In a country where luxury hospitality is practically a national sport, France’s official “Palace” distinction still manages to stand apart. Only 31 hotels currently hold this government-recognized label, a microscopic fraction of the country’s more than 18,000 hotels. For travelers who care less about generic five-star checklists and more about sense of place, service culture and culinary pedigree, the Palace list has quietly become one of the most meaningful markers of true high-end hospitality anywhere in the world.

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How France’s Palace Distinction Works

The “Palace” distinction was created in 2010 by France’s Ministry of Tourism and is administered by Atout France, the country’s official tourism development agency.

It sits above the regular five-star classification: to even be considered, a property must already be a five-star hotel under France’s national rating system. From there, only those that demonstrate truly exceptional qualities are elevated to Palace status, positioning them as the crown jewels of French hospitality.

The process unfolds in two stages. First comes an investigation phase led by Atout France, which checks an applicant’s compliance with a detailed set of objective criteria. These touch on hardware and infrastructure: spa and wellness facilities, a fitness area, multilingual staff, round-the-clock concierge and room service, extensive suites, and a full suite of five-star amenities. Only hotels that tick all of these boxes can move forward to the second stage.

The decisive element is a qualitative evaluation carried out by an independent commission appointed by the government. This panel looks beyond facilities to judge location, architecture and heritage, interior design, gastronomic offering, environmental commitments and, crucially, the culture of service. Panel members may conduct visits, review past guest feedback and examine how well a hotel embodies French art de vivre. At the end, they issue a recommendation to the tourism minister on whether a property deserves the Palace label.

While plenty of destinations promote “six-star” or “seven-star” properties in their marketing, France’s Palace designation is one of the few hotel super-categories that is actually codified and controlled by a national authority. It is designed as much to protect the reputation of French luxury abroad as it is to guide travelers toward the most exceptional stays.

A Small Club: 31 Hotels, No More

Despite a steady stream of hotel openings and renovations across France, the Palace club remains remarkably tight. As of late 2025, Atout France confirms that only 31 hotels in the entire country hold the distinction. That figure has not grown since a wave of new designations in October 2019, when six properties, including Hôtel Lutetia in Paris, Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez and Villa La Coste in Provence, were added to the list.

The list was initially conceived as a dynamic roster: before the pandemic, Palace status was granted for five years, with each property needing to reapply and demonstrate that its standards had not slipped. Emergency extensions during the COVID-19 years temporarily froze this timetable, but a reform adopted in 2024 has now shortened the validity of the label from five years to three. The goal is to ensure that every Palace continues to meet contemporary expectations of luxury, from sustainability to digital experience, rather than resting on its laurels.

That shorter cycle makes the Palace label both more demanding and more meaningful. Hotels now have to think in three-year horizons, planning reinvestments and upgrades so that their next application dossier looks as strong as their last. For travelers, the upside is that a Palace plaque on the wall is a relatively fresh guarantee of excellence, not a relic from a golden era several owners ago.

At the same time, the finite size of the club means that absence from the Palace list is not necessarily an indictment. Some headline-making newcomers, such as Cheval Blanc Paris or the reimagined hotels at Versailles, simply have not yet gone through a full Palace application cycle. Others may choose, for strategic or branding reasons, not to pursue the label at all—even if they compete directly with Palace hotels on rates and clientele.

Paris: The Capital of Palace Hotels

Unsurprisingly, the densest cluster of Palace hotels is in Paris, where 12 properties currently carry the distinction. They map neatly onto the city’s traditional axes of luxury: the “golden triangle” off the Champs-Élysées, the grand boulevards around the Opéra and Place Vendôme, and the Left Bank’s historic Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

On the Right Bank, travelers will find icons such as Four Seasons Hotel George V, Le Bristol Paris, Le Meurice, Hôtel Plaza Athénée and Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel. These are the properties that helped define the global image of a Parisian grand hotel: Haussmann façades, flower-filled lobbies, multi-starred restaurants and legions of white-gloved staff. Newer-generation entries like Mandarin Oriental Paris and The Peninsula Paris inject a more contemporary aesthetic while still aligning tightly with Palace standards.

The Left Bank has one Palace hotel, Hôtel Lutetia, which reopened in 2018 after an extensive restoration that sought to preserve its Art Deco soul while modernizing every guest touchpoint. La Réserve Paris offers a more intimate counterpoint close to the Champs-Élysées, positioning itself as an ultra-discreet urban mansion with just 40 rooms and suites, a favorite of repeat visitors seeking privacy over spectacle.

For loyalty-minded travelers, Park Hyatt Paris–Vendôme and Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris stand out as the only Paris Palaces aligned with large international points programs.

The Park Hyatt is highly regarded for its location and value when redeemed with points, though some frequent guests note that the physical product now competes with shinier neighbors. Royal Monceau leans more resolutely into contemporary art and design, pairing its Raffles heritage with a gallery-like atmosphere that appeals to a slightly edgier luxury crowd.

The Côte d’Azur and the Art of Seaside Glamour

The South of France is the other great stronghold of the Palace label, stretching from the pine-covered headlands of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to the hilltop villages of Provence. Eight Palace hotels are recognized in the broader Côte d’Azur and southeastern region, with Saint-Tropez and its surrounding coast commanding particular attention.

In Saint-Tropez itself, long-running social fixtures like Hôtel Byblos and Airelles Saint-Tropez, Château de la Messardière share Palace status with the more recent Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez, which sits right on the waterfront with a pronounced focus on gastronomy and wellness. Nearby, La Réserve Ramatuelle offers a more secluded, resort-like experience carved into the hills above the sea, with villas and suites designed for guests who want to settle in for a week or longer.

Farther east along the Riviera, Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel, and Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes have become almost mythic in luxury travel circles, their cliffside pools and pine-shaded promenades embodying a very specific vision of Côte d’Azur elegance.

Inland, Château Saint-Martin & Spa in Vence and Villa La Coste near Aix-en-Provence demonstrate that Palace-level hospitality is not limited to the coast: both pair countryside calm with serious culinary ambition and deep art or wine programs.

For many international visitors, it is in this region that the abstract promise of “Palace” hospitality most clearly connects with the reality on the ground: lavish but surprisingly informal service, strong ties to local producers and a style of luxury that is more about languid afternoons on the terrace than ostentatious décor.

Courchevel, the Alps and Mountain Palaces

The French Alps provide a very different backdrop but an equally dense cluster of Palace hotels. Five of the six mountain Palaces line the slopes of Courchevel, the ski resort best known for its ultra-high-end clientele. Here, Cheval Blanc Courchevel, Les Airelles Courchevel, L’Apogée Courchevel, Hôtel Barrière Les Neiges and Le K2 Palace all translate the Palace formula into a ski-in/ski-out language of heated boot rooms, private funiculars and high-altitude tasting menus.

These properties lean heavily into chalet aesthetics—timber, stone, roaring fireplaces—but match them with the same level of service refinement found in Paris or on the Riviera. Many suites are effectively mountain apartments, with private spas, butler service and direct access to the slopes. When winter is in full swing, nightly rates here can rival or exceed those of the capital’s grandest hotels, underscoring just how prized this niche of French luxury has become.

The sixth Alpine Palace, Hôtel Royal in Évian-les-Bains, sits on the shores of Lake Geneva rather than in a ski village. It combines Belle Époque grandeur with a broad wellness and medical-spa offering, drawing a mix of leisure travelers and guests on longer therapeutic stays. Its inclusion on the Palace list highlights the diversity of formats that can meet the criteria, provided they sustain the required level of service and experience.

Together, these mountain properties help ensure that the Palace label is not confined to urban or seaside definitions of French luxury. For travelers planning multi-stop itineraries, they make it possible to experience three very different manifestations of the same national hospitality ideal within a single country: city, sea and snow.

Beyond the Hexagon: Southwest France and the Caribbean

Outside of Paris, the Alps and the Côte d’Azur, the Palace map thins but does not disappear. In southwest France, three properties carry the distinction. Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, now aligned with Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, is perhaps the most historically resonant: originally built as a summer residence for Empress Eugénie in the 19th century, it remains one of the most architecturally striking seaside hotels in Europe.

In the Bordeaux region, Les Sources de Caudalie turns Palace-level hospitality into a wine-and-wellness retreat, set among vineyards with a strong focus on vinotherapy and local gastronomy. Les Prés d’Eugénie, Maison Guérard in Eugénie-les-Bains, meanwhile, is built around chef Michel Guérard’s legendary culinary universe, making it one of the most overtly gastronomic entries on the list. Travelers seeking an immersion in French cuisine as much as in French hospitality often place it very high on their wish lists.

The only Palace hotel beyond metropolitan France is Cheval Blanc St-Barth Isle de France in the Caribbean. Its inclusion underscores that the distinction can extend to French overseas territories when a property there meets the same stringent criteria. For international travelers, particularly from North America, this St. Barth outpost can be the most accessible introduction to the Palace world, reachable via regional flights rather than a transatlantic crossing.

That geographic spread—coastal, rural, insular—illustrates how Atout France is using the Palace label strategically, not only as a seal of excellence but as a tool to showcase different faces of the French tourism product to the world.

What the Palace Label Means for Travelers Right Now

For visitors, especially those who routinely see “five-star” attached to everything from true luxury icons to oversized convention hotels, the Palace list serves as a curated shortcut. It signals that a property has been vetted not just for size or flash, but for a combination of heritage, design, service ethos and culinary strength that collectively express a high point of French art de vivre.

That does not mean every Palace hotel will suit every traveler. Some, like La Réserve Paris or Les Prés d’Eugénie, are intentionally intimate and low-key; others, such as Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc or Plaza Athénée, trade more openly on spectacle and celebrity. Guest experiences can also be colored by seasonal pressures—ski weeks in Courchevel or August on the Riviera will feel very different from midweek stays in shoulder seasons.

It is also worth remembering that non-Palace hotels can still be world-class. The much-discussed Cheval Blanc Paris, for example, has quickly climbed international rankings since opening yet has not, as of late 2025, been granted Palace status. Properties within the Airelles and other French luxury collections may join the list in future assessment rounds, particularly now that the post-reform calendar is restarting.

Nonetheless, for travelers building complex itineraries or deciding where to deploy hard-earned points, the Palace roster is an unusually reliable indicator that a hotel takes both hardware and hospitality seriously. In a global market where star ratings often blur together, that clarity is part of its appeal.

FAQ

Q1. What exactly is a French “Palace” hotel?
It is a five-star hotel in France that has received an additional state-recognized distinction from Atout France, confirming that it offers truly exceptional levels of service, setting, heritage and overall guest experience beyond the standard luxury category.

Q2. How many Palace hotels are there in France today?
As of late 2025, there are 31 hotels with the Palace distinction, spread primarily across Paris, the Côte d’Azur, the Alps (especially Courchevel), southwest France and the French Caribbean.

Q3. How is the Palace distinction different from regular star ratings?
Star ratings in France measure objective criteria such as room size, facilities and services across a spectrum from one to five stars, while the Palace distinction is reserved only for the very best five-star hotels and adds a qualitative review of factors like history, design, gastronomy and service culture.

Q4. Who decides which hotels receive Palace status?
Atout France first verifies that a hotel meets all technical eligibility requirements, then an independent commission appointed by the government reviews dossiers, visits properties and recommends to the tourism minister which hotels should receive or renew the Palace label.

Q5. How long does a Palace designation last?
Under reforms that took effect in October 2024, the Palace distinction is now valid for three years, after which a hotel must reapply and demonstrate that it still meets or exceeds all criteria to keep its status.

Q6. Are all Palace hotels historic buildings or former royal residences?
No. While some, such as Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, originated as imperial residences, many Palace hotels are 20th-century or contemporary constructions; the term refers to the level of luxury and experience, not necessarily to a palace-era building.

Q7. Can I book a Palace hotel with loyalty points?
In a few cases, yes. Park Hyatt Paris–Vendôme and Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz participate in Hyatt’s program, and Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris is linked to Accor’s scheme, though redemptions and benefits vary and cash rates at these properties remain high.

Q8. Why are some famous French luxury hotels not on the Palace list?
Some high-profile hotels may be too new to have completed the application process, may not yet meet every technical or qualitative criterion, or may simply have chosen not to pursue the distinction, even if they compete at the same level in pricing and reputation.

Q9. Does staying at a Palace hotel guarantee perfect service?
It guarantees that the hotel has been judged to meet exceptionally high standards overall, but individual experiences can still vary with timing, staffing and personal expectations; the label is a strong indicator of quality, not an absolute guarantee of perfection.

Q10. How can travelers check whether a hotel truly has Palace status?
The most reliable method is to consult the official Palace list maintained by Atout France, which is updated as distinctions are granted or renewed, and to cross-check the hotel’s own communications, where genuine Palace properties typically display the designation prominently.