LOCAL CUSTOMS · FRANCE
How happy hour works in France
France allows a happy hour. The cheaper hour has to come with a cheaper non-alcoholic drink as well, announced the same way, and an open bar is not a legal format. In Paris the window that gets printed is usually a weekday list from 5 to 8.
The custom
The after-work drink is the apéro. In the Marais, along Avenue Kléber, in Ménilmontant, Ledru-Rollin, Plaisance and Ternes it is a posted list from about 5 until 8 or 9, and then the room goes back to the dinner price. A neighborhood café may drop the spritz, the pint and a glass of wine together. A bistro may do the same and include a short plate list. Both belong in the Atlas.
You must be 18. Prices on a French menu are TTC, tax included. In a café or a restaurant the service is usually already in the number (“service compris”). When a page says the price is net of tax and service, the card says so.
What a promotion may be
An open bar, unlimited alcohol for one commercial price, is prohibited. A happy hour is allowed, with a condition: during the cheaper hour the venue has to offer an equivalent reduction on non-alcoholic drinks, across the categories the display rules name, and announce that reduction the same way it announces the alcohol. A cocktail at €8.20, with no soft drink printed beside it, is still the price the venue printed. The Atlas does not invent the soft-drink price the page left off.
A price that runs until “pas d’heure,” an all-day spritz, and a dice game that gives the hour away are a different product. They stay off the card.
What the Atlas does not check yet
A Paris card does not yet know whether every non-alcoholic category is on the board. Read the note. Where the venue printed the soft-drink price, it is on the card. Where it did not, the note says so. The first wave is the cafés, cocktail bars and one bistro that publish a standing window and a price on their own sites.
Cities
Sources
Laws and regulator pages as checked on 27 October 2026. A licence condition can be tighter than the statute. Confirm with the venue.