Short answer. Yes, if the owner turns up in time. Article 720 provides that when the owner appears, he is obliged to pay the finder, as a reward, one-tenth of the sum or of the price of the thing found. So an honest finder who reports and returns lost property is entitled to a reward fixed at ten percent of its value.
What the law says
he shall be obliged to pay, as a reward to the finder, one-tenth of the sum or of the price of the thing found
Civil Code, Article 720 — The Finder's Reward. Read the full provision →
The one-tenth reward
Article 720 gives the finder of lost property a definite claim to a reward, and its words are precise: if the owner should appear in time, he shall be obliged to pay, as a reward to the finder, one-tenth of the sum or of the price of the thing found. The reward is not left to the owner's generosity or gratitude — it is an obligation the law imposes, fixed at a tenth of the value. Where the thing found is money, the reward is one-tenth of that sum; where it is an object, it is one-tenth of its price or value. The finder does not have to bargain for it.
The condition: the owner must appear in time
The right to the reward is tied to a condition — the owner must appear in time. This fits the wider scheme for lost movables, under which a finder who cannot locate the owner turns the thing over to the authorities of the place, and after the period fixed by law passes without the owner claiming it, the thing or its value may go to the finder instead. So there are two paths. If the owner comes forward within the allowed period, he recovers his property but must pay the ten-percent reward. If he never appears, the finder's claim shifts from a reward to the thing itself under the related rules on lost property.
The finder must have acted honestly
The reward rewards honesty, so it assumes the finder behaved as the law expects — that he did not keep the lost thing quietly for himself but reported it and made it available for the owner to recover. A person who hides found property, or who treats it as his own and refuses to give it up, is not the honest finder this article protects, and may face liability instead of a reward. The duty to pay one-tenth arises precisely because the finder took the lawful route, surrendering the thing so the owner could get it back, rather than the unlawful one of quietly appropriating it.
What the rule does not cover
The article fixes the amount but does not turn every act of returning something into a paid errand. It speaks of lost property whose owner later appears — not of property entrusted to you, delivered to you by mistake and knowingly kept, or taken with the owner's knowledge. Nor does it let a finder inflate the reward by claiming a value the thing does not have; the tenth is measured against the real sum or price of what was found. And it does not allow the finder to hold the property hostage — the reward is a claim for payment, not a licence to keep the owner's thing until the money is handed over.