You live in France, you hold a UK pension, and someone has suggested moving it to a QROPS. A QROPS, or qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme, is a pension scheme based outside the United Kingdom that the British tax authority, HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs), recognises as eligible to receive a transfer from a UK registered pension scheme. The promise sounds attractive: consolidate your retirement savings closer to your new home, choose your currency, and simplify your paperwork. The reality is more demanding. Since Brexit, a British resident in France who moves a UK pension abroad faces two tax systems at once: a possible 25% British charge on the transfer itself, then French income tax and social charges on everything the pension pays out later. Get the order wrong and you pay twice. This guide explains, step by step, how the British transfer rules work when you live in France, how France taxes the pension once you are resident here, and the exact procedures for challenging double taxation or a wrong bill. It is written for British readers settling in France after Brexit, and every French legal term is explained the first time it appears.

The starting point is simple. As long as your pension stays inside a UK registered scheme and you live in France, the 2008 France-United Kingdom double tax treaty normally gives France the exclusive right to tax your private pension. The treaty states: 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. That sentence, from Article 18 of the 2008 France-UK double taxation convention published on GOV.UK, is the foundation of everything that follows. Readers new to the subject should start with our companion guides, whether transferring a UK pension to a QROPS is worth it once you live in France and what tax applies to QROPS payments and how to report them, which cover the transfer decision and the reporting routine in detail. This article takes a different angle: the disputes. But a transfer to a QROPS is not a pension payment. It is a movement of capital between schemes, and it triggers a separate British charge with its own exemptions, deadlines and refund rules. France, for its part, will look at the transfer, at the later pension payments, and at your residence position, and each of those questions has its own answer.

I. How a UK pension transfer to a QROPS works when you live in France

A. Will HMRC accept the move? The QROPS check, your paperwork duties and the 40% trap

The first question is not about France at all. It is whether the receiving scheme qualifies. The British government’s own guidance puts it plainly: The overseas scheme you want to transfer your pension savings to must be a ‘qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme’ (QROPS). That sentence comes from the GOV.UK page on transferring to an overseas pension scheme, which is the reference every British pension holder should read before signing anything. HMRC keeps a published list of schemes that have declared themselves as QROPS, and the same page warns you that It’s up to you to check this with the overseas scheme or your UK pension provider or adviser. In practice, British residents in France usually transfer to a QROPS based in a third country, often Malta or Gibraltar, because French retirement products themselves are generally not listed as QROPS. Whatever destination you choose, verify the listing on the day you sign, keep a dated copy of the page, and ask the receiving scheme for written confirmation that it will operate the overseas transfer charge machinery described below.

The warning that follows on the same GOV.UK page is blunt and deserves to be quoted in full: If it’s not a QROPS, your UK pension scheme may refuse to make the transfer, or you’ll have to pay at least 40% tax on the transfer. That 40% figure is not the overseas transfer charge discussed in the next section. It is the unauthorised payments regime: a transfer to a scheme that is not recognised can be treated as if you had simply cashed out your pension early, with an unauthorised payments charge plus a surcharge. Your UK scheme administrator, the ceding scheme that currently holds your money, will normally refuse to send funds to a non-listed scheme precisely to avoid that outcome. If a promoter tells you the listing does not matter, or invites you to transfer first while recognition is pending, walk away. No French tax argument can repair a British unauthorised payment, and the French administration will still expect you to declare whatever you received.

There is one reassuring exception worth knowing. The same GOV.UK page states: You usually do not pay tax if you transfer to a QROPS provided by your employer. If you work in France for an international organisation, a multinational group or a British employer with an overseas scheme, and the QROPS is the employer’s own scheme, the transfer is normally free of the overseas transfer charge. Check with the scheme, in writing, that it regards itself as an employer-provided QROPS for your transfer, because the exemption depends on the scheme’s status and not only on your payslips.

Your own paperwork duties are strict and carry their own penalty. Before the transfer, your UK scheme must give you information about the charge and ask you for details of your residence, the receiving scheme and your employment link where relevant. The GOV.UK page warns: Your transfer will be taxed at 25% if you do not provide all the information the form asks for within 60 days of requesting the transfer. Sixty days runs quickly when you are gathering French tax notices, proof of address and scheme documents across two countries and two languages. Treat the information request as your first deadline: diary it on the day you request the transfer, answer every question even when the answer seems obvious, and keep proof of postage or electronic submission. A transfer taxed only because a form arrived late is the most frustrating outcome in this entire area, and it is entirely avoidable.

A further practical point concerns defined benefit pensions, the traditional salary-linked promises often called final salary schemes. If your UK pension is a defined benefit promise rather than a pot of invested money, the transfer value offered to you is an actuarial calculation, not a balance you own, and its generosity varies with market conditions. British law surrounds these transfers with advice safeguards, and any reputable UK adviser will explain them before you proceed. From the French side, what matters is that the transfer value, once moved into a QROPS and later drawn as income or capital, will be examined under the French pension rules explained in Part II. Do not let anyone tell you that moving a defined benefit promise into an overseas money purchase pot removes it from the French tax net. It does not. It merely changes the shape of what France will tax later.

Finally, keep every document from this stage for at least six years on both sides of the Channel: the transfer request, the scheme information, your residence evidence, the HMRC list printout, the adviser’s report, and the completion statements from both schemes. These papers are the ammunition for every challenge described in Part II, whether you need to show HMRC that an exclusion applied or show the French administration, the fisc, that British tax was correctly charged or correctly not charged. British pension transfers generate paper precisely because both countries may ask questions years later, and the household that files everything on day one is the household that wins its dispute in year three.

B. Will you pay the 25% overseas transfer charge? Residence, timing and refunds

The overseas transfer charge is the heart of the British side. HMRC’s guidance introduces it in these terms: From 9 March 2017 certain transfers to and from a QROPS will be liable to a 25% tax charge called the overseas transfer charge. That sentence is taken from HMRC’s guidance on the overseas transfer charge, and the date matters: every transfer requested on or after 9 March 2017 is potentially within scope, including yours. The charge, when it applies, is deducted before or at the point of transfer, usually by your UK scheme, which accounts for it to HMRC. The GOV.UK transfer page states the consequence of having no exclusion in equally plain words: If you are not exempt from paying the overseas transfer charge, you’ll have to pay a 25% overseas transfer charge on the total amount you are transferring. On a pension pot of 200,000 pounds, that is 50,000 pounds gone before the money even leaves Britain.

Whether you pay depends, in the words of the same GOV.UK page, on where the QROPS you transfer to is based together with where you live, and the page reminds you that it’s your responsibility to find out where this is. The exclusion most relevant to British residents in France is the same-country residence exclusion: when you and the QROPS are resident in the same country, the transfer is normally excluded from the charge. Here Brexit changed the arithmetic. Before the end of the transition period, a transfer to a QROPS in the European Economic Area by a person resident in the EEA could benefit from a broad regional exclusion. Since 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom is no longer in the EEA, and France is no longer in the same state as your UK scheme. In practice, a British resident in France transferring a UK pension to a Maltese QROPS while living in France does not satisfy the same-country test, because you live in France and the scheme sits in Malta. Each case turns on its own facts, on the scheme’s location, and on any employment link, so this section cannot replace personal advice. But you should start from the assumption that the charge may apply, price it into your decision, and treat any exclusion as something to prove rather than something to presume.

Timing can change the answer, which is why the transfer date deserves as much attention as the destination. Residence for the charge is tested at the moment of transfer, and later movements can reopen the file in either direction. If you transfer while still British-resident in the UK to a QROPS in the country where you then live, one analysis applies; if you transfer after you have become French-resident to a scheme in a third country, another applies. Some households therefore transfer before the move, others after arrival, and the right answer depends on where you will be living in the years that follow, because HMRC’s machinery includes clawback and repayment provisions when your residence changes after the transfer. The GOV.UK page acknowledges the repayment side in plain terms, noting that scheme members can get a refund if they move to the country where their QROPS is based. If your circumstances change, contact the scheme administrator promptly, in writing, with your new residence evidence, and ask expressly whether a repayment claim or a late exclusion notification is available on your facts.

The charge interacts with a separate British allowance question that your UK scheme will raise. Where a transfer is otherwise excluded from the overseas transfer charge but exceeds your available overseas transfer allowance, a 25% charge can still bite on the excess. This is a technical calculation that depends on your lifetime pension history, including any lump sums already taken and any enhanced protection you may hold. Ask your UK scheme administrator for a written allowance assessment before you authorise the transfer, and if the numbers are close to the boundary, take regulated British advice on whether to phase the transfer or adjust the amount. The French administration will not give you credit for a British charge you could have avoided by better planning, so the allowance check belongs before the transfer, not after.

Two final British points complete the picture. First, a transfer that has borne the overseas transfer charge is not then taxed again by HMRC simply for having moved; later growth inside the QROPS and later payments are a matter for the country where you are resident when they arise, which for you means France. Second, if you believe the charge was wrongly deducted, the dispute is with HMRC through your scheme administrator in the first instance, with the usual British review and tribunal routes behind it. Keep the deduction certificate, the transfer statement and the exclusion paperwork together, because the French dispute procedure in Part II will ask what Britain actually charged, and the only persuasive answer is the paperwork.

II. How France taxes the pension after the transfer and how to challenge double tax

A. Resident in France? Then France taxes the pension: treaty residence, French declaration and social charges

Once you are fiscally domiciled in France, the French starting rule is comprehensive. Article 79 of the French General Tax Code provides: Les traitements, indemnités, émoluments, salaires, pensions et rentes viagères concourent à la formation du revenu global servant de base à l’impôt sur le revenu. In plain English: salaries, pensions and life annuities all feed into the overall income that forms the base of French income tax, known as the impot sur le revenu. The same logic appears in the architecture of the tax itself, since Article 156 of the General Tax Code states: L’impôt sur le revenu est établi d’après le montant total du revenu net annuel dont dispose chaque foyer fiscal. Your foyer fiscal, or tax household, is the French unit of taxation: you, your spouse or civil partner where applicable, and your dependent children. Everything the household receives in a year, including a British pension paid out of a QROPS, is aggregated before the French scale rate is applied.

The treaty then allocates the right to tax between the two countries. For an ordinary private pension, Article 18 gives the exclusive taxing right to your state of residence, which is France if France is where you actually live. That is why, in the normal case, your UK payer should stop deducting British tax once your French residence and treaty position are established, and France taxes the full pension through your annual return. The exception you must check before relying on Article 18 is government service. Pensions paid by the British state, a local authority or a statutory body for past public employment fall under Article 19 rather than Article 18, and they remain taxable only in the United Kingdom unless you are both resident and exclusively national of France. British teachers seconded by the state, National Health Service staff with a public scheme pension, police officers, members of the armed forces and civil servants should therefore identify the exact legal source of their pension before assuming French taxation. A teachers’ occupational pension linked to private employment and a civil service pension paid out of state funds can look similar on a bank statement and receive opposite treaty treatment. If in doubt, ask the payer for the statutory basis of the scheme and take advice before filing.

French exemptions are narrow and must never be assumed. Article 79 of the General Tax Code states the principle without any exception for ordinary retirement pensions: they feed into overall taxable income. A British pension paid to a French resident is therefore taxable in France as a matter of principle, even when the capital was built up in Britain and even when a British charge was levied on the transfer that brought it into the QROPS. The transfer charge and the income tax are two different taxes, levied by two different countries, on two different events. Confusing them is the single most expensive mistake British households make in this area.

Declaration is where many British residents first stumble, because the French system taxes the household on the basis of what it declares. Article 170 of the General Tax Code requires every taxable person to file, since each person liable to the tax is held to file with the administration a detailed return of income and family circumstances, and the filing obligation covers worldwide income once you are French-resident. In practice this means declaring your QROPS pension each spring on the income tax return, the declaration des revenus, using the pensions boxes and the foreign income annex where the forms require it, even if British tax was deducted at source and even if you believe the treaty exempts you. The calculation itself follows the progressive household scale, since Article 197 of the General Tax Code provides that: En ce qui concerne les contribuables visés à l’article 4 B , il est fait application des règles suivantes pour le calcul de l’impôt sur le revenu, followed by the rate bands applied per part of family quotient. Readers who already follow this firm’s coverage of British pensions in France will recognise the declaration machinery described in our guide to declaring a UK private pension and recovering British tax under treaty relief, which remains the companion to this article for pensions that were never transferred. The transfer to a QROPS does not remove the declaration duty. It adds a second history the administration may ask about.

On top of income tax, France levies social charges that have no direct British equivalent and that surprise almost every newcomer. The contribution sociale generalisee, or CSG, and the contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale, or CRDS, are levied on replacement income including most pensions, with rates and exemptions that depend on your tax position and your health cover. The base rule for wealth-side contributions appears in Article L. 136-6 of the Social Security Code, which states: Les personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B du code général des impôts sont assujetties à une contribution sur les revenus du patrimoine, while Article L. 136-7 of the same code extends the machinery to investment products paid to French-domiciled individuals, opening with: Lorsqu’ils sont payés à des personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B du code général des impôts, les produits de placements. Whether your QROPS pays you a regular pension, a programmed withdrawal or an occasional lump sum, ask how the payer and the French administration characterise each receipt, because pensions, annuities and investment proceeds can attract different combinations of CSG, CRDS and the solidarity levies, and the wrong box on the return produces the wrong bill.

Two court decisions illustrate how seriously the French courts take these questions for British-linked pensions. The first concerns a British national who had worked in the United Kingdom, in France and in Monaco and then disputed the calculation of his French old-age pension. In its judgment of 7 November 2019, appeal number 18-18.344, the Second Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation recalled the European coordination principle in these terms: Il résulte de l’article 45 du Traité sur le fonctionnement de l’Union européenne, tel qu’interprété par la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJCE, arrêt du 15 janvier 2002, Gottardo, C-55/00), que les autorités de sécurité sociale compétentes d’un premier Etat membre de l’Union européenne sont tenues de prendre en compte, aux fins de l’acquisition du droit à prestations de vieillesse, les périodes d’assurance accomplies dans un Etat tiers par un ressortissant d’un second Etat membre. The full judgment is published at Court of Cassation, Second Civil Chamber, 7 November 2019, No. 18-18.344. Although the case belongs to the pre-Brexit coordination era, its reasoning still matters for readers whose careers straddle the Channel: French pension bodies must aggregate career periods fairly, and a British worker cannot be left worse off than a French worker in the same position. If your French state pension statement ignores your British years, or your British record ignores qualifying French periods, raise aggregation expressly, cite the periods country by country, and attach the foreign record. Since Brexit the coordination regulations no longer apply as they did, but bilateral arrangements and the withdrawal agreement protect rights accrued in defined situations, and silence on the point never improves a pension file.

The second decision concerns the boundary of social charges on supplementary retirement savings, which is directly relevant if your QROPS eventually pays you capital rather than income. On 8 October 2020, in appeal number 19-16.078, the same Second Civil Chamber held: N’entrent pas dans l’assiette de la contribution sur les revenus d’activité et de remplacement perçue au titre de la CSG et de la CRDS, ni dans celle de la cotisation due au titre des assurances maladie, maternité, invalidité, décès, les sommes versées au bénéficiaire d’un contrat de retraite supplémentaire, for buybacks exercised in the particular hardship situations the insurance legislation defines. The decision is published at Court of Cassation, Second Civil Chamber, 8 October 2020, No. 19-16.078. Its scope is deliberately narrow: it shelters specific early-release payments from defined contribution top-up contracts, not every lump sum a QROPS might pay. But it proves the method every British household should adopt: characterise each payment precisely, find the exact statutory box it falls into, and challenge any CSG or CRDS assessment that treats unlike payments alike. A pension annuity, a programmed drawdown and a hardship buyback are three different legal objects, and the social charges bill should reflect that.

One question deserves a clear answer because advisers sometimes blur it. Does paying the 25% British overseas transfer charge reduce your French tax? No. France does not treat HMRC’s transfer charge as French income tax paid, and there is no mechanism for setting a British transfer charge against French income tax on later pension instalments. Treaty relief in France operates through the tax credit or exemption mechanism for taxes covered by the treaty, which are taxes on income, whereas the overseas transfer charge is a charge on the movement of pension capital. Budget accordingly: the transfer charge, where due, is a sunk cost of the move, and the French tax on later payments starts from zero. Anyone who tells you the 25% will be refunded through your French return is confusing two systems. What can sometimes be recovered is British income tax wrongly deducted from pension payments after you became French-resident, which is a different claim, against a different authority, under Article 18, and it is to challenges that we now turn.

B. Challenging double tax and wrong bills: the French paperwork chain that actually works

Disputes in this area come in four familiar shapes. First, both countries tax the same pension instalment: HMRC deducts British tax at source even though Article 18 gives France the exclusive right, and France taxes the same instalment in full. Second, France taxes something Britain already charged on transfer, treating the QROPS capital as a taxable receipt when it was merely moved between schemes. Third, France applies the wrong characterisation, taxing as salary what is really a pension, or levying social charges on a payment the courts exclude. Fourth, HMRC deducts the 25% transfer charge where you believe an exclusion applied, for example because the receiving scheme was your employer’s scheme or because the residence facts were misread. Each shape has its own forum, and the household that writes to the wrong authority first loses months. Identify your shape before you post anything.

Start with the British deduction on pension payments, because it is the easiest to fix when tackled early. If your UK payer continues to deduct tax after you have become French-resident, apply to HMRC for treaty relief so that future payments are made without deduction or with the correct code, and claim back any over-deducted tax for the years concerned through HMRC’s double taxation claim procedure for individuals. Make the claim for each tax year separately, attach your French tax notices, the avis d’imposition, proving French residence, and keep the P45 and P60 forms the payer issues, since the French administration will ask for them when it processes the corresponding French return. Do not simply stop declaring the income in France on the ground that Britain taxed it. The treaty gives France the taxing right, so the French declaration remains due, and the remedy for British over-deduction is a British repayment, not a French omission.

For French bills, the procedure is formal, written and deadline-driven. The gateway is the reclamation, the formal complaint to the tax administration contesting an assessment. Article L. 190 of the Tax Procedures Book defines its scope generously: 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. A claim that Britain alone may tax under Article 18, a claim that a transfer was capital movement rather than taxable income, and a claim that social charges were levied on an excluded payment all fall squarely within that definition. File the reclamation online through your personal account on the impots.gouv.fr portal or by recorded letter to the service des impots des particuliers, the local tax office handling your file, and set out the treaty article, the French statutory reference and the facts in that order. Attach the British deduction certificates, the transfer statements, the QROPS paperwork and the court decision where one supports you. Ask expressly for discharge, degrevement, of the wrongly assessed amount and for default interest where the law allows it.

If the administration rejects your reclamation expressly or lets it sit unanswered for six months, the refusal, express or implied, opens the door to the judge. The competent court for direct taxes is the tribunal administratif, the administrative court, of your place of residence, and the time limit is strict. Article R. 421-1 of the Administrative Justice Code states: La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée. Two months from the express refusal, or two months from the expiry of the six-month silence, is all you have, and the application must attack the refusal decision, not the original assessment in the abstract. Plead the treaty first, the French statute second and the facts third, in that order, because that is the order the reporting judge will examine. For a British pension case, the core plea is usually straightforward: Article 18 attributes the pension exclusively to France, or conversely the receipt was not French taxable income at all, so the assessment lacks a legal base, a defaut de base legale. Add the subsidiary pleas, wrong rate, wrong social charges, failure to credit treaty relief, so that partial victory remains possible if the main plea surprises you.

For the 25% transfer charge itself, the challenge runs to London, not Paris. Write first to your UK scheme administrator, the party that deducted and accounted for the charge, setting out the exclusion you rely on, enclosing the residence and scheme evidence, and asking for a review and, where the guidance allows, a repayment claim to HMRC. If the administrator maintains the deduction, HMRC’s own review mechanisms and then the British tax tribunal are the route, and the time limits in the deduction notices must be diarised on receipt. Run the British and French tracks in parallel rather than in sequence: pursue the HMRC repayment while filing the French reclamation for the same period, and tell each administration honestly that a parallel claim exists. Neither administration will wait for the other, and limitation periods do not pause while you choose a favourite forum.

A closing word on evidence, because pension disputes are won in the annexes. For every year in dispute, assemble a single bundle containing your French tax notice, your British P60 or payer statement, the QROPS transfer completion papers with the charge calculation, the HMRC list printout for the transfer date, your proof of French residence for that year, and the treaty and statutory extracts you rely on. Number the pages, reference them in your letters, and keep identical copies for the British and French files. Administrations on both sides of the Channel respond to complete, paginated, dated bundles far faster than to DV repeated emails, and a tribunal that can follow your paper trail in ten minutes is a tribunal halfway persuaded. The law in this article is on the side of the household that documents everything.

Conclusion

Moving a UK pension to a QROPS after settling in France can be the right decision, but only when both halves of the operation are priced and planned together. On the British side, confirm the scheme’s QROPS status on the day, meet the sixty-day information deadline without exception, and assume the 25% overseas transfer charge may apply unless you can prove a specific exclusion on your facts. On the French side, declare the later pension fully through your household return, expect income tax and, depending on characterisation, social charges, and rely on Article 18 of the treaty to keep British income tax off payments that belong to France. Where the two systems collide, use each forum for its own dispute: HMRC and the scheme administrator for the transfer charge, the French reclamation and then the administrative court for French assessments, with complete mirrored bundles on both sides. Handled in that order, with papers filed and deadlines diarised, a QROPS transfer becomes what it should be: a tidy consolidation of your retirement savings in the country where you now live, rather than an inadvertent donation to two treasuries at once.

Need a quick opinion on your case

You can obtain a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, who will review your pension transfer, your residence position and your French tax notices before you sign or challenge anything.

Call Maître Reda Kohen directly: +33 6 46 60 58 22.

Or write to the firm through the online contact page.