You have retired to France on your UK State Pension, and two worries keep you awake. The first is the rumour that Brexit froze your pension at the rate in payment on the day you left Britain, so that every year in France makes you poorer in real terms. The second is the envelope from HMRC, or the deduction already taken from your pension, suggesting Britain still wants a share of it even though you now live in the Dordogne, in Brittany or in the Var. Both worries are understandable, and both have precise legal answers. Your State Pension is not frozen in France: France appears on the official British list of countries where the yearly increase is paid, while pensioners in most of the rest of the world outside that list genuinely see no increase. And your State Pension, once you are resident in France, is in principle taxable only in France under Article 18 of the Franco-British double tax treaty of 19 June 2008, which means any British tax deducted at source can and should be reclaimed. This article explains, step by step, how the yearly increase works, where your pension is taxed, how to declare it on your French tax return, which social charges you really owe when you hold an S1 healthcare certificate, and how to challenge every wrong deduction on either side of the Channel.

I. Your State Pension Still Rises in France — and Only France May Tax It

A. Uprated in France, frozen almost everywhere else: the two GOV.UK pages that decide your case

Start with the good news, because it surprises many British retirees. The British government pays the yearly increase on the State Pension only to pensioners who live in certain places. The official GOV.UK page on rates states the rule plainly: the State Pension increases each year only for pensioners living in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar, Switzerland or a country that has a social security agreement with the United Kingdom. The same page warns that pensioners living anywhere else receive no yearly increases. Pensioners who retired to Australia, Canada or New Zealand know this frozen-pension rule to their cost, and many British residents in France wrongly assume Brexit put them in the same position. It did not. The companion GOV.UK publication — the official list of countries where the annual increase is paid — runs alphabetically and names France, between Finland and Germany. Because France is on that list, the Department for Work and Pensions keeps applying the annual increase to your State Pension while you live in France. The same GOV.UK page adds a useful safety net for anyone who moves back: the pension is brought up to the current rate on return to live in the United Kingdom. So the planning point is simple. If you settle in France, budget on an uprated pension, not a frozen one. If friends in Toronto or Sydney tell you their British pension has not moved for a decade, their situation is legally different from yours, and their alarm should not become your financial plan. Keep evidence of your French residence in any event, because the increase follows your country of residence, and the pension authority can ask where you actually live. A French tax notice, a utility bill and your Withdrawal Agreement residence card together prove the point in minutes.

One common misunderstanding must be cleared up at once. The yearly increase and the place of taxation are two different questions, decided by two different sets of rules. The increase is a British social-security question answered by the GOV.UK list described above. The taxation is a treaty question answered by the Franco-British double tax convention, and it is to that convention that we now turn. The fact that Britain still uprates your pension does not give Britain the right to tax it once you are French-resident. Do not let a well-meaning adviser confuse the two.

B. Taxable only in France under Article 18 — unless you earned it in government service

The France–United Kingdom treaty signed on 19 June 2008 and published in France by decree allocates the right to tax pensions with unusual clarity. Article 18 lays down the core rule, subject only to the government-service exception in Article 19(2): pensions and similar remuneration paid for past employment to a resident of one contracting State are taxable only in that State. In plain English: pensions paid for past employment to a person who lives in one of the two countries are taxable only in that country. If you live in France, your UK State Pension, like a British Airways or Tesco occupational pension earned in the private sector, is taxable only in France. Britain has no taxing right over it, and France must include it in your French taxable income. Read the opening reservation carefully, because it contains the one major exception. Paragraph 2 of Article 19 keeps government-service pensions taxable in the paying State, and its first sentence keeps pensions paid by a contracting State, one of its local authorities or, for France, a public-law body, for government service, taxable only in that paying State. A civil-service pension paid by the British State to a former civil servant living in France therefore remains taxable in Britain, not in France, subject to the nationality proviso in the second sentence of the same paragraph. The boundary between a private-sector pension under Article 18 and a government-service pension under Article 19 is the single most litigated point in this field, and public-sector cases such as teachers, National Health Service staff and local-government officers each turn on their own facts. If any part of your retirement income comes from Crown employment, read our detailed analysis of British government-service pensions taxed in Britain under Article 19 before you file anything. The rest of this article deals with the standard case: a UK State Pension, possibly topped up by private occupational pensions, received by a French resident and taxable only in France.

Two further treaty provisions protect you in practice. First, Article 4 settles who counts as a French resident when both countries could claim you. Where you keep a home in both countries, the tie-break looks past mere presence: permanent home first, and where both States offer one, the State of the closest personal and economic ties, the centre of vital interests. Your permanent home, then the centre of your vital interests — family, daily life, economic ties — decides. A British retiree who lives year-round in France, is registered with the French healthcare system and files French tax returns will satisfy this test without difficulty, even while keeping a small flat in Manchester for family visits. Second, Article 24 explains how France eliminates any remaining double taxation. Where the treaty exceptionally leaves Britain a right to tax, France grants its resident a tax credit against French tax, capped at the French tax attributable to that income, where the United Kingdom has taxed it under the treaty. For a pure State Pension case, where Britain has no right to tax at all, there is normally nothing to credit because France simply taxes the full amount. The credit becomes relevant the day HMRC has wrongly taken tax at source: France then taxes the pension and imputes a credit capped at the French tax on that income, while you reclaim the undue British deduction through the procedure described in Part II below.

II. Declare It in France, Switch Off UK Tax at Source and Pay Only the Social Charges You Owe — Then Challenge Every Wrong Bill

A. Declare worldwide income, claim the 10 per cent relief, register your S1 and check your CSG rate

French tax residents declare their worldwide income, and the Code général des impôts says so expressly. Article 158 provides that net worldwide income is assessed under French rules “sans qu’il y ait lieu de distinguer suivant que ces revenus ont leur source en France ou hors de France”. Your UK State Pension therefore goes on your French return even though it is paid from Newcastle, and the filing duty itself is stated by Article 170 of the same code: “En vue de l’établissement de l’impôt sur le revenu, toute personne imposable audit impôt est tenue de souscrire et de faire parvenir à l’administration une déclaration détaillée de ses revenus et bénéfices, de ses charges de famille et des autres éléments nécessaires au calcul de l’impôt sur le revenu”. In practice you enter the gross annual sterling amount, converted to euros, on the foreign-income sections of the return, forms 2047 feeding into 2042, keeping your DWP annual statement and your bank statements as proof of the exchange rate used. Then comes the relief that many British retirees miss. The same Article 158 continues: “Les pensions et retraites font l’objet d’un abattement de 10 % qui ne peut excéder 4 439 €.” Every pensioner household benefits from this 10 per cent allowance on pensions, capped per tax household, and the code adds a floor for small pensions: “L’abattement indiqué au deuxième alinéa ne peut être inférieur à 454 €”. Check that the French tax office applied the allowance before you accept the assessment, because omissions happen with foreign pensions, and the correction is worth several hundred euros a year.

Healthcare and social charges are the second half of the declaration, and this is where an S1 certificate changes everything. The S1 is the portable document by which the United Kingdom, as the State that pays your State Pension, takes charge of your healthcare costs in France, where you register it with your local caisse primaire d’assurance maladie. The official service-public.fr page for newcomers routes each person according to whether they hold a European health insurance card, an S1 portable document or neither, with a dedicated registration route for S1 holders, and the detailed S1 procedure is published by the Cleiss, the French liaison body for cross-border social security. Registering the S1 does three things for you. First, it gives you access to French healthcare on the same terms as French pensioners. Second, it documents that you remain affiliated to the British scheme for coordination purposes, which is the key to the social-charge analysis. Third, it keeps you outside the French protection universelle maladie contribution, the so-called CSM levy, because Article L. 380-2 of the Code de la sécurité sociale imposes that levy only on persons who meet cumulative conditions including this one: “Elles n’ont perçu ni pension de retraite ou d’invalidité, ni rente, ni aucun montant d’allocation de chômage au cours de l’année considérée.” A retiree receiving a UK State Pension fails that condition by definition, so the CSM is not your problem. As for the contribution sociale généralisée on the pension itself, Article L. 136-8 of the Code de la sécurité sociale sets the standard rate plainly: “Sont assujetties à la contribution au taux de 8,3 % les pensions de retraite, et les pensions d’invalidité.” A reduced 3.8 per cent rate exists for households under a modest income threshold, so verify which band your revenu fiscal de référence puts you in before paying. And where you are S1-registered and hence covered by the British scheme, the European coordination principle confirmed by the Court of Justice in the de Ruyter lineage supports exemption from CSG and CRDS on income that Britain alone insures. The Court held that levies which help fund compulsory social-security schemes fall inside the coordination regulation, through their direct and relevant link with the listed social-security branches, even when they are assessed on capital income rather than earnings. The full refund mechanics for S1 holders are set out in our companion guide on UK pensions, CSG-CRDS, the S1 exemption and refunds. One practical warning comes from the French courts: the exemption must be proved, file by file. In a 2020 case a claimant argued that affiliation to a foreign scheme barred French social levies under Regulation 883/2004, but the cour administrative d’appel de Marseille found that “il n’établit pas qu’il ne relèverait pas du régime de sécurité sociale français pendant les années 2012, 2013 et 2014” and concluded “La requête de M. D… est rejetée.” Keep your S1, your DWP letters and your CPAM registration certificate together from day one, because the administration will ask for them exactly when money is at stake.

British retirees often arrive in France with fragmented careers, and one Cour de cassation decision shows how French courts handle the pieces. On 7 November 2019 the Second Civil Chamber ruled on a British national who had worked in the United Kingdom, in France and in Monaco, and who challenged the reduced rate of his French old-age pension because the Monaco quarters were ignored. The Court recalled the European equal-treatment rule, then held that the Franco-Monegasque convention of 28 February 1952, published by Decree No 54-682 of 11 June 1954, contains no clause totalling French and Monegasque insurance periods with periods validated in a third State, and it dismissed the appeal. The lesson for British readers is twofold. Periods worked in the United Kingdom before the end of the transition continue to count toward your French pension through the coordination machinery, so declare your full career to the Carsat. But periods in a third State outside the relevant bilateral machinery, as Monaco was in that case, may not aggregate, so ask for a written relevé de carrière early and challenge any missing quarter while the evidence is fresh.

B. Stop HMRC deductions with the France-Individual form, recover UK tax and take the French bill to the tribunal

If HMRC is deducting tax from payments that the treaty reserves to France, act on both sides of the Channel at once, starting with Britain. HMRC operates a treaty-relief claim system under the heading “Double Taxation: Treaty Relief (Form DT-Individual)”, with a France-specific individual claim form for residents of France. File the France-Individual claim, supported by a certificate of French residence, and ask for an NT (no tax) code so that future payments arrive gross. Keep copies of everything, because the same file will serve your French position. If tax has already been taken, claim repayment from HMRC for each year concerned, noting that British time limits are strict and that a claim filed in the same tax year is always stronger than a late one. On the French side, declare the pension as treaty-reserved to France, apply the 10 per cent allowance, and attach a short explanatory note citing Article 18 where the return allows it. Most cases end there. Where the French assessment adds tax the treaty forbids, or refuses the allowance, file a réclamation contentieuse with your service des impôts des particuliers. The admissibility deadline is generous but absolute. Article R*196-1 of the Livre des procédures fiscales states: “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts autres que les impôts directs locaux et les taxes annexes à ces impôts, doivent être présentées à l’administration au plus tard le 31 décembre de la deuxième année suivant celle”, running from recovery of the assessment. Diarise that 31 December date the day the avis arrives, because a perfect treaty argument filed one day late is worth nothing. If the administration rejects the claim or stays silent for six months, appeal to the tribunal administratif of your French home, with further appeal to the cour administrative d’appel. Treaty cases succeed regularly before these courts when the file is properly built. In October 2022 the cour administrative d’appel de Toulouse granted relief in a pension treaty dispute, holding: “Il est accordé à M. et Mme D…, d’une part, la réduction de la cotisation supplémentaire d’impôt sur le revenu et des pénalités correspondantes auxquelles ils ont été assujettis au titre de l’année 2014 en ce qu’elles portent sur les revenus perçus à compter du 28 juillet 2014”. The dispute there concerned another bilateral treaty, but the mechanism is exactly the one that protects your State Pension: pensions taxable in the residence State cannot be retaxed at source, and the judge says so. Build your file the way winning files are built. Your Withdrawal Agreement card or visa, French tax notices, the DWP annual statement, the S1 and CPAM registration, the HMRC claim and any NT code, the exchange-rate calculation and the treaty articles go in chronological order with a one-page summary. Send the réclamation by registered letter or through your online impots.gouv.fr messaging space so the date is provable, and never ignore an HMRC letter while the French procedure runs, because the two administrations do exchange information and consistency across both files is what persuades judges.

Conclusion

Living in France on a UK State Pension after Brexit is a legally comfortable position once the three moving parts are aligned. The pension keeps its British yearly increase because France is on the GOV.UK annual-increase list, while pensioners outside those listed countries genuinely go without. The pension is taxable only in France under Article 18 of the 2008 treaty, with Article 19 reserving government-service pensions to Britain and Article 4 settling any dual-residence dispute in favour of your permanent home and centre of vital interests. And the French assessment must reflect the 10 per cent pension allowance, the correct CSG band, no CSM where a pension is received, and the S1 coordination position on social charges. Where either administration departs from this scheme, the remedies are mapped: the France-Individual claim and NT code at HMRC, repayment claims for tax wrongly deducted, the French réclamation before 31 December of the second following year, and the administrative tribunal with authorities such as the Toulouse discharge in support. Put the file together now, while every document is at hand, and the system works as the treaty drafters intended.

Need a quick opinion on your case

A State Pension taxed at source by HMRC, an S1 refused by the CPAM, a French assessment that forgot the 10 per cent allowance or charged CSG you do not owe? Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your pension statements, your residence position and your claim or appeal deadline. Call Maître Reda Kohen on +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page.