Receiving a French taxe foncière bill for a newly completed home can be particularly confusing when you are a British owner living between France and the United Kingdom. The taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties (TFPB) is the French property tax on built property. A new house, reconstruction or qualifying addition may benefit from a temporary exemption for the two years following the year in which it is completed. That relief is not automatic in practice: the owner must make the property declaration within 90 days, and the local authority may have limited or removed part of the relief for its share of the tax.

Brexit does not remove this French domestic relief, and British nationality does not create a separate exclusion. The difficult questions are usually practical and evidential: when was the building legally complete, which owner had to declare it, what did the commune and the public inter-municipal body decide, and how should a missing exemption be challenged? This guide deals with the legal life of the property after completion, not with the conveyancing process for purchasing a home in France. It sets out the rules, the dates, the evidence and the administrative claim route for a British owner.

For wider tax issues affecting a British owner of a French second home, see the related guide on challenging French capital gains tax on a second home after Brexit. The present article addresses the earlier property-tax question created by the completion of a new building.

I. Can a British owner claim the French two-year new-build exemption?

A. What the French exemption covers, and what Brexit does not change

The starting point is Article 1383 of the Code général des impôts (CGI), the French General Tax Code. Its first paragraph states: Les constructions nouvelles, reconstructions et additions de construction à usage d’habitation sont exonérées de la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties durant les deux années qui suivent celle de leur achèvement. In English, a new residential construction, a reconstruction or an addition to a residential construction is exempt from the TFPB for the two years after the year of completion. The complete current provision is available in the official Légifrance text of Article 1383.

Three points follow from that wording. First, the relevant asset is a built residential property. The rule is not a general exemption from every charge connected with land. Secondly, the period is counted by tax years: the two years after the year of completion, rather than two years from the day on which the keys were handed over. Thirdly, the right is conditional on the declaration rules in Article 1406 CGI. A British owner therefore has to treat the relief as a right that must be preserved through a timely and accurate filing, not as a discount that the tax office must discover without an application.

The relief is normally relevant to a detached house, a flat in a newly constructed building, a reconstruction or an addition that creates qualifying built area. It is not a substitute for checking the description of the property in the tax account. A garage, annex, pool, outbuilding or land may raise separate assessment questions. If the notice includes several components, the request should identify the residential construction and explain which line or assessment base is said to fall within Article 1383.

Article 1400 CGI determines the person in whose name the tax is established. The first paragraph provides: Sous réserve des dispositions des articles 1403 et 1404, toute propriété, bâtie ou non bâtie, doit être imposée au nom du propriétaire actuel. The second paragraph adds that, where an immovable property is subject to usufruct, the tax is established in the name of the usufructuary. The official Article 1400 page should be checked where the title is shared, an usufruct has been reserved, or a French société civile immobilière (SCI), meaning a civil property company, holds the property.

This allocation matters for a British family that has bought a home jointly, transferred a life interest, or arranged a succession. The person writing to the service des impôts fonciers, the local property-tax office, should be the taxpayer shown on the account or should attach authority from that taxpayer. A disagreement between co-owners does not change the 90-day declaration deadline. Where an usufructuary and a bare owner exist, the notice and the exemption request should state the legal position rather than simply referring to “the family home”.

Nationality is not one of the conditions in Article 1383. The relief is attached to the qualifying construction and the statutory declaration. A British citizen who became resident in France after Brexit, a British owner who remains UK tax resident, and a British family using the home as a second residence can all need to examine the same French TFPB rules. Their income-tax residence and the France–UK double-tax convention may affect other taxes, but they do not replace the Article 1383 and Article 1406 analysis. The UK government’s official guidance on living in France also directs individuals towards the French authority or professional advice for personal tax questions; it is not a decision on a French local-tax exemption.

There is, however, an important limit: the headline “two-year exemption” does not guarantee that every euro on a French tax notice disappears. Article 1383 allows the commune to limit the exemption for its share to 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80% or 90%. The établissement public de coopération intercommunale (EPCI), a public inter-municipal cooperation body such as a community of communes or an agglomeration community, may remove the exemption for its share. The decision may also distinguish buildings financed with certain state-supported or approved loans. The local decision therefore has to be identified before calculating the amount claimed.

Article 1639 A bis CGI sets the timing for those local decisions. Its first paragraph states: Les délibérations des collectivités locales et des organismes compétents relatives à la fiscalité directe locale, autres que celles fixant soit les taux, soit les produits des impositions, et que celles instituant la taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères mentionnée à l’article 1520 ou la taxe d’aménagement mentionnée à l’article 1635 quater A doivent être prises avant le 1er octobre pour être applicables l’année suivante. The official Article 1639 A bis text is useful when the tax office says that the local share was limited or suppressed. Ask for the commune and EPCI deliberation, the effective year and the exact share affected.

The temporary relief should also be separated from the taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères (TEOM), the household-waste collection tax commonly shown on the same tax notice. The official French tax administration answer on a newly built house explains that the new-build property-tax exemption does not remove the TEOM. A British owner who sees a residual sum after the TFPB relief should therefore inspect the notice line by line before assuming that the exemption has been refused.

Finally, the tax year is governed by the situation existing on 1 January. Article 1415 CGI provides: La taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties, la taxe foncière sur les propriétés non bâties et la taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires sont établies pour l’année entière d’après les faits existants au 1er janvier de l’année de l’imposition. The official Article 1415 text explains why an owner cannot simply prorate the annual tax by the date of arrival or departure. It does not remove the separate question of whether a completed new building should have benefited from Article 1383 in the relevant years.

B. Which completion date and local decision control the exemption?

The decisive date is the date of definitive completion, not the date of the planning permission, the date of the notarial deed, the date on which a British owner first stayed overnight, or necessarily the date printed on a developer’s welcome letter. The building is generally treated as complete when its condition permits normal occupation. The French tax administration says that a house can be considered complete when it is habitable even if minor finishing work, such as paint or floor coverings, remains. That practical explanation appears in the official impots.gouv.fr new-construction guidance.

The legal assessment still depends on the facts of the whole property. In CAA Paris, 16 July 1991, no. 90PA00423, the court stated: l’occupation partielle d’une partie habitable de ce local ne suffit pas à faire courir le délai de déclaration. The decision concerned a building whose different parts could not be used separately and emphasised the completion of the relevant whole. This is not an invitation to wait casually: it means that the evidence must show when the qualifying building, or a separately usable part recognised by the facts, was definitively completed.

For a house bought from a developer, including a vente en l’état futur d’achèvement (VEFA), meaning an off-plan purchase completed as construction progresses, collect more than the handover certificate. The file should distinguish practical handover from tax completion. Useful documents include the declaration of completion filed with the mairie, the developer’s completion notice, utility connection records, an expert’s report, photographs, insurance documents, the certificate showing that the home was usable, and correspondence recording any work that remained. Do not turn the article into a purchase-process guide: the purpose of these documents is to establish the tax date after the construction exists.

Article 1406 CGI imposes the filing obligation. It states: Les constructions nouvelles, ainsi que les changements de consistance ou d’affectation des propriétés bâties et non bâties, sont portés par les propriétaires à la connaissance de l’administration, dans les quatre-vingt-dix jours de leur réalisation définitive et selon les modalités fixées par décret. The official Article 1406 text also states in paragraph II that the benefit of temporary exemptions depends on the declaration of the change that gives rise to them, and that a late declaration leaves the exemption only for the period remaining after 31 December of the following year.

The 90 days are calendar days counted from definitive completion. The safest practice is to calculate the last day immediately, file before it, and preserve proof of filing. If completion was on 10 May 2026, the owner should target a filing no later than 8 August 2026, subject to the precise calculation of the period and the filing channel. If completion was on 20 December 2026, the period can extend into March 2027. The date should never be inferred from the first tax notice, because the notice may arrive after the declaration period has already expired.

The consequences of delay are easier to see with a tax-year example:

Completion and filing	Likely statutory window	Practical consequence
Completion in 2026; declaration within 90 days	2027 and 2028	The two years can be claimed, subject to the local commune and EPCI decisions.
Completion in 2026; declaration late but filed during 2026	Usually the period remaining after 31 December 2027	The 2027 year is normally lost and the 2028 year may remain, subject to the other conditions.
Completion in 2026; declaration filed during 2027 after the 90-day period	Potentially no remaining period	The late filing may arrive too late to preserve either year of the temporary relief.

This table is a planning tool, not a substitute for applying the current statutory wording to the exact completion date and local decision. Article 1406 is unforgiving because the late-filing rule is attached to the statutory period, not to the date on which a taxpayer first understood the French form. In Conseil d’État, 26 November 2018, no. 419798, the court held that the taxpayer had to notify the administration of the new construction within 90 days to obtain the Article 1383 exemption. The judgment expressly says: il appartient au contribuable de porter à la connaissance de l’administration l’existence d’une construction nouvelle dans les quatre-vingt-dix jours de sa réalisation définitive.

That case is a warning against relying on a later reminder from the tax office. The court rejected the idea that a reasonable period after a reminder could replace the statutory deadline. In Conseil d’État, 21 November 2019, no. 420352, the court also accepted that a declaration was late where la déclaration adressée le 17 juin 2015 à l’administration fiscale avait été déposée hors délai, with the result that the temporary exemption was unavailable for the years in dispute. These decisions are directly relevant when a British owner argues that the developer, conveyancer or accountant should have warned them.

Check the local decision separately. Article 1383 permits a commune to reduce its share of the exemption and allows an EPCI to suppress its share. A tax notice can therefore be correct as to one part and wrong as to another. Ask the service des impôts fonciers to identify the local measure applied to the property, the tax year from which it applied and whether the property’s financing falls within an exception. If the authority cannot identify that legal basis, the point belongs in the written claim.

The UK side of the situation should not distract from the French calendar. A British owner may have a UK correspondence address, a UK mortgage, a UK pension, or a French second home. None of those facts extends the French 90-day period. It may, however, explain why an online French notice or message was missed. Correct the correspondence details in the French tax account and keep a copy of the account change, but treat that correction as a separate step from the new-build declaration.

II. What should a British owner do if the exemption is missing, reduced or refused?

A. How to make the declaration and preserve the claim

The first objective is to create a traceable file. A British owner should save the date of completion, the date the declaration was sent, the filing reference, the property address, the cadastral identifiers if available, and every response from the tax office. Screenshots alone are not enough if they do not show the date, the property and the confirmation number. Download the confirmation, retain the original attachments and store an English explanation beside the French documents.

The declaration channel depends on the type of property and the administration’s current instructions. The tax administration’s official obligations page explains that a new construction must be declared within 90 days and that this declaration is connected to the temporary exemption under Article 1383. For many private owners, the online “Biens immobiliers” area, meaning “Real estate”, is the practical starting point. A paper property declaration may still be required for the relevant house or flat, so use the form and route indicated by the account or by the local tax office. Do not send a generic email that does not identify the statutory relief.

If a builder did not make a required filing, do not assume that the British buyer has no remedy. The official impots.gouv.fr guidance on declaring a new home explains the owner’s obligation and addresses the situation in which the builder failed to declare the construction. A buyer can have a special period connected with the acquisition in that situation. The documents should prove both the builder’s omission and the date on which the buyer acquired or became responsible for the property. Because this is an exception to the ordinary timetable, state the facts precisely rather than relying on a bare assertion that “the developer dealt with it”.

When filing or correcting the declaration, make the exemption request explicit. In Conseil d’État, 25 November 2009, no. 301031, the court held that a declaration by itself ne peut, de ce seul fait, être regardé comme ayant demandé le bénéfice de l’exonération temporaire. The lesson is simple: include a sentence expressly requesting the Article 1383 relief. For example, in an English explanation attached to the French filing, identify the French request as Je sollicite le bénéfice de l’exonération temporaire prévue par l’article 1383 du CGI. Then explain the completion date, the 90-day filing date and the documents attached.

A concise file should contain:

• the full French property address and, where known, the cadastral references;
• the owner’s name as it appears on the tax account and the title position, including any usufruct;
• the definitive completion date and the evidence supporting it;
• the completed property declaration and proof of its filing date;
• the first tax notice, showing the TFPB and any TEOM or other line separately;
• the local decision or the written explanation of the commune and EPCI shares;
• a calculation showing the relief requested by year and by tax share; and
• the contact history with the builder, notary, accountant and tax office.

Use the French vocabulary consistently. Achèvement means completion. Exonération means an exemption or relief. Dégrèvement means a reduction or cancellation of an assessment after review. Réclamation contentieuse means a formal administrative tax claim seeking correction of the assessment or recognition of a legal right. Defining these terms in the file reduces the risk that a British owner asks for a discretionary “discount” when the legal request is actually recognition of a statutory exemption.

If the first notice has already been issued, write to the tax office through the secure messaging service or the channel stated on the notice. The message should ask for one of three clearly separated outcomes: correction of the tax record for the new construction, application of the remaining Article 1383 period, or a formal decision on the claim. Include the notice and the evidence in one indexed PDF where possible. Ask the office to state whether the problem is late filing, completion date, property classification, local limitation, missing express request, or a simple processing error. Different reasons require different evidence.

Do not confuse a late declaration with an incorrect assessment of the property base. If the exemption is lost because the declaration was late, an argument about the size of the house will not restore the full two-year period. If the declaration was timely but the notice uses the wrong surface, classification or owner, the taxpayer can raise that assessment error as a separate ground. The official Article 1496 CGI text explains that the rental value of residential premises is established through comparison and a weighted surface. That framework matters when a supposedly exempt property also carries an unexplained increase in its taxable base.

For a British owner who lives abroad, the filing should also make service practical. Provide a reliable email address, a French contact address where one exists, and authority for a representative if a lawyer or accountant is handling the claim. A person living outside France must pay attention to the French procedural requirements for claims. If the tax office sends a refusal by post, record the date of receipt and preserve the envelope or electronic notification. The date of receipt can affect the next procedural step.

B. How to challenge the assessment, the deadline and the evidence

If the administration does not correct the notice, submit a formal claim rather than repeating informal messages. Article L190 of the Livre des procédures fiscales (LPF), the French Tax Procedure Book, defines the contentious route. It states: Les réclamations relatives aux impôts, contributions, droits, taxes, redevances, soultes et pénalités de toute nature, établis ou recouvrés par les agents de l’administration, relèvent de la juridiction contentieuse lorsqu’elles tendent à obtenir soit la réparation d’erreurs commises dans l’assiette ou le calcul des impositions, soit le bénéfice d’un droit résultant d’une disposition législative ou réglementaire. The official Article L190 page supports a claim based either on an assessment error or on the statutory right to relief.

The ordinary deadline for local direct taxes is set out in current Article R*196-2 LPF. The current version states: Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts directs locaux et aux taxes annexes doivent être présentées à l’administration des impôts au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle, followed by the relevant event, such as the placing of the tax roll into collection or the event giving rise to the claim. See the current Article R*196-2 text on Légifrance; the provision was updated with effect from 30 July 2026, so an old online explanation should not be treated as conclusive.

For a new-build exemption, the start point may require careful classification. A claim may concern the tax notice itself, the event that should have triggered the relief, or both. A conservative approach is to file as soon as the missing exemption is identified and never wait for the last day. State every relevant date: completion, declaration, first notice, payment or collection, and refusal. If several years are disputed, identify each year and attach each notice. A claim that names only “the French property tax” without the commune, year and assessment number creates avoidable uncertainty.

Article R*197-2 LPF provides that, for local direct taxes, a separate claim must be presented for each commune. The official Article R*197-2 text is therefore important where the same British owner has a second property in a different French commune. Article R*197-3 also requires the claim to identify the disputed assessment, set out a summary of the grounds and conclusions, and include the assessment notice or a copy. Those requirements are reflected in the official Article R*197-3 page.

A useful claim has four layers. The first is the legal ground: Article 1383 creates the temporary residential new-build relief and Article 1406 makes the declaration the condition for it. The second is the chronology: completion, declaration and notice dates in a short table. The third is the proof: documents showing definitive completion and timely filing. The fourth is the calculation: the amount of TFPB wrongly assessed, the local share that may remain chargeable and any TEOM that is not part of the exemption. This structure lets the tax office grant a partial correction even if it disputes one part of the request.

Where the tax office argues that the filing was late, test the argument against the actual completion date and the evidence. The Conseil d’État decisions on nos. 419798 and 420352 show why the 90-day rule is taken seriously, but they do not make every developer handover date decisive. A tax officer may have used the date on a mairie declaration, while the owner’s file contains evidence that the building became habitable later. The task is to reconcile those dates and explain why the chosen date is the legally relevant definitive completion date. Do not submit contradictory documents without a chronology.

Where the administration argues that the local authority limited the exemption, ask for the exact deliberation under Article 1639 A bis. Verify whether it limits only the commune’s share or also affects the EPCI share, whether the decision applies to the tax year in dispute, and whether a financing exception is relevant. A response saying “the commune has removed the exemption” is incomplete unless it identifies the legal share and effective date. A British owner should ask for the calculation of the remaining amount, not merely a yes-or-no answer.

Where the notice names the wrong owner, address or property, make that error a separate ground. Article 1400 links the assessment to the current owner or, in the cases listed by the statute, to a holder such as an usufructuary. Article 1415 fixes the annual position by reference to 1 January. Those rules may explain the person named on a particular notice, but they do not authorise the administration to ignore a timely new-build declaration. Include the title, usufruct deed, completion records and correspondence-address history where ownership has changed around the relevant date.

If the administration rejects the claim, request a written explanation that addresses each ground and preserves the procedural date. A rejection of the Article 1383 relief may be challenged before the administrative courts after the required prior claim, but the route and time limit depend on the decision and the assessment. The refusal should be reviewed with the complete tax file, because a court cannot normally be asked to decide an entirely new factual basis that was never presented to the tax office. Keep the claim, its delivery proof, the administration’s response and the public tax record together.

Payment and challenge are separate questions. A taxpayer should not assume that filing a claim automatically suspends collection, nor should an urgent payment decision be made without reviewing the notice and any available request for a payment arrangement or suspension. If the amount is material, obtain advice on the immediate collection risk while the merits of the exemption are examined. The key point is to protect the claim deadline and the evidence; an informal conversation with a call-centre agent is not a safe substitute for a formal, dated submission.

For future years, do not wait for the next notice. Check the online property account, confirm that the new construction and its completion date are recorded correctly, and compare the local-tax lines with the Article 1383 calculation. If the home is later altered, divided, rented, or used in a way that changes its tax description, a new declaration issue may arise. Keep the original exemption file even after the two-year period, because it may explain why later notices contain a particular base or classification.

A British owner should also resist the temptation to rely on a UK tax adviser’s general statement that “new homes are exempt”. The relevant question is not whether the home is new in an ordinary commercial sense; it is whether the French construction qualifies, when it was definitively completed, whether the Article 1406 declaration was timely, and what the local authorities decided. Likewise, a French tax office’s statement that “Brexit changes nothing” answers only nationality. It does not answer the completion date, local share or filing evidence. A sound claim connects each conclusion to a document and a legal text.

Conclusion

A British owner of a new-build home in France can potentially claim the Article 1383 two-year TFPB exemption after Brexit. The practical route is to establish the definitive completion date, file the property declaration within 90 days, make the exemption request expressly, verify the commune and EPCI decisions, and preserve proof of every step. If a full or excessive taxe foncière notice arrives, separate the TFPB from TEOM and other charges, then submit a dated administrative claim identifying the relevant years, property, legal grounds and calculation. The official decisions in nos. 301031, 419798 and 420352 show why the wording and timing of the declaration matter.

The best evidence is a coherent chronology: completion, filing, notice, response and claim. A British address, a developer’s omission or a late discovery of the French online account may explain the problem, but those facts need to be converted into a legally supported request. The earlier the file is assembled, the more realistic it is to preserve a remaining exemption year or correct a tax-office error.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm.
We can review your completion evidence, declaration date, tax notice and challenge route.

Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or use the contact form to send the relevant documents.