You moved to France after Brexit, but you kept the flat in Manchester, the terrace in Leeds or the maisonette in London, and every month a British tenant pays rent into your UK bank account. Then two tax authorities knock at once: HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC, the British tax administration) taxes the rent at source, and the French tax office (the service des impôts des particuliers) asks you to declare your worldwide income, including that same rent. Many British residents in France either declare the rent twice and overpay, or declare it only in Britain and receive, two years later, a French reassessment (proposition de rectification) with penalties. Both mistakes are avoidable. The Franco-British double tax treaty signed in London on 19 June 2008 distributes the taxing rights between the two States with precision: the United Kingdom, as the State where the property sits, taxes the rental income first, and France, as the State where you live, taxes it again but must give you a tax credit equal, in most cases, to the French tax on that income. This article explains, for a British reader living in France, where your UK rental income is really taxed, how you prove your French tax residence when your economic life still straddles the Channel, which French forms and allowances apply to a British letting, what happens with French social charges (prélèvements sociaux) after Brexit, and how you challenge a French tax bill that ignores the treaty. French legal terms are explained at first use throughout.
I. I live in France and rent out a flat in the UK — where do I pay tax on the rent?
A. Is my UK rental income taxable in the UK, in France, or in both countries?
The short answer is both, but not twice on the same euro of tax. Start with the British side, because the treaty gives the first word to the State where the bricks stand. Article 6, paragraph 1 of the Franco-British convention of 19 June 2008 allocates taxing rights over income from immovable property situated in a contracting State to that State, and paragraph 3 extends the rule expressly to income from direct use, letting and farming of such property, so ordinary buy-to-let receipts are squarely covered. Paragraph 3 confirms that the rule covers direct use, letting, farming and every other form of use of such property. The French embassy in London states the same rule for residents in practical terms: rental income from buildings is taxed in the country where the property stands, regardless of where the owner lives for tax purposes. Your Manchester rent is therefore taxable in the United Kingdom even though you now live in Lyon, Bordeaux or Paris.
On the British side, the practical consequence is the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme. The official GOV.UK guidance confirms that anyone who lets out a UK property must pay UK tax on the rental income. It adds that a person who lives abroad for six months or more per year is treated by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as a non-resident landlord. As a non-resident landlord, your letting agent — or your tenant, if you let directly — must normally deduct basic-rate UK tax from the rent before paying it to you, unless HMRC has authorised you to receive the rent in full by filing form NRL1i and accounting through Self Assessment. British citizens remain in principle entitled to the UK personal allowance against that rental income, which is why many British landlords with a single modest letting pay little or no UK tax once mortgage interest relief mechanics, allowable expenses and the allowance are applied. Keep every HMRC computation, every Self Assessment return and every proof of tax paid: the French side of the mechanism depends on them.
Now the French side. Once you are a French tax resident, France taxes your worldwide income, and the treaty does not exempt your British rent in France — it shares it. Article 24, paragraph 3(a) of the convention requires France to include in the French tax computation income that is taxable or taxable only in the United Kingdom under the treaty, which means the rent goes into your French taxable income even though the United Kingdom has already taxed it. Double taxation is then eliminated by a French tax credit which, for income of this kind, equals the French tax attributable to that income, on condition that the French resident was subject to United Kingdom tax on it. For ordinary rental income, the credit therefore equals the French tax on that rent, provided you were actually subject to UK tax on it. Where French tax is computed under the progressive scale, the treaty measures the attributable French tax as the net income in question multiplied by the effective average rate, that is, the ratio between the tax actually due on total net taxable income under French legislation and that total. In other words, the credit is capped at the French tax on the rent — if the British tax is higher, the excess is not refunded by France, and if the British tax is lower, you pay France the difference. And the treaty counts only United Kingdom tax borne definitively on that income in accordance with the convention, so only final UK tax counts, not provisional deductions.
This architecture was tested at the highest level in a case that every British landlord in France should know. On 12 February 2020 the Conseil d’État (the supreme administrative court) ruled in decision CE, 12/02/2020, n° 435907 on exactly this treaty and exactly this credit mechanism. The court was asked, among others, whether France may refuse the subparagraph (i) tax credit against French social contributions owed by French-resident individuals on the ground that no equivalent of those levies exists in the United Kingdom, a question turning on the treaty words ” nonobstant toute autre disposition de la présente Convention ” used in Article 24(3)(a) of the Franco-British convention. The answer matters for your social charges, examined below: the credit machinery of Article 24 is not optional decoration, and the administration cannot discard it by invoking the absence of an equivalent British levy. The same family logic appears in commercial matters, where the Cour de cassation applies situs-based treaty reasoning to French immovable wealth held through companies (see Cass. com., 2 April 2025, n° 23-14.568): immovable property anchors taxation to the State where it sits, and the other State eliminates the resulting double burden through the treaty method.
Two frequent misunderstandings must be cleared up here. First, paying UK tax does not exempt you from declaring in France. The treaty credit is granted only on declared income; undeclared rent opens a reassessment with a minimum 10% late-payment increase (majoration), plus late interest (intérêt de retard), and up to 40% or 80% where the administration characterises the omission as deliberate or as concealed activity. Second, the reverse error — declaring in France and ignoring the United Kingdom — exposes you to HMRC penalties and to your agent withholding tax anyway. Declare in both States, pay in Britain first, then claim the French credit. That is the lawful circuit.
B. Am I French tax resident if my rental flat — and part of my life — stayed in Britain?
Everything above assumes you are a French tax resident. Many readers sit in a grey zone: house in France, flat let in Britain, spouse in one country, bank accounts and doctor in the other, 150 days here, 200 days there. Residence decides which State taxes your worldwide income and which State merely taxes source income, so get it right before you file.
French domestic law first. Article 4B of the General Tax Code (Code général des impôts) treats as French tax residents persons who have their home (foyer) in France, who stay there principally, who work there principally, or who have the centre of their economic interests there — a single criterion suffices. If you meet any of them, France claims you as its resident. The treaty then breaks ties where both States claim you. Article 4, paragraph 2 of the 19 June 2008 convention lays down a cascade: a person is deemed resident only of the State where they have a permanent home, and where they have a permanent home in both States, only of the State with which their personal and economic relations are closest, the centre of vital interests. Failing that, the tie-breakers descend step by step: residence only of the State of habitual stay where the centre of vital interests cannot be determined or where there is no permanent home in either State, then nationality where habitual stay is in both States or in neither, and finally mutual agreement between the two tax authorities where nationality does not break the tie.
In practice, a British citizen who bought a main home in France, whose children attend a French school and whose daily life runs from a French address will be treated as French-resident even while keeping a let flat in Leeds: the permanent home and the centre of vital interests point to France, and British nationality only breaks ties much further down the cascade. Conversely, a reader who spends most nights in London and merely holidays in a Dordogne cottage remains British-resident, and France then taxes only French-source income. The dangerous middle is the genuine dual-presence life — and here the courts insist on evidence, not assertions. The Paris Court of Appeal regularly reconstructs residence from electricity bills, travel records, children’s schooling, club memberships and the address given to banks (see, for the method, CA Paris, Pôle 5, ch. 15, 2 Nov. 2022, n° 22/05173 as referenced in treaty-residence litigation). Keep a residence file from 1 January: lease or title deeds for the French home, utility bills in your name, school certificates, French health cover (attestation de droits), travel history, and the UK letting file separately. If the administration later claims you were French-resident for a year you thought British, or denies your French residence to refuse the treaty credit, that file is your defence.
One Brexit-specific warning. Before 2021, European coordination rules smoothed many Franco-British social-security frictions; since the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, British nationals are third-country nationals for new situations, and affiliation arguments that worked intra-EU must be rebuilt under the new instruments. Do not assume that a pre-Brexit HMRC certificate, an old S1 healthcare form or a National Insurance record settles your French tax residence. Tax residence and social-security affiliation are distinct questions, decided under distinct instruments, and the French tax judge examines each on its own evidence.
II. How do I declare UK rent in France and stop paying the same tax twice?
A. Which French forms and allowances apply to rent from a British property?
Declare everything, then let the credit do its work. As a French tax resident you must report your worldwide income each spring on the online return (déclaration en ligne) through your personal space on impots.gouv.fr. British rents enter the French return in two places: the foreign-income annex (form 2047, revenus encaissés à l’étranger), where you identify each UK property, the gross rent received and the UK tax paid, and the property-income annex (form 2044, revenus fonciers), where the net rental result is computed under French rules. The totals then flow into the main return (form 2042). The impots.gouv.fr international desk confirms the principle for individuals: French residents declare income received abroad and eliminate double taxation through the applicable treaty mechanism, which for the United Kingdom is the credit method of Article 24 described above. File even where the British letting produced a loss or where HMRC took no tax: the loss position and the treaty credit are established on the French return, and an unfiled year is the year the administration reconstructs against you.
French law then computes your net rental result under one of two regimes, and the French embassy in London describes them in practical terms: a simplified micro-foncier regime where yearly rental income does not exceed 15,000 euros. Under the micro-foncier (simplified micro regime), you declare gross rents and the administration applies a standard 30% allowance (abattement forfaitaire), with no deduction of actual expenses. Above 15,000 euros of yearly income, or by election where it suits you better, the actual-expenses regime applies, noting that the election binds you for three years. Under the régime réel, you deduct genuine costs — British letting-agent fees, buildings insurance, local council tax where it falls on you as landlord, repairs (but not improvements that add value), loan interest within French limits, and the UK tax-accountancy fees tied to that letting — and you may carry a rental deficit (déficit foncier) against your other income within the statutory ceiling, currently 10,700 euros per year for the portion arising from deductible expenses other than loan interest, with the surplus carried forward against future rental profits for up to ten years. Work the comparison every year: a reader with a single UK flat, no mortgage and 9,000 euros of gross rent usually gains from the 30% micro allowance; a reader with an interest-bearing remortgage, a void period and a 4,000-euro boiler replacement usually gains from the régime réel. Elect expressly where required, diary the three-year lock-in, and convert every sterling figure at the published annual average rate, keeping the rate source with the return.
Currency, evidence and timing deserve their own discipline. Keep a letting file per property per year: the assured shorthold tenancy (the standard English rental contract), the rent statements, the agent’s annual summary, the HMRC Self Assessment computation and payment receipts, the NRL authorisation where you hold one, bank statements showing the transfers, and the exchange-rate sheet you used. The French administration can audit the three last years as a matter of course (the délai de reprise), ten years where no return was filed at all, and it exchanges data automatically with HMRC under the Common Reporting Standard and the treaty assistance clauses. A coherent file turns an audit into a short correspondence; a shoebox of screenshots turns it into a reassessment.
French social charges on the rent require separate attention, because this is where British landlords are most often surprised. In addition to income tax, French residents pay social levies on property income: the CAA Marseille lists the family in full in a dispute over 2012–2014 assessments — “M. D…, ressortissant français résident en France, a été assujetti à la contribution sociale généralisée, à la contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale, au prélèvement social, à la contribution additionnelle au prélèvement social et au prélèvement de solidarité sur les revenus du patrimoine dont il a bénéficié” (CAA Marseille, 17 March 2020, n° 19MA00148). Your UK rent, once in the French net-income base, attracts these levies at the global rate in force for the year (17.2% in recent years, all levies combined). Whether the Article 24 treaty credit also neutralises the social charges — and not only the income tax — is precisely the question the Conseil d’État examined in CE, 12/02/2020, n° 435907, and the administration’s answer has varied over the years and between levies. Check the current BOFIP commentary on the Franco-British convention (BOI-INT-CVB-GBR-10-30) for the year concerned before you accept the computation, and never assume that an HMRC document settles a French social-charge point: the Cour de cassation has repeatedly held that foreign affiliation does not by itself defeat a French levy, holding for example that “la résidence fiscale du bénéficiaire de la rémunération et son affiliation à un régime de sécurité sociale étranger étaient sans conséquence sur le principe de l’assujettissement de ces rémunérations au forfait social” (Cass. 2e civ., 6 June 2024, n° 21-23.396), while the coordination regulation itself recalls that “Il résulte de ces textes que les revenus perçus dans un Etat membre autre que l’Etat membre dont la législation est applicable doivent être soumis à cotisations dans ce dernier Etat membre et qu’il appartient à la législation de chaque État membre concerné de déterminer les revenus à prendre en compte pour le calcul des cotisations et contributions sociales, quelle que soit leur nature” (Cass. 2e civ., 30 Jan. 2025, n° 22-22.464). Since Brexit, British S1 healthcare certificates and National Insurance records operate under the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement rather than the old intra-EU coordination: if you hold an S1 registered in France, ask the administration in writing whether any social-charge exemption granted to persons affiliated in another European State extends to your case for the year at issue, and keep the written reply with your file. The related frontier-worker ruling confirms that courts examine each affiliation setup on its own facts rather than exempting whole categories by slogan (Cass. 2e civ., 25 Sept. 2025, n° 22-24.634).
B. The bill looks wrong — how do I challenge a French reassessment on UK rental income?
Reassessments on British rents follow a recognisable pattern: the administration adds the gross UK rent to your French income with no treaty credit, or computes the credit on the gross rent instead of the net, or denies any credit on the ground that no UK tax was paid where HMRC simply applied your personal allowance, or charges full social levies while ignoring the Article 24 debate. Each of these can be answered, but only inside the procedural timetable. The reassessment arrives as a proposition de rectification: you have, as a rule, thirty days to respond with observations, and you should use them — attach the tenancy, the HMRC computation, the proof of UK payment, your exchange-rate sheet and a one-page treaty calculation showing gross rent, deductible French-law expenses, net rent, French tax attributable to that net rent, UK tax definitively borne, and the credit claimed. Many files are corrected at this stage without litigation.
If the administration confirms the adjustment, it issues an avis de mise en recouvrement (collection notice). You then file a formal claim (réclamation contentieuse) with the tax office that assessed you, normally before 31 December of the second year following the year of collection or of the event giving rise to the claim, setting out each ground separately: treaty residence, Article 6 situs rule, Article 24 credit computation with the progressive-rate formula, social-charge treatment, and penalties. Ask expressly for suspension of payment (sursis de paiement) where the claim covers the full amount, so that recovery is frozen while the claim is examined. If the claim is rejected expressly or by silence after six months, you may appeal to the administrative court (tribunal administratif) within two months of the rejection. Before the judge, the CE 12 February 2020 ruling is your anchor on the credit mechanism: the administration cannot refuse the Article 24(i) credit on the ground that no equivalent of the French levy exists in the United Kingdom, and the credit follows the treaty’s own definitions — French tax attributable to the net income on one side, UK tax definitively borne on the other — not the inspector’s shortcut.
Penalties deserve a dedicated paragraph in your claim. The 10% increase for late payment falls away where you show timely filing; the 40% increase for deliberate failure (manquement délibéré) requires the administration to prove intent, not merely an omission, and the 80% increase for concealed activity (activité occulte) requires proof that you hid the letting. A landlord who filed form 2047 every year, declared the gross rent, and simply computed the credit differently from the inspector has an error-of-law profile, not a concealment profile — say so, with the filed returns attached. Interest for late payment (intérêt de retard) still runs on any tax ultimately confirmed, so quantify it and, where the treaty credit wipes out the principal, show that the interest base collapses with it.
Finally, use the public preliminary remedies before suing where the file allows: the departmental mediator (médiateur) and the conciliation procedure can resolve computation disputes within months, and the administration’s own rescrit (formal ruling) procedure lets you secure the treatment of next year’s rent — régime choice, expense deductibility, credit computation — before you file. A landlord who arrives with a rescrit for year N+1, a complete letting file for year N, and a one-page treaty computation rarely needs a judge. A landlord who arrives with none of the three usually meets one.
Conclusion
Keeping a British letting while living in France is lawful, common and treaty-protected — but only for landlords who run the Franco-British circuit in the right order. Confirm your French tax residence under Article 4B and the Article 4 tie-breakers before you file; pay the UK tax first under the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme and keep every HMRC proof; declare the gross rent on forms 2047 and 2044, choose each year between the 30% micro-foncier allowance and the régime réel with its deficit mechanics; compute the Article 24 credit as the French tax on the net rent, capped and documented; verify the social-charge lines against the current BOFIP instead of assuming the credit covers them; and answer any proposition de rectification within thirty days with a complete file. The treaty of 19 June 2008 (decree n° 2010-20 of 7 January 2010 publishing the convention) allocates the rent to Britain for first taxation and to France for the credit — the Conseil d’État enforces that allocation strictly — so the landlord who declares, documents and computes keeps the yield, and the landlord who improvises funds both treasuries. If your notice shows no credit, a credit on the gross rather than the net, or social charges you cannot reconcile, act inside the deadlines: thirty days to answer the inspector, a formal claim before 31 December of the second year, then the administrative court. In treaty litigation, the file you built on 1 January is the case you plead in year three.
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