Café culture has always been a big part of Paris’s identity, and so the city has been a natural fit for the remote work revolution of recent years. Coworking in Paris has blended into its coffee shop scene, rather than being concentrated in the more formal workspaces you find in other cities. We visited some of the finest coworking cafés in Paris to discover what the hype is all about. In this article we review our favourites, along with some of the best coworking spaces in Paris for a more traditional remote work environment.
Coworking in Paris: a brief history and overview
Europe’s first modern coworking space opened in Paris in 2008, and the city has continued to be at the forefront of the trend ever since. But the roots of collaborative working in Paris actually go back much further.
In the late 19th century, the artist and sculptor Alfred Boucher created a hub in Paris called La Ruche (meaning “beehive”) where artists lived and worked together, with a shared space for exhibiting.
This helped to catalyse more collective art spaces around Europe, and to cement Paris’s status as a pioneer in creativity. It also set the scene for Paris to be a leader of the pack in a new world of remote working in more modern times.
Fastforward to the 21st century, and the coworking scene in Paris today is full of the vitality and creativity that you would expect from somewhere with such romantic art traditions. The city is now home to dozens of collaborative and shared workspaces, each offering a different style and character.
Coworking and café culture in Paris
We have visited dozens of cities with coworking spaces on our travels, but Paris stands out because of how this scene has been come intertwined with the famous café culture.
Yes, we’ve seen coworking cafés in other places too, but they are usually the exception rather than the rule. Most coworking spaces in Lisbon, for example, provide a more traditional office-style environment. But in Paris, coworking cafés are everywhere, strewn on the corners of those famous wide boulevards and along mazy romantic side-streets.
Cafés in Paris have been synonymous with the city’s creative output for many centuries. In older times they were places where writers would seek inspiration, and where intellectuals would gather to discuss philosophy and ideas.
This café culture has become the natural foundation for the coworking scene today. Coworking cafés in Paris lend themselves more to sporadic, spur-of-the-moment working where you can dip in and out to suit your moments of inspiration, or if you just want to seek a different environment for a little while. Catering to this, rather than focusing on monthly memberships, the city’s coworking cafés lean more towards hourly or daily rates.
The flexibility of this setup makes Paris fantastic for taking a workation, as you can dive in and out of your work freely while exploring one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
Hotspots for coworking spaces in Paris
Paris city centre is spread across 20 neighbourhoods, or “arondissements”, and you can find coworking spaces and cafés across the length and breadth of them.
However, a large proportion are concentrated around Arondissements 1 to 6, in the central area either side of the river, close to Notre Dame Cathedral. We visited a wide selection of the coworking spaces in Paris, but our favourites were all located around the lively, creative districts of Le Marais, Beaubourg and the Latin Quarter.
As this part of Paris is so centrally located, the coworking spaces and cafés around here are easy to reach and convenient for getting around in between work.
Best coworking spaces in Paris
A couple of the coworking spaces we visited in Paris had a more formal desk environment, and were suited for longer stays in the city. Formal doesn’t mean boring though – these spaces also have their own unique qualities and inspiring atmospheres. Let’s take a look.
La Bulle – Rive Gauche Coworking
📍 La Monnaie · monthly dedicated workspace €450+ · day pass €30 · 5-day credit €132
La Bulle is a coworking space inside in a stunning 17th-century building, close to the banks of the Seine on the threshold between Paris’s vibrant Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain-des-Prés village.
Wandering among the desk workspaces and meeting rooms at La Bulle, set among stone-slabbed walls and wooden-beamed ceilings, you get a distinct aura of journeying back in time. Period furniture and wall decorations have been carefully chosen to befit the space’s history, but with modern working facilities seamlessly integrated into the mix.
It all makes sense once you know the space has been designed by an architect and an innovation adviser. They have achieved a remarkable blend between retaining historic splendour and catering to modern creative needs, including space for broadcasting or podcasting.
The space at La Bulle is bright, well lit, and wonderfully serene. If you want to find some quiet headspace and focus on an important project, it provides a tranquil alternative to the buzz of the city’s coworking cafés.
When you want to explore the area, you can begin at Pont Neuf, Paris’s oldest bridge, which is a short walk away. And at the end of the day you can wind down with dinner at one of the many great restaurants in Paris’s 6th Arondissement, or maybe catch an arthouse film at Cinéma Saint-André des Arts just around the corner.
La Bulle is ideal if you’re looking for a dedicated workspace in Paris, but there are day passes and flexible options available too. Find details on the La Bulle website.
MyCowork Beaubourg
📍 Beaubourg · monthly €330+ · day pass €25 · hourly rate €5 · prepaid plans available
Beaubourg is one of Paris’s oldest districts, and it won’t take long to capture your imagination. It’s a bustling, chaotic place, characterised by big cobbled plazas lined with terraced cafés, and it is home to the modern art mecca of Centre Pompidou.
MyCowork has two coworking spaces in Paris, and one of them right is here in the heart of the bustle of Beaubourg, next to the magnificent gothic church of Saint-Merri. Giant, building-high art murals are daubed just across the courtyard outside the front entrance, so you are surrounded by inspiration from the past and present even as you arrive for a day’s work.
The workspace inside is bright, modern and airy, with the tall front windows letting in copious amounts of light. Desks are generously spaced out in a main communal area, bringing a relaxed yet professional feel.
MyCowork Beaubourg has struck a great balance between formal and flexible workspace, with a slightly more down-to-earth vibe than the coworking cafés (although there is still unlimited tea and coffee to enjoy!). You will feel at home as a longer-term resident here, but it’s also a nice place to pop in for a couple of hours’ work, and there are hourly rates to cater for that.
If you need a more private, focused space, you can duck out of the communal area and hop into one of the personal booths to the rear of the building. And a pass is also valid to use at MyCowork’s other space in Montorgueil Les Halles.
Find more details on the MyCowork website.
Best coworking cafés in Paris
Unicorners
📍 Le Marais · day pass €24 · hourly rate €6 · multi-day bundles available
Coffee shop meets leafy coworking paradise at Unicorners, a self-styled “open jungle” in Le Marais, a hip Parisienne district full of boutique stores, galleries and old markets.
You can choose from the desks interwoven among tall plants, or take a perch by the windows looking out onto the bustling intersection of Rue Beaubourg and Rue de Montmorency. White canopies drooping from the ceiling add to the feel of being in a creative labyrinth.
Unicorners has a friendly, communal atmosphere that is perfect for gathering with a small group of coworkers to work on a collaborative project, either around a desk in the main café space or in a quieter meeting room down in the basement.
I tried a cup of the freshly ground coffee when I visited, which I can confirm was delicious and is guaranteed to give you that lift when you need it! The café also serves organic fruit and healthy snacks.
Unicorners is shaped around on-demand flexible working, with desks available by the hour or the day, and with multi-day bundles available for individuals or teams. It’s always a place of fresh faces and fresh ideas.
Find more details on the Unicorners website.
10h10 Coworking Café
📍 Le Marais · monthly €300 · 5-day pass €120 · day pass €27 · hourly rate €6
Nestled on the cusp of Beaubourg and Le Marais, 10h10 Coworking Café is a place where you can feel like you’re working from home in the middle of Paris. Spread across two floors, you can pick your working environment from a mixture of desks, wooden tables and comfy sofas.
Bright colours, music memorabilia and slightly psychedelic wall patterns bring a fun 1960s ambiance, with music always on the go, but it doesn’t feel intrusive. Most coworkers were scattered around the ground floor when we visited, some gathering together for group discussions and others finding solo focus.
Community is a big part of 10h10 Coworking Café, and in the evenings the space plays host to events, workshops, talks and networking sessions.
There is a kitchen on each floor for self-catering, each well equipped and stocked. From the café you can stay refreshed and nourished with organic coffee, fruit and various snacks.
10h10 Coworking Café does offer monthly memberships, but it has been created with nomadic workers in mind, so you can arrive without booking and use the space flexibly.
Packages include 5-day passes, day passes and hourly rates. Find more details on the 10h10 website.
Level Coworking Café
📍 Latin Quarter · day pass €27 · hourly rate €6 · multi-day packs available
The Latin Quarter is the oldest part of Paris but has a dynamic energy, as today it has the city’s highest student population. It is a maze of historic buildings intermitted with learning centres and narrow pedestrian streets lined with restaurants, bars, art-houses and cinemas.
Level Coworking Café is situated right in the heart of the district, and offers a place to escape the buzz for a while and get some work done over a fresh coffee. It’s a cosy space with a friendly but studious working environment across its two floors.
Downstairs you can set up in the main café area on wooden bench-tables facing out onto the quiet street outside, while upstairs there are neatly arranged desks ideal for solo working.
The café’s menu is befitting of the trendy vibe that the Latin Quarter has these days. All the classic coffee options are available, but you can also have the likes of pumpkin spice lattes, gingerbread lattes, matcha or chai.
It’s a relaxed atmosphere all-round, enhanced by a minimalist design. You can pay by the hour or the day, or buy pass bundles for 5, 9, 14 or 20 days.
Find more details on the Level Coworking Café website.
Map of coworking spaces and cafés in Paris
You can see the locations of the coworking spaces and coworking cafés in Paris featured in this article on the map below:
Have you tried coworking in Paris? We’d love to know about your experiences in the comments below.
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