Every British household that settles in France eventually faces the same question: now that we live here, should the UK pension stay in Britain or move with us? Advertisements for overseas transfers promise lower tax, a single currency and freedom from British rules. The reality is narrower and more technical. Since Brexit, a British resident of France lives under the France–United Kingdom double tax treaty of 19 June 2008, French residence rules and a United Kingdom overseas transfer charge that can take 25 per cent of the fund at the point of exit. A transfer that is sold as a saving can therefore cost more than doing nothing, and some pensions cannot legally be moved at all.
This guide is written for a British reader who already lives in France or is about to move: an employee with a defined contribution pot, a member of a funded defined benefit scheme, a retiree drawing a SIPP, or a couple planning where pension income will land for the next twenty years. It explains where a UK pension is taxed once you are French tax-resident, which pensions are locked in Britain, how the exit charge and French tax combine, and which checks separate a sound move from an expensive mistake. A QROPS (Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme) is a pension scheme outside the United Kingdom that meets British conditions for receiving a transfer; a ROPS is the wider published notification list held by HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs). Every French term below is explained when it first appears. Property purchase and company creation are separate projects, not treated here.
I. If you live in France, where is your UK pension taxed and what must you declare?
A. Is a UK pension taxed only in France, or does the United Kingdom keep a share?
The starting point is not the pension. It is residence. France considers a person tax-resident where any one of several connections exists: the foyer (family home) is in France, the principal place of abode is in France, a professional activity is carried on in France, or the centre of economic interests is in France. These tests appear in Articles 4 A and 4 B of the Code général des impôts (French General Tax Code). Only one needs to be met. A British couple who keep a London flat but live year-round in the Dordogne, work remotely from France and hold their daily life there will normally be French tax-resident, even if they still spend time in Britain. Where both countries claim residence, the treaty’s tie-breaker in Article 4 decides: permanent home first, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then mutual agreement between the administrations.
Once French residence is established, Article 18 of the France–United Kingdom treaty allocates most private pensions to France alone. The wording, in the treaty’s English text, is: “Subject to the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 19, pensions and other similar remuneration paid in consideration of past employment to a resident of a Contracting State shall be taxable only in that State”. In plain terms, a private occupational pension or personal pension paid for past work to someone who lives in France is taxable only in France. The United Kingdom must give up its taxing right, and France taxes the worldwide pension of its residents. The official treaty framework and the claim forms sit behind the impots.gouv.fr international tax pages, and the United Kingdom overview of pension taxation, including the position of people living abroad, is set out in the GOV.UK pension tax guidance, read with the HMRC double taxation relief manual for France.
The large exception is government service. Article 19(2)(a) of the treaty provides: “pensions and other similar remuneration paid by, or out of funds created by, a Contracting State or a political subdivision or a local authority thereof to an individual in respect of services rendered to that State or subdivision or authority shall be taxable only in that State”. A pension paid by the British State for service to it — the classic example is a civil service pension — stays taxable in the United Kingdom even if the pensioner lives in France, unless the pensioner is both resident in France and a French national, in which case the second subparagraph returns the taxing right to France. This is the trap that catches former public servants: the treaty treatment follows the nature of the service, not the address of the bank receiving the money. Our detailed analysis of these cases, including the nationality evidence and the correction procedure where the wrong country has taxed the pension, is set out in our Article 19 guide for former British public servants, and the general treaty map for all pension types in our broad treaty-residence guide for Britons in France.
French taxation of the pension itself follows the wages category. Pensions and life annuities fall within the salaries regime of Article 79 of the General Tax Code, and Article 158, 5, a of the same Code grants a 10 per cent allowance on pensions, within annual minimum and maximum limits, before the progressive scale in Article 197 applies. The mechanics of the French income-tax return and payment are explained on the Service-Public income-tax pages. In practice, a British pensioner files the main return form 2042 with the foreign-income annexe form 2047, converts sterling amounts at an evidenced rate, and reports the gross pension before claiming the allowance. Income that the treaty exempts in France can still raise the rate on the rest through the taux effectif (effective-rate rule), so an exempt government pension may indirectly cost money. Social charges add a second layer: the CSG (contribution sociale généralisée, a social levy), the CRDS (contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale, a debt-redemption levy) and the CASA (contribution additionnelle de solidarité pour l’autonomie, an autonomy-solidarity levy) can apply to replacement income under Articles L. 136-1 and following of the Code de la sécurité sociale (Social Security Code), at rates that depend on the household’s revenu fiscal de référence (reference tax income). A pensioner affiliated to another scheme through an S1 healthcare certificate may sit outside French social charges on the pension, which is one reason the S1 question should be settled before the first return; see our S1 and CPAM healthcare guide.
On the British side, the pension payer usually deducts tax under PAYE until HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) is told the pensioner is treaty-resident in France. The mechanism is the “France Individual” claim for relief at source and a no-tax (NT) code; until the NT code operates, United Kingdom tax is deducted and later reclaimed. Keep the dating exact: the treaty allocation follows residence day by day, so a mid-year move means a split year with part of the pension taxable in each country. Keep every P60, P45, pension payslip and French avis d’imposition (tax assessment notice), because a double-tax relief claim fails far more often on evidence than on law.
B. Which UK pensions can never be moved to a QROPS?
Before any discussion of costs, a sorting exercise removes the pensions that cannot move at all. The United Kingdom State Pension cannot be transferred to any overseas scheme. It is a social-security benefit, not a funded pot, and it follows you to France automatically: you claim it through the International Pension Centre, it is paid in sterling to the account of your choice, and once you are French tax-resident it falls under Article 18 of the treaty, taxable only in France with the United Kingdom giving relief at source. Anyone offering to “transfer your State Pension to a QROPS” is describing something that does not exist, and that sentence alone identifies an adviser to avoid.
The second locked category is the unfunded public-service defined benefit scheme. The NHS Pension Scheme (National Health Service), the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, the Principal Civil Service scheme, the police, firefighters’ and armed forces schemes are paid out of current revenue rather than from an invested fund, so there is nothing to transfer. Parliament has barred transfers out of unfunded public-service defined benefit schemes to defined contribution arrangements, with only trivial commutation exceptions for very small pots. A nurse, teacher, civil servant, police officer or service member who now lives in France keeps the pension where it is; the work to be done is treaty classification under Article 18 or 19, proof of the nature of the service, and correction of any double taxation, as explained in our Article 19 guide. Where only part of a career was in government service — for example agency supply teaching inside the Teachers’ scheme alongside private-school years outside it — each slice must be classified separately, because one monthly payment can contain two different treaty treatments.
What remains transferable is the funded world. A funded defined benefit scheme, such as the Local Government Pension Scheme, holds real assets and can in principle transfer, but United Kingdom law requires regulated financial advice for any defined benefit transfer value above 30,000 pounds, and the adviser must start from the presumption that staying put is in the member’s interest. A defined contribution pot — a workplace money-purchase scheme, a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension), a stakeholder pension or a personal pension — is the natural candidate for a transfer, because the member already bears the investment risk. An annuity already in payment, by contrast, is a contract with an insurer rather than a pot, and it generally cannot be reversed into a transfer value. Small pots with guaranteed annuity rates, enhanced protection or fixed protection need individual valuation before anything moves, because the guarantee surrendered can exceed a decade of hoped-for tax savings.
Two practical consequences follow. First, the transfer decision only ever concerns part of most households’ retirement wealth: the State Pension and any unfunded service pension stay British and French-taxed or British-taxed under the treaty as the case may be, while the funded pot is the only piece that can travel. Second, the household’s currency map matters from the start. A couple spending euros in France but receiving part of their income in sterling already carries exchange risk; moving a pot to a euro-denominated QROPS changes that risk rather than removing it, and the exchange rate on the day of transfer can move the outcome by more than the first year’s tax difference. Fix the classification of every pension before comparing transfer quotations, and never let an adviser aggregate locked and movable pensions into a single “total transfer value” as if everything could move.
II. Is transferring a movable UK pension to a QROPS worth it once you live in France?
A. How do the United Kingdom transfer charge and French tax combine on the way out?
A QROPS transfer is a recognised event in British tax law, governed by Part 4 of the Finance Act 2004, and the receiving scheme must sit on HMRC’s published recognised overseas pension schemes notification list at the time of transfer. That list is self-certified by the schemes: inclusion means the scheme told HMRC it meets the conditions, not that HMRC endorses it. The transfer itself, if both ends qualify, is not a benefit crystallisation for lifetime-allowance purposes in the old sense and is not French-taxable merely because money moved between two pension wrappers — France taxes distributions, not the internal movement of pension capital. The charges bite elsewhere, and there are two of them: the United Kingdom overseas transfer charge on exit, and French income tax plus social charges on every euro that later comes out.
The overseas transfer charge is a flat 25 per cent of the transferred value, and the rule since 9 March 2017 is strict. The HMRC manuals state: “The overseas transfer charge of 25% applies to transfers requested on or after 9 March 2017. The transfer must also be a recognised transfer (see PTM102000) to avoid the unauthorised payment charges.” The charge sits in sections 244AA to 244N of the Finance Act 2004, and liability can fall on the scheme administrator or the member. Exclusions exist but are narrow. The transfer is excluded where the member and the receiving scheme are in the same country — so a French-resident member transferring to a French-resident QROPS escapes the charge — or, broadly, where both sit within the European Economic Area and the member stays resident there, alongside exclusions for occupational schemes, international organisations and a small set of public-service cases. Brexit matters here: the United Kingdom is no longer in the European Economic Area, so the Gibraltar or Malta QROPS route that was routine before 2021 now triggers the charge for a French resident in most configurations, while a transfer into a genuinely French-established QROPS in the same country of residence does not. Because adviser brochures still circulate pre-Brexit diagrams, ask for the exclusion to be named in writing with the section number before signing anything.
The charge also follows the member for five tax years. If residence or the scheme’s position changes within five years of the transfer — for example a return to Britain, a move outside the relevant area, or an onward transfer to a non-qualifying scheme — a chargewl excluded at the outset can crystallise later, and a charge paid can in mirror cases be repaid. This five-year tail means the transfer decision must be tested against the household’s mobility, not just its address on signing day: a family likely to return to the United Kingdom, or to follow children outside Europe, should price that scenario before moving. And the worst case must be named plainly. A transfer to a scheme that is not a QROPS at all is not a recognised transfer; it is treated as an unauthorised member payment, with member charges of at least 40 per cent plus possible surcharges and scheme sanctions. The difference between a recognised transfer to a listed scheme and an unauthorised payment is the difference between a planning decision and a tax disaster, and it turns entirely on verification done before the money moves.
French tax then governs the income the QROPS pays out. A Malta-based or Gibraltar-based QROPS pension paid to a French resident is, for treaty purposes, still a pension in consideration of past employment, so Article 18 points to France. France taxes it under the salaries and pensions regime described above — gross declaration on forms 2042 and 2047, 10 per cent allowance, progressive scale, possible effective-rate effect — with social charges depending on the S1 and income position. Wrapping the QROPS proceeds inside a French assurance-vie (life-insurance savings contract) afterwards does not rewrite history: the assurance-vie has its own regime for gains under Article 125-0 A of the General Tax Code, explained through the Code des assurances (Insurance Code), but pension capital paid into it is fresh investment, not a continuation of the pension wrapper, and the pension distribution that funded it was taxable when paid. Lump-sum withdrawals from the QROPS need the same care: a large one-off payment may qualify for the averaging quotient system of Article 163-0 A of the General Tax Code, which spreads exceptional income to soften the progressive scale, and our worked analysis of the 25 per cent United Kingdom tax-free cash against the French flat-rate option is set out in our one-off withdrawal tax guide. French reporting completes the picture: a pension contract or account held abroad must be declared under Article 1649 A of the General Tax Code with the annual foreign-account annexe, even in years when nothing is drawn, and omission carries its own fixed penalties per account. The consolidated texts of all these provisions are published on Légifrance, the official French legal database, which is the reference to check before relying on any English-language summary, including this one.
Set against these costs, the genuine advantages of a well-chosen QROPS are real but modest and situational: consolidation of several small pots into one euro-denominated wrapper, investment in funds unavailable inside the old scheme, removal of United Kingdom lifetime-allowance history for those still affected by transitional protections, and succession mechanics adapted to a French-resident family rather than default British trust provisions. The honest arithmetic compares, over a ten-year horizon, the 25 per cent entry charge where it applies, adviser and scheme fees on both sides, the exchange-rate effect, the French tax on each year’s distributions with and without the move, and the value of any guarantee surrendered. Where the charge applies in full, the transfer must generate more than 25 per cent of extra value to break even — a threshold that marketing illustrations, with their smooth growth curves, rarely display.
B. What checks and paperwork decide whether a QROPS transfer is safe?
A safe transfer is a documented one, and the documentation starts with the adviser rather than the scheme. In the United Kingdom, advice on defined benefit transfers is a regulated activity: the firm must appear on the Financial Conduct Authority register, hold the specific pension-transfer permission, and give a written recommendation that starts from the presumption against transfer. Since January 2019, cold-calling about pensions has been banned in Britain, so an approach that begins with an unsolicited call, a free pension review or a time-limited bonus already fails the first test. On the French side, anyone advising a French resident must hold a status that covers the service — typically CIF (conseiller en investissements financiers, financial investment adviser) registration with ORIAS (the French intermediaries register) or an equivalent European passport — and cross-border démarchage (unsolicited canvassing) for financial products is tightly policed. Ask for the registration numbers on both sides, check them on the public registers yourself, and walk away from any file where the adviser is remunerated by the receiving scheme without clear written disclosure. Commission-driven QROPS sales, often routed through unregulated introducers in expatriate hubs, are the recurring background of every enforcement warning in this market.
The scheme itself needs the same scepticism. Confirm that the receiving scheme is on HMRC’s notification list on the day of transfer and print the page with its date, because schemes leave the list and the member bears the consequence of a transfer to a scheme that has lost its status. Read the trust deed or contract for the retirement age: the United Kingdom normal minimum pension age is 55, rising to 57 in 2028, and a scheme offering access before that age without ill-health grounds is signalling an unauthorised-payment structure. Compare the death-benefit provisions against the household’s French succession position — a QROPS lump sum on death paid to French-resident beneficiaries lands inside a French tax picture that the British trust wording never contemplated, so the wills and beneficiary designations should be reviewed together with the transfer, not afterwards. Check the investment restrictions, the annual management charge, the transfer-in and transfer-out fees, the currency of denomination and the custodian. A scheme that cannot name its custodian bank in writing, or that invests predominantly in a single illiquid asset class such as overseas hotel rooms or forestry, is not a pension plan but a sales channel.
The paperwork sequence for a French resident runs across both administrations and should be diarised as one timetable. On the British side, the ceding scheme issues transfer-value documentation and discharge forms, the receiving scheme certifies its QROPS status, and the member’s residence position determines whether the overseas transfer charge is deducted at source or excluded with a reported claim. On the French side, the first pension payments from the new wrapper are declared on forms 2042 and 2047 with the NT-code evidence kept alongside, the foreign contract is reported under the foreign-account annexe, and the S1 and social-charge position is aligned before the first return rather than corrected years later at the cost of interest. Where United Kingdom tax was deducted from a pension that the treaty allocates to France, the France-Individual claim and the French assessment for the same year are the two halves of one proof, and neither should be filed without the other to hand. Keep a single transfer file: advice report, fee disclosure, ROPS-list printout with date, transfer forms, charge calculation or exclusion reasoning, French returns, assessments and every exchange with both tax offices. If the file cannot answer, five years later, why no charge was due, the five-year tail described above can reopen the question at the worst moment.
Five situations call for refusing the transfer outright. First, the pension is a State benefit or an unfunded public-service scheme — there is legally nothing to move. Second, the transfer value buys out guarantees — a guaranteed annuity rate, a spouse’s pension at no extra cost, or protected tax-free cash — worth more than any plausible tax gain. Third, the 25 per cent charge applies and the household cannot show, in writing, where the compensating value comes from. Fourth, the adviser or the scheme fails any verification step above, however attractive the illustration. Fifth, the household may leave France within five years for a country that reopens the charge or complicates the treaty position. Outside these cases, a transfer can still be reasonable: a French-resident retiree with several small defined contribution pots, no guarantees worth keeping, a French-established receiving scheme in the same country of residence, verified dual-regulated advice and a written ten-year comparison may rationally prefer one euro wrapper to three sterling pots. The decision is then a documented preference, not a leap, and the file proves it.
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Conclusion
A British resident of France does not choose between British tax and French tax. The treaty has already chosen: private pensions for past employment are taxable only in France under Article 18, government-service pensions generally stay taxable in Britain under Article 19, and French returns, allowances and social charges apply from the first year of residence. Within that frame, only funded pensions can travel, and only some of those should. The overseas transfer charge takes a quarter of the fund wherever no exclusion applies, French tax waits on every distribution, foreign-contract reporting runs every year, and the five-year tail follows members who move again. Against that, a well-chosen transfer offers consolidation, euro denomination and succession mechanics fitted to a French-resident family.
The method that protects a household is unglamorous: classify each pension under the treaty before comparing quotations, remove the locked schemes from the discussion, demand the charge exclusion in writing with its legal basis, verify the adviser on both public registers, print the notification list with its date, and keep one transfer file that answers every question both tax offices could ask within five years. Start from the treaty position in our general treaty-residence analysis, isolate any government-service slice with our Article 19 analysis, price any one-off withdrawal through our withdrawal tax guide, and settle healthcare and social charges with our S1 healthcare guide. A transfer decided on that record is a plan. Anything else is a brochure.