Plage | Plonévez-Porzay | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| La Grenouillère | Montreuil-sur-Mer | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| La Nauve | Cognac | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| La Villa Calvi | Calvi | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Le K2 Altitude | Courchevel | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Les Airelles Courchevel | Courchevel | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Les Roches | Le Lavandou | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Maison Albar - Le Victoria | Nice | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Maison Barrière Vendôme | Paris | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Maison Douce Époque | Benerville-sur-Mer | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Maison Maubreuil | Nantes | no Key | One Key | New Key |
| Château de la Chèvre d'Or | Eze | Two Keys | Three Keys | Upgraded |
| Le Couvent des Minimes | Mane | Two Keys | Three Keys | Upgraded |
| Domaine Le Mouflon D'Or | Zonza | One Key | Two Keys | Upgraded |
| La Réserve de Beaulieu | Beaulieu-sur-Mer | One Key | Two Keys | Upgraded |
What France lost
| Hotel | Where | 2025 | 2026 | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domaine de Biar | Montpellier | Two Keys | One Key | Dropped a tier |
| Domaine de Fontenille | Lauris | Two Keys | One Key | Dropped a tier |
| Annapurna | Courchevel | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| Château de Bagnols | Bagnols | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| Clarance | Lille | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| La Bastide en Gascogne | Barbotan-les-Termes | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| La Maison du Passage | Martignargues | One Key | no Key | Key removed |
| Le Château de Beaulieu | Busnes | Two Keys | no Key | Left the Guide |
Notable results
The single most significant result is Château de la Chèvre d'Or in Eze, which now holds Three Keys — a tier MICHELIN added only twelve hotels to, net, across the entire world this year. Promotions are the scarcer currency — worldwide only 86 already-listed hotels moved up a tier — and Château de la Chèvre d'Or, Le Couvent des Minimes and Domaine Le Mouflon D'Or plus 1 more managed it in France. The heaviest fall was Domaine de Biar in Montpellier, from Two Keys to One Key. Of the hotels that lost standing here, Le Château de Beaulieu has had its MICHELIN page removed altogether, which means leaving the selection rather than being demoted within it.
What the gains looked like
The 26 hotels that gained ground break down as 2 at Three Keys, 4 at Two Keys, 20 at One Key. Two entered the list directly at Two Keys or better rather than climbing to it, led by Les Sources de Vougeot. The gains clustered in Courchevel (3).
The shape of the country's Key list
| Tier | Hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Three Keys | 25 |
| Two Keys | 38 |
| One Key | 157 |
| All Key hotels | 220 |
That places France 3rd of the 123 countries and territories holding at least one Key hotel. Adjusted for population it works out at 3.22 Key hotels per million residents, against a Swiss rate of 10.00, an Italian rate of 3.80 and an American rate of 1.06. Three-Key hotels make up 11.4 percent of its list, against 5.47 percent worldwide.
Where the country's Key hotels are
| City or area | Key hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Paris | 41 |
| Courchevel | 8 |
| Aix-en-Provence | 6 |
| Saint-Tropez | 5 |
| Megève | 4 |
| Val d'Isere | 3 |
How this compares with the rest of the world
Worldwide, MICHELIN's second Key selection named 2,832 hotels on 18 September 2026 against 2,457
a year earlier — growth of 15.3 percent. The tiers did not move together: One-Key hotels rose 16.0
percent and Two-Key hotels 14.9 percent, while Three-Key hotels rose only 8.4 percent, from 143 to
155, cutting the top tier's share of the list from 5.82 percent to 5.47 percent.
Across the full selection, 482 hotels gained a Key they did not hold in 2025 and 86 moved up a
tier. In the same announcement 88 lost their Key and 26 dropped a tier. The additions were
publicised; the 114 downward moves were not.
| Worldwide | France | |
|---|---|---|
| Hotels that gained or improved a Key | 568 | 26 |
| Hotels that lost a Key or dropped a tier | 114 | 8 |
| Key hotels, 2025 | 2,457 | 204 |
| Key hotels, 2026 | 2,832 | 220 |
France holds about 7.7 percent of the world's Key hotels.
How these numbers were checked
The 2026 and 2025 selections were read hotel by hotel from the MICHELIN Guide's own country
listings, where every property carries an explicit One-, Two- or Three-Key marking. Country totals
reconcile to the figures the Guide published on 18 September 2026.
Every downward move in the full worldwide selection — all 114 of them — was then checked a second
time against that hotel's own page on the Guide. That second pass is not optional: a hotel missing
from a country listing has not necessarily lost anything, because several properties that plainly
still hold Keys never appear in those listings at all. Only a hotel the Guide still lists, now
without a Key, has actually lost one.
Ten hotels turned out to be a third case: their Guide page has been taken down altogether. Those
have left the selection rather than been demoted, and they are marked as such in the table above
rather than counted as downgrades.
What a MICHELIN Key is
MICHELIN introduced the Key in 2024 as the hotel counterpart to its restaurant Star. Inspectors
assess architecture, interior design, service, character, consistency and value across a selection
of more than 9,000 hotels in over 100 countries, and award One, Two or Three Keys — a very special
stay, an exceptional one, an extraordinary one. Nightly rate is not a criterion, which is why a
four-room guesthouse and a 500-room resort can hold the same distinction.
The criteria are set out in the Guide's explainer on the Key; the full country-by-country
2026 list is published here.
Author
2026/09/19
