Imagine you bought a stone farmhouse near Sarlat in 2014, spent ten summers doing it up, and have now accepted an offer. The estate agent congratulates you, the buyer signs the preliminary contract, and then your notaire sends a tax computation that swallows a quarter of your profit. You assumed the sale would be taxed in Britain because you live in Kent. You assumed ten years of ownership would wipe the bill out. Both assumptions are wrong, and since Brexit a third surprise waits: several reliefs that your French neighbours take for granted are now closed to British sellers. This article explains, for a British reader, how France taxes the sale of your French house first, what Britain taxes second with a credit for the French bill, how the notaire works out the gain step by step, which exemptions Brexit removed, and how to challenge a computation that looks wrong.

A few French words will keep coming back, so here they are in plain English. The notaire is the public legal officer who handles every French property sale and collects the capital gains tax on the day of completion. The plus-value immobilière is the taxable property gain. The prélèvements sociaux are the French social charges added on top of income tax. The représentant fiscal is the accredited tax representative a non-resident seller must appoint. With that vocabulary in place, the mechanics become far less intimidating.

I. Where Will You Pay Tax When You Sell Your French House as a British Person?

A. Why France Taxes the Sale First: Residence, Source and the Treaty Rule

France claims the first bite because the house stands on French soil. French domestic law treats the gain as French-source income: Article 164 B of the General Tax Code provides that “I. Sont considérés comme revenus de source française : a. Les revenus d’immeubles sis en France ou de droits relatifs à ces immeubles”. Whether you live in Lyon or in Leeds, the sale of a French building is therefore taxable in France as a matter of domestic law. Your residence decides which French regime applies, not whether France can tax at all.

The treaty between France and the United Kingdom confirms that priority. The France-UK double tax convention, signed in London on 22 May 1968 and amended several times since, allocates the right to tax property gains to the country where the property sits. Its capital gains article provides, in the authoritative English text published on legislation.gov.uk, that gains from the sale of immovable property situated in the other contracting state may be taxed in that other state. In ordinary language, a British resident who sells a house in the Dordogne may be taxed by France, and a French resident who sells a flat in Manchester may be taxed by Britain. The word “may” matters: France is allowed to tax, and in practice it always does, through the notaire withholding the tax at completion.

Two profiles cover almost every British seller, and the distinction shapes everything that follows. If you are a British citizen resident in France for tax purposes, your worldwide situation is assessed under the standard resident regime: the gain falls under Article 150 U of the General Tax Code, which opens with the principle that “I. – Sous réserve des dispositions propres aux bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, aux bénéfices agricoles et aux bénéfices non commerciaux, les plus-values réalisées par les personnes physiques ou les sociétés ou groupements qui relèvent des articles 8 à 8 ter , lors de la cession à titre onéreux de biens immobiliers bâtis ou non bâtis ou de droits relatifs à ces biens, sont passibles de l’impôt sur le revenu dans les conditions prévues aux articles 150 V à 150 VH”. If you are resident in Britain and sell a French second home, you fall instead under the non-resident levy of Article 244 bis A of the General Tax Code, which states: “Sous réserve des conventions internationales, les plus-values, telles que définies aux e bis et e ter du I de l’article 164 B , réalisées par les personnes et organismes mentionnés au 2 du I lors de la cession des biens ou droits mentionnés au 3 sont soumises à un prélèvement selon les taux fixés au III bis.” The same article then catches you personally, since “Sont soumis au prélèvement mentionné au 1 : a) Les personnes physiques qui ne sont pas fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B”. Since Brexit, a seller living in Kent is exactly that: a natural person not fiscally domiciled in France.

The courts have already mapped how this non-resident levy works for sellers from outside the European Union, and their reasoning now reads like a preview of British cases. In a decision of 23 June 2022, the Conseil d’État examined a Swiss resident of Monaco who had sold property in Nice and had been charged the levy at the old rate of one third. The court recorded that “Après avoir contesté en vain ce prélèvement auprès de l’administration fiscale, l’intéressé a bénéficié en cours d’instance devant le tribunal administratif de Nice d’un dégrèvement d’un montant égal à la fraction de cet impôt excédant le taux de 19 % applicable aux plus-values immobilières réalisées par les résidents de France, de l’Union européenne et des autres Etats parties à l’accord sur l’Espace économique européen (EEE)”. The full decision is published at Conseil d’État, 9th chamber, 23 June 2022, No. 445785. The lesson for British sellers is twofold: discriminatory rates can be challenged and reduced to 19 per cent, and you must actively claim the reduction rather than wait for the administration to offer it.

An earlier ruling makes the same point about exemptions. On 12 February 2020 the Conseil d’État held, for Swiss residents selling a Paris property, that “les personnes physiques qui ne sont pas fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B du même code, sont soumises, sous réserve des conventions internationales, à un prélèvement spécifique sur les plus-values résultant, notamment, de la cession de biens immobiliers”, while examining whether the first-sale exemption of Article 150 U could benefit them. Read it at Conseil d’État, 9th and 10th chambers combined, 12 February 2020, No. 415475. The message is consistent: non-residents are caught by the levy, treaty provisions are their only shield, and each exemption must be checked against the exact wording that applies to outsiders. A British seller after Brexit stands, legally speaking, where those Swiss sellers stood.

B. What London Still Wants: HMRC, Worldwide Gains and Foreign Tax Credit Relief

Paying tax in France does not end the story if you are a British tax resident, because Britain taxes its residents on worldwide gains. A person resident in the United Kingdom who sells a holiday home in France must declare the gain to HM Revenue and Customs and pay British capital gains tax on it, subject to relief for the French tax already suffered. The official HMRC helpsheet on relief for foreign tax paid (HS263) explains that a British resident who has paid foreign tax on capital gains that are also taxable in Britain may claim relief for that foreign tax, principally as a credit against the British bill. That credit is the hinge of the whole system: France taxes first as the situs country, Britain taxes second as the residence country, and the French payment reduces the British one.

Three practical consequences follow. First, the credit is capped at the British tax attributable to the same gain, so any excess French tax is not refunded by London. If your French bill is heavier than the British computation on the same profit, the difference stays with the French Treasury. This is why the allowances and exemptions in Part II below matter twice over: every euro saved in France is a euro kept, because the British credit cannot exceed the British tax. Second, the two computations use different currencies, different acquisition costs and different relief calendars, so the “same gain” is rarely the same number on both sides of the Channel. Keep the notaire’s final statement of account, known as the décompte, with its euro figures, the completion date and the exchange rate of the day, because your British accountant will need all three. Third, the British declaration runs on the Self Assessment calendar, with the gain reported on the tax return for the year of sale and payment through the usual January deadline, so diary the French completion date in British tax-year terms immediately.

A mirror situation helps to fix ideas. If you are resident in France and sell a property in England, the treaty gives Britain the first right to tax as the situs country, France taxes the gain as your residence country, and France grants a credit for the British tax. The symmetry is reassuring but not automatic: each direction has its own forms, its own deadlines and its own ceiling on the credit. Never assume that because one direction worked smoothly, the other will too.

One common misunderstanding should be cleared up at once. Some British sellers believe that paying the French levy at the notaire’s office discharges their British obligation. It does not. The French payment is a credit, not a substitute, and HMRC still expects a full declaration of the disposal. Conversely, some believe that being non-resident in France means no French paperwork. That is equally wrong: the French tax is collected at source by the notaire before the price reaches you, and the forms described in Part II must be completed whether you attend completion in person or through a power of attorney. The only sellers who escape French tax entirely are those who qualify for a full exemption on the French side and can prove it document by document.

II. How Is the French Bill Calculated and How Do You Challenge It?

A. How the Notaire Works Out Your Gain: Allowances, 19 per cent, Social Charges and Surtax

The computation starts with the gross gain, and the statute defines it with disarming simplicity. Article 150 V of the General Tax Code states: “La plus ou moins-value brute réalisée lors de la cession de biens ou droits mentionnés aux articles 150 U à 150 UC est égale à la différence entre le prix de cession et le prix d’acquisition par le cédant.” Sale price minus purchase price looks straightforward, but each side of the subtraction is adjusted. The purchase price is increased by acquisition costs, taken either at their proven amount or as a flat 7.5 per cent of the purchase price, and by improvement works, either proven by invoices from registered businesses or taken as a flat 15 per cent of the purchase price once you have owned the property for more than five years. The sale price is reduced by the costs of disposal, such as agency commission you paid and the diagnostic surveys. Gather every invoice now: without paperwork, the flat rates apply, and they are often less generous than reality.

Once the adjusted gross gain is fixed, the holding-period allowance, known as the abattement pour durée de détention, reduces it year by year. The official service-public.fr guidance explains the mechanism with a worked illustration showing relief of 6 per cent per year from the 6th to the 10th year, so that after ten years of ownership 30 per cent of the gain has already melted away for income tax purposes. The illustrated scale continues upward each year until the two great thresholds that every British owner should memorise: the service-public.fr guidance confirms full income-tax exemption for any property held for more than 22 years, and separately, the gain on a property held for more than 30 years is also free of social charges. A farmhouse bought in 2014 and sold in 2026 has twelve years of ownership: a substantial allowance, but nothing like an exemption. Only patience reaches those horizons, which is why the date of acquisition, proved by the original acte de vente, is worth checking to the day.

On the net gain after allowances, two layers of tax apply to residents. The income-tax layer runs at a flat 19 per cent, the standard rate for property gains under Articles 150 U to 150 UC recalled in the Conseil d’État decision cited above. For non-resident sellers under Article 244 bis A, the levy runs at the same headline figure: the tax administration’s own BOFiP doctrine confirms that the levy rate is 19 per cent for the individuals concerned. That alignment at 19 per cent is the direct fruit of the discrimination case law discussed in Part I: British sellers now pay the same income-tax rate as French residents, which was not always so.

The second layer is the social charges, and here the bill often surprises. Service-public.fr states the headline plainly: social charges apply at 17.2 per cent. Applied to the gain net of the social-charges allowance scale, this adds more than seventeen points to the nineteen of income tax, before any surtax. For non-resident sellers the precise social-charge treatment has moved several times in the wake of European case law on affiliation to a social security scheme, so the figure the notaire withholds must be checked against the current BOFiP rather than assumed from a neighbour’s sale three years ago. Ask the notaire to show the social-charge line separately on the computation and to cite the rate applied: a transparent line is easier to challenge than a blended total.

A third layer awaits large gains. Article 1609 nonies G of the General Tax Code creates a surtax on high property gains, providing that “La taxe est due à raison des plus-values imposables d’un montant supérieur à 50 000 €, selon le barème suivant appliqué au montant total de la plus-value imposable”. The scale runs from 2 per cent to 6 per cent depending on the size of the taxable gain, and it applies on top of everything else. A British couple selling a well-located second home can cross the 50,000 euro threshold without realising it, because the threshold looks at the taxable gain after allowances, not at the sale price. Factor the surtax into your net-proceeds arithmetic before you commit to an onward purchase in Britain.

Two exemptions deserve a close look because Brexit changed their audience. The first is the main-home exemption: Article 150 U spares property “Qui constituent la résidence principale du cédant au jour de la cession”, in the words of Article 150 U of the General Tax Code. If your French house genuinely was your main home on the day of sale, the gain is fully exempt. The tax office tests that claim against real life: where your family lived, where your children went to school, which address appeared on your tax returns. A Dordogne cottage occupied six weeks a year while your life remained in Kent will not pass that test, and dressing it up invites penalties.

The second is the 150,000 euro exemption for a sale by a non-resident, and here Brexit bites directly. Service-public.fr grants it only for the sale of another residence within a 150,000 euro gain ceiling and under strict conditions: the seller must be a national of a European Union or European Economic Area state having signed a convention with France, must have been fiscally domiciled in France continuously for at least two years, and the sale must occur no later than 31 December of the 10th year after the year the seller moved their tax domicile out of France. Read the full conditions at service-public.fr, property gains page. A British passport no longer satisfies the nationality condition, so a seller who left Lyon for London cannot use this shelter even if the two-year French residence and the ten-year window are met. Do not let an agent or a well-meaning friend tell you otherwise: the text is explicit, and the notaire will apply it.

A narrower shelter survives for people who have just left France. Article 244 bis A exempts the sale of the property that was your French main home when you moved your tax domicile abroad, provided the sale happens no later than 31 December of the year after the move and the property was not made available to third parties in between. The statute makes the shelter conditional on two cumulative tests: the sale must occur no later than 31 December of the year following the move of the seller’s tax domicile out of France, and the property must not have been made available to third parties, free or for payment, between the move and the sale. Its personal scope, however, is limited to moves to European Union states and certain treaty states, so a move to Britain needs careful checking against the assistance-convention conditions with your notaire before you rely on it. Claim it in the file with evidence of the moving date, and never let the property to holiday tenants in the interval, because a single summer letting destroys the condition.

B. How to Pay, File and Fight Back: Representative, Forms, Deadlines and Appeals

For a non-resident seller, the formalities begin before completion with the appointment of a tax representative. The tax administration states the rule without ambiguity on impots.gouv.fr: selling French property as a non-resident requires appointing a tax representative except in the listed dispensation cases. Service-public.fr repeats the warning in the same terms: a non-resident whose gain is taxable must appoint a tax representative. The representative, who must be accredited by the tax office unless dispensed, signs the capital gains declaration, known as form 2048-IMM, guarantees payment of the tax and becomes the administration’s contact for any later reassessment. Start the search early: notaires keep shortlists of accredited representatives, and a last-minute appointment in August, when half of France is on holiday, is a reliable recipe for a delayed completion.

Dispensation exists but rarely helps British sellers. The impots.gouv.fr page lists an automatic dispensation where the seller is domiciled, established or formed in a European Union member state or in another European Economic Area state having concluded certain administrative assistance conventions with France (Iceland and Norway). Read the full answer at impots.gouv.fr, sale by a non-resident. The United Kingdom appears in neither group since the end of the transition period, so a seller in Kent should budget for the representative’s fee, commonly a few hundred euros plus a guarantee commission proportionate to the tax at stake, rather than gamble completion on a dispensation that does not cover Britain. If your notaire suggests otherwise, ask for the legal basis in writing before completion day.

At completion, the notaire does far more than witness signatures. The office draws up the 2048-IMM declaration, computes each line of the gain, withholds the income-tax levy, the social charges and any surtax from the price, and pays the Treasury within the statutory time limit. You receive the net price and a copy of the declaration, which you must keep with the completion statement. Check three things before the funds leave the notaire’s account: the acquisition price and its uplifts, the number of years of ownership credited, and the rate applied to the social charges. Errors on those three lines account for most successful challenges, and they are cheapest to fix before payment rather than after.

Your residence position underpins the whole file, so understand the test the administration applies. Article 4 B of the General Tax Code sets alternative criteria for French fiscal domicile, beginning with the home and the principal place of sojourn: “1. Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A : a. Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal ; b. Celles qui exercent en France une activité professionnelle, salariée ou non, à moins qu’elles ne justifient que cette activité y est exercée à titre accessoire”. A British seller who kept a French home, spent most of the year in it and worked remotely from it may be treated as French-resident for the year of sale even while believing otherwise, which changes the applicable regime from the non-resident levy to the resident computation. If your residence pattern is mixed, settle the question with dated evidence, such as travel records, utility bills and school certificates, before the notaire files under one heading or the other.

If the computation looks wrong, the law gives you a structured path to fight back, and the first step is a written claim to the tax office. Article L190 of the Tax Procedure Book defines that remedy in the widest terms: “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 wrong allowance, a misapplied rate, a disregarded exemption and a treaty credit refused all fit within that definition. Draft the claim as a lawyer would: identify the assessment, state the exact line disputed, cite the article or treaty paragraph relied on, attach the supporting document, and quantify the discharge requested down to the euro.

If the administration rejects the claim in whole or in part, the dispute moves to the administrative court. Article L199 of the Tax Procedure Book provides the gateway: “En matière d’impôts directs et de taxes sur le chiffre d’affaires ou de taxes assimilées, les décisions rendues par l’administration sur les réclamations contentieuses et qui ne donnent pas entière satisfaction aux intéressés peuvent être portées devant le tribunal administratif.” The two Conseil d’État decisions examined in Part I both travelled exactly this road, from an unsuccessful approach to the tax office, through the tribunal administratif and the cour administrative d’appel, to a final ruling in Paris. Their history carries a practical warning: the procedure takes years, interest accrues, and the file must be complete from the first letter, because arguments raised for the first time on appeal face an uphill struggle.

Time limits govern every stage, and they are unforgiving. The assessment and the rejection letter each state their own appeal period, usually counted in months, and missing one extinguishes the remedy even for a manifest error. Calendar three dates the day you receive any tax document: the deadline for the written claim, the deadline for going to court after an express or implied rejection, and the separate deadline for claiming the British foreign tax credit in London. Keep proof of posting for everything, use registered post with acknowledgment of receipt for French claims, and never let friendly correspondence with an inspector lull you into letting a deadline pass. A polite negotiating letter does not stop a limitation clock.

Finally, assemble the evidence file that makes challenges winnable. The complete chain of title from acquisition to sale, the original purchase deed with its price, every invoice for works from registered tradesmen, the agency mandate and commission receipt, the diagnostic reports, proof of the dates of actual occupation if the main-home exemption is claimed, proof of the moving date if the departure exemption is claimed, the representative’s appointment and the 2048-IMM with the notaire’s computation, plus the British Self Assessment return showing the credit claimed. A challenge argued from a complete file settles faster and for more than one argued from memory. The notaire’s computation is only as good as the papers you supplied, and the administration’s answer is only as generous as the proof you attach.

Conclusion

Selling a French house as a British owner after Brexit means accepting a French tax first and a British tax second, then using every lawful lever to keep the combined burden honest. France taxes the gain because the bricks stand in France, under Article 150 U if you live there and under the Article 244 bis A levy if you live in Britain, while the treaty lets France tax first and obliges Britain to credit the French payment against its own bill. The computation rewards paperwork and patience: documented acquisition costs and works raise the base price, the yearly allowances melt the gain until full exemption after twenty-two years for income tax and thirty for social charges, and the headline rates of 19 per cent plus social charges and possibly the surtax above 50,000 euros apply to what remains. Brexit closed the 150,000 euro non-resident exemption to British passports and removed the automatic representative dispensation, so budget for both. And when the numbers look wrong, the path exists: a reasoned written claim under Article L190, then the administrative court under Article L199, with the discrimination case law of the Conseil d’État behind you. Start the file before completion, check the notaire’s three key lines, diary every deadline on both sides of the Channel, and challenge promptly with documents rather than indignation. Handled in that order, the farmhouse you loved pays its fair tax and not a euro more.

Need a quick opinion on your case.

You are selling a French house as a British owner and want to know what France will keep, what Britain will ask and what can still be challenged. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with an advocate of the chambers. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen), or write via our contact page. Bring the original purchase deed, the draft sale agreement, the notaire’s tax computation with form 2048-IMM, and any assessment or rejection letter you have already received.