Short answer. Yes. A usufructuary may enjoy the property himself, lease it to another, or even give away his right of usufruct entirely. What he cannot do is give anyone more than he has: every contract he makes as usufructuary ends when the usufruct ends.
What the law says
The usufructuary may personally enjoy the thing in usufruct, lease it to another, or alienate his right of usufruct, even by a gratuitous title
Civil Code, Article 572 — The Usufructuary May Lease or Transfer. Read the full provision →
The right is his to use or to pass on
Article 572 treats the usufruct as an asset in the usufructuary's own hands, not merely a personal permission to occupy. He may live in the property, or lease it and take the rent, or transfer the right of usufruct itself to someone else — and the article adds even by a gratuitous title, so he may give it away as well as sell it. No consent from the naked owner is required for any of this. Owners who assume they must approve a tenant are often surprised, but the enjoyment they parted with included the power to decide who does the enjoying.
The ceiling on everything he grants
The freedom comes with a limit stated in the same sentence: all the contracts he may enter into as usufructuary shall terminate upon the expiration of the usufruct. A five-year lease granted by a usufructuary whose right ends in two years gives the tenant two years, not five. The lease is not void — it is simply incapable of outlasting the interest it was carved from. The person who bears the loss is the tenant, which is why anyone renting from a usufructuary should ask to see the instrument and find out when the right expires before signing a long term.
The exception for rural land
One category is spared the abrupt cut-off. The article saves leases of rural lands, which shall be considered as subsisting during the agricultural year. The reason is practical rather than doctrinal: a farming tenant who has planted a crop would otherwise lose it to the calendar, and the land would be worked by nobody for the balance of the season. So a rural lease that would otherwise die mid-year runs to the end of the agricultural year instead. It is a narrow indulgence — it protects the current cycle, and does not preserve the lease beyond it.
What each side should establish first
For a prospective tenant, the questions are what created the usufruct, when it ends, and whether the instrument imposes any restriction the Code does not — because a deed can bind the usufructuary more tightly than the article does. For the naked owner, the useful record is the condition of the property at the start, since the usufructuary remains answerable for preserving it no matter who he lets in. For the usufructuary himself, the important discipline is not to grant a term he has no power to deliver.