You moved to France after Brexit, you left your UK defined-contribution pension pot where it was, and you now draw on it bit by bit. In the United Kingdom, each withdrawal feels light: one quarter of every UFPLS payment arrives with no UK tax deducted, and the rest is taxed through PAYE as pension income. Once you are resident in France, that comfortable picture changes. France taxes the whole payment as a pension, applies its own scale after a capped 10 per cent allowance, adds social charges where they are due, and asks you to declare everything on French returns even when HMRC has already taken a slice. This article explains, step by step, how each UFPLS and flexi-access payment is taxed in France, which forms to use, how the France-United Kingdom double tax treaty stops you paying twice, and how to challenge a bill that gets any of this wrong. Every French term is explained on first use, and every decisive rule is quoted from its official text.
I. How France taxes your UK drawdown after Brexit: the slice rule, the treaty and the yearly bill
Before any calculation, three building blocks decide everything: what France calls a pension, where you are resident for tax, and which State the treaty allows to tax. Get these three right and the rest follows. Get one wrong and you either overpay or invite a reassessment.
A. Is the 25 per cent untaxed slice really untaxed in France, and which State is allowed to tax your drawdown?
Start with the British mechanics, because the misunderstanding almost always starts there. UFPLS stands for Uncrystallised Funds Pension Lump Sum: each time you take money from a pot you have not yet crystallised, the scheme pays 25 per cent of that withdrawal with no UK tax deducted and taxes the remaining 75 per cent as pension income. Flexi-access drawdown works differently: you crystallise all or part of the pot, usually take a 25 per cent lump sum once, and then draw a taxable income as often as you like. In both cases, the UK exempts one quarter and taxes the rest. France does not copy that split.
Under French domestic law, the full amount you receive counts as pension income. 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. Il en est de même des prestations de retraite servies sous forme de capital.” In plain English: pensions and retirement benefits paid as capital form part of your overall taxable income. The 25 per cent that HMRC left untaxed is therefore brought back into the French base. There is no French equivalent of the UK untaxed slice for a foreign pension withdrawal. The only relief France grants on pensions is a general allowance, examined below, and it applies to the total pension figure, not to a slice of it.
The second question is which country is even allowed to tax. Since Brexit, the answer still comes from the bilateral treaty, the Convention signed on 19 June 2008 between France and the United Kingdom for the avoidance of double taxation, published in France by Decree No. 2010-20 of 7 January 2010. Its Article 18 reserves private pensions to the State of residence, subject only to the public-service exception in Article 19(2): a pension paid for past employment is taxable only where the recipient lives. In other words, a private pension paid for past employment is taxable only in the State where you live. If you live in France, your UK private pension drawdown is taxable only in France, and the United Kingdom must give up its taxing right. That is why a French resident drawing a Tesco, Aviva or SIPP pension normally owes the income tax to Paris, not London, and why any UK tax withheld on the same payment has to be reclaimed or credited rather than accepted as final.
One exception matters enormously, and it traps former public servants. Article 19, paragraph 2 of the same Convention keeps public-service pensions taxable in the paying State, with a narrow exception where the recipient lives in, and holds only the nationality of, the other State. These are Crown pensions, meaning pensions paid by the British State for service to it: civil service, armed forces, police, and similar public employment. A British national living in France who draws a UK civil service pension is therefore taxable only in the United Kingdom, unless that person is also a French national without British nationality, a rare configuration. The mirror applies to French public pensions drawn by someone living in Britain. Before you declare anything, sort your pensions into two piles: private pensions taxable in France, and Crown pensions taxable in the United Kingdom. Mixing the two piles is the single most common cause of double payment.
Residence itself is the third building block. Article 4 B of the General Tax Code states: “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”. Your foyer means your permanent home, the place your family life is centred; your principal place of stay means where you spend most of the year. Meeting either test makes you domiciled in France for tax, which lawyers call domicile fiscal. The same article adds a safety net for treaty cases: “Les personnes qui satisfont à l’un au moins des critères fixés aux a à c du présent 1 ne peuvent toutefois pas être considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France lorsque, par application des conventions internationales relatives aux doubles impositions, elles ne sont pas regardées comme résidentes de France.” If the treaty tie-breaker makes you British-resident, France must stand down. For most British settlers with a French home, French family life and more than six months a year in France, the answer is French residence, and the drawdown is declared in France.
A concrete example fixes ideas. Take Margaret, 63, living year-round in the Dordogne, drawing £20,000 in the year through UFPLS withdrawals from a SIPP, meaning a Self-Invested Personal Pension, the do-it-yourself pension wrapper used widely in Britain. In the United Kingdom, £5,000 of that is untaxed in the UK and £15,000 is taxed through PAYE, the pay-as-you-earn withholding applied by the scheme. In France, the starting point is the full £20,000 converted to euros, with no exempt slice. The 10 per cent pension allowance described below reduces the taxable figure, the income tax scale applies, and social charges may apply on top. If the scheme withheld UK tax on the £15,000, Margaret does not shrug and pay twice: she reclaims from HMRC or claims the French treaty credit, as explained in Part II. Readers who want the full picture on one-off lump sums and on Crown pensions can also read our companion analysis of how France taxes the 25 per cent lump sum and Crown pensions, which covers the single withdrawal in detail, while this article covers the repeating drawdown.
B. How is flexi-access income taxed across the year: the scale, the 10 per cent allowance and the 7.5 per cent option?
Once the treaty gives France the taxing right, French domestic rules take over. Regular drawdown payments are pensions, taxed at the progressive income tax scale after the allowance. Article 158, 5, a of the General Tax Code provides: “Les pensions et retraites font l’objet d’un abattement de 10 % qui ne peut excéder 4 439 €.” Abattement means a flat-rate deduction: France knocks 10 per cent off your pensions before applying the scale, up to a ceiling revised every year, which stands at 4,439 euros in the version in force at the date of writing. The allowance covers the total pensions of the household, so a couple drawing two UK pensions plus a French pension share one ceiling. Below a yearly minimum, the allowance cannot fall under a floor amount, also revised yearly. Small pensions therefore bear very little tax; large drawdowns quickly climb the scale.
The scale itself sits in Article 197 of the General Tax Code, which states: “L’impôt est calculé en appliquant à la fraction de chaque part de revenu qui excède 11 600 € le taux de : – 11 % pour la fraction supérieure à 11 600 € et inférieure ou égale à 29 579 € ; – 30 % pour la fraction supérieure à 29 579 € et inférieure ou égale à 84 577 € ; – 41 % pour la fraction supérieure à 84 577 € et inférieure ou égale à 181 917 € ; – 45 % pour la fraction supérieure à 181 917 €.” These thresholds move most years, so always check the scale printed for the year of receipt. The quotient familial, the system of parts that divides household income by the number of shares, one for a single person, two for a married couple, plus half-shares for children, softens the progression. Take David, married, living in Lyon, drawing the equivalent of 40,000 euros of flexi-access income and nothing else. After the 10 per cent allowance, 36,000 euros enter the scale, divided by two parts, taxed band by band, then multiplied back. His marginal euro bears 30 per cent, not 45, and the allowance saved him tax on 4,000 euros. The same arithmetic punishes lumpiness: drawing 80,000 euros in one year pushes more of it into the 30 and 41 per cent bands than drawing 40,000 euros in each of two years. Spreading withdrawals across tax years is often the cheapest lawful decision a drawdown household makes.
Capital payments, meaning one-off sums rather than repeating income, can sometimes use a special flat charge instead of the scale. Article 163 bis, II of the General Tax Code provides: “Les prestations de retraite versées sous forme de capital imposables conformément au b quinquies du 5 de l’article 158 peuvent, sur demande expresse et irrévocable du bénéficiaire, être soumises à un prélèvement au taux de 7,5 % qui libère les revenus auxquels il s’applique de l’impôt sur le revenu. Ce prélèvement est assis sur le montant du capital diminué d’un abattement de 10 %. Ce prélèvement est applicable lorsque le versement n’est pas fractionné et que le bénéficiaire justifie que les cotisations versées durant la phase de constitution des droits, y compris le cas échéant par l’employeur, étaient déductibles de son revenu imposable ou étaient afférentes à un revenu exonéré dans l’Etat auquel était attribué le droit d’imposer celui-ci.” Prélèvement here means a flat levy that discharges the income tax: pay 7.5 per cent on the capital after the 10 per cent allowance, and the income tax is settled. Three conditions matter for British drawdown: the payment must be a capital benefit, the payment must not be split into instalments, and the contributions that built the rights must have been deductible or linked to exempt income in the State that could tax them. A single UFPLS crystallisation of a whole small pot can qualify; monthly UFPLS slices cannot, because they are fractionné, split by design.
A recent court decision shows how strictly judges read the no-splitting condition. In a case about a Swiss supplementary pension paid in two instalments, the Lyon administrative court of appeal held that “l’administration a pu légalement se fonder sur le caractère fractionné du versement pour remettre en cause l’application du prélèvement libératoire aux sommes versées”, and it closed with “La requête de M. et Mme D… est rejetée.” Read the full ruling as CAA Lyon, 5th chamber, 28 November 2024, No. 22LY01728. The lesson for British drawdown is direct: if you take your pot in slices, do not claim the 7.5 per cent flat charge on each slice and expect it to survive an audit. Either take a qualifying single capital payment and elect expressly and irrevocably for the flat charge, or accept the scale on repeating income and plan the yearly amounts instead. The election is irrevocable, so run the numbers both ways before you tick the box: for a large capital sum, 7.5 per cent after the allowance usually beats the 30 and 41 per cent bands; for a modest sum inside the 11 per cent band, the scale usually wins.
Two traps close this section. First, exchange rates: convert each payment at a consistent, defensible rate and keep the scheme statements, because the tax office can ask for proof of every euro declared. Second, timing: France taxes pensions when you receive them, the encaissement rule, so a withdrawal paid on 3 January belongs to the new year even if you requested it in December. Households that manage the December-to-January boundary manage their marginal rate.
II. How to declare, stop double tax and challenge the bill: forms, social charges and remedies
Knowing the tax is one thing; paying exactly the right amount and no more is another. This part walks through the paperwork, the social charges that many British settlers discover late, the treaty machinery that prevents double payment, and the remedies when the administration gets it wrong.
A. Which French forms carry your UK drawdown, and will social charges land on top of the income tax?
French tax residents declare worldwide income in France. Your UK drawdown therefore appears on the French returns even though the money comes from London, Edinburgh or Leeds. In practice, you list the UK pension amounts on the foreign-income return, known as declaration No. 2047, and carry the totals onto the main income return, declaration No. 2042. The official form and its notice sit on the tax administration site under Form No. 2047, foreign income declaration, and the English-language filing guide is published by service-public.fr for income received abroad. First-year filers often discover this machinery the hard way; our walkthrough for newcomers filing their first French tax return with Forms 2042, 2047 and 3916 covers the calendar and the common mistakes. Declare gross amounts before UK withholding, convert to euros, attach the treaty article you rely on, and keep the P60-style scheme statements, the annual pension statements British schemes issue, for at least the audit period. Declaring the net after UK tax is the classic error: France taxes the gross, then deals with the UK tax separately through the treaty, and netting the two lines invites a reassessment for omitted income.
Social charges, meaning the CSG, CRDS and related levies that fund French social protection, are the second bill many British households miss. CSG stands for Contribution sociale généralisée, the general social contribution; CRDS stands for Contribution pour le remboursement de la dette sociale, the levy repaying the social debt. These are not income tax, they sit on top of it, and they apply to pensions only when two conditions are met together. Article L. 136-1 of the Social Security Code states: “Il est institué une contribution sociale sur les revenus d’activité et sur les revenus de remplacement à laquelle sont assujettis : 1° Les personnes physiques qui sont à la fois considérées comme domiciliées en France pour l’établissement de l’impôt sur le revenu et à la charge, à quelque titre que ce soit, d’un régime obligatoire français d’assurance maladie”. Two cumulative tests, then: domiciled in France for income tax, and covered by a compulsory French health insurance scheme. Miss either test and the CSG is not due. For pensions specifically, Article L. 136-8 of the Social Security Code adds: “Sont assujetties à la contribution au taux de 8,3 % les pensions de retraite, et les pensions d’invalidité.” The 8.3 per cent rate is the top CSG rate on pensions; lower rates exist for modest incomes, and CRDS sits alongside, so check the exact rates printed on your avis, the tax bill notice, for the year.
The courts apply this double test to foreign pensions without mercy in either direction. In a case about Monegasque pensions received by a French-domiciled household, the Marseille court recalled the two conditions, verified that the claimant was fiscally domiciled in France and bore no foreign social withholding that would prove double charging, and concluded: “La requête de M. B… est rejetée.” Read it as CAA Marseille, 4th chamber, 26 June 2018, No. 17MA02711. The mirror lesson matters just as much: a British resident of France who is not covered by a compulsory French health scheme, for example because the person holds the right European paperwork or is not yet affiliated, should not be charged CSG and CRDS on the UK pension at all, and a bill that charges them anyway can be challenged on that exact ground. This is where your healthcare status becomes a tax question. State pensioners who hold an S1, the portable document by which the United Kingdom pays for their French healthcare, and early retirees affiliated to PUMA, the Protection universelle maladie, the French universal health cover for residents, with its CSM subsidy charge where due, face different answers, so confirm your CPAM position, CPAM being the local health fund, before you accept or contest the social charges line. Keep the S1, the CPAM attestation of rights, and any PUMA affiliation notice with your tax papers: they are the exhibits that win or lose a social-charges dispute.
One more boundary to draw. If you kept UK accounts and an ISA, an Individual Savings Account, alongside the pension, remember that the pension analysis in this article does not travel to those assets: bank interest, dividends and ISA wrappers follow their own treaty articles and their own French reporting, including the yearly foreign-account return. Do not let a clean pension filing make you forget the accounts behind it.
B. HMRC taxed me too: how does the treaty credit work, how do you reclaim, and how do you challenge a French bill?
Double taxation usually arrives in one of two ways: the UK scheme withholds emergency tax on your drawdown because it still thinks you are British-resident, or HMRC refuses to issue a direction to pay gross because your French residence paperwork is incomplete. The British government confirms the safety net on GOV.UK, Tax when you live abroad, explaining that residents of a country holding a double-taxation agreement with the United Kingdom may be relieved from paying twice. France and the United Kingdom have exactly that, and the treaty tells each side what to do.
On the French side, the mechanism is a tax credit. Article 24, paragraph 3, a of the Convention gives French residents a tax credit against French tax for treaty income, within the conditions and limits of its sub-paragraphs. In practice, you declare the UK pension in France, compute the French tax, and set against it a credit equal to the French tax attributable to that income, provided the income was actually subjected to UK tax. Where the treaty gives France the exclusive right to tax, as with private pensions under Article 18, the cleaner route is to stop the UK tax at source: file the DT-Individual claim with HMRC, quoting the France treaty and attaching the French residence certificate, so the scheme pays you gross and France alone taxes you. The detailed British claim notes sit in the HMRC DT France Individual notes. File the DT claim as soon as French residence is certain; waiting until both bills arrive turns a paperwork task into a cash-flow problem and a two-year correspondence.
On the French side, when the bill itself is wrong, the path is administrative first and judicial second. Start with a réclamation, the formal complaint filed from your online impots.gouv.fr account or by letter to the tax office that issued the avis, setting out the treaty article, the domestic article, and the arithmetic, and attaching the scheme statements, the DT claim evidence and the healthcare exhibits. Most pension errors, wrong pile for a Crown pension, forgotten 10 per cent allowance, CSG charged without French health cover, scale applied to a qualifying single capital sum instead of the elected 7.5 per cent, die at this stage if the file is complete. If the administration rejects the claim in whole or in part, you can take the dispute to the tribunal administratif, the first-level administrative court, and then to the cour administrative d’appel. Those courts decide pension-treaty cases every year, as the Lyon and Marseille rulings quoted in this article prove. Bring the exact treaty paragraph, the exact code article, and the payment-by-payment schedule: judges reward files that reconcile to the euro and punish estimates.
British settlers should also know that French judges are used to cross-border pension careers. In a case brought by a British national who had worked in the United Kingdom, France and Monaco, the Court of Cassation recorded that “après avoir exercé une activité professionnelle salariée au Royaume-Uni, en France et à Monaco, M. X…, ressortissant britannique né […] , a obtenu de la caisse d’assurance retraite et de la santé au travail du Sud-Est (la caisse), le bénéfice d’une pension de vieillesse, à effet du 1er décembre 2009, calculée sur la base d’un taux minoré de 32,50 %”. Read it as Cass. 2nd civil chamber, 7 November 2019, No. 18-18.344. That dispute was about how French quarters and foreign periods combine in the pension calculation, not about drawdown tax, but it shows the reflex French courts apply to British careers: every period counts somewhere, no period counts twice, and the paperwork decides. A second ruling the same chamber gave on coordination, Cass. 2nd civil chamber, 29 November 2018, No. 17-20.226, sent a Franco-German pension question to Luxembourg rather than guessing, which is the same caution you should apply: never let an adviser guess which State taxes what when the treaty answers in black and white.
Practical checklist before you sign the return: every pension sorted into the private pile or the Crown pile; every payment converted and dated by receipt; the 10 per cent allowance checked against the yearly ceiling; the 7.5 per cent election taken only for a genuine single capital payment, with the express and irrevocable request filed; the CSG line accepted only if you are both French-domiciled and under a compulsory French health scheme; the UK withholding either stopped by a DT claim or carried as a treaty credit; and the whole file kept with scheme statements, DT evidence and CPAM papers. That file is your shield in an audit and your sword in a réclamation.
Conclusion
Living in France and drawing a British pension pot is not double-taxed by design; it becomes double-taxed only by paperwork failure. The treaty gives France the exclusive right to tax your private drawdown, France taxes the full payment as pension income after its capped allowance, the 7.5 per cent flat charge is reserved for genuine single capital payments, social charges follow your healthcare cover rather than your passport, and the treaty credit plus the HMRC DT claim mop up any British tax that leaks through. Map each payment to the right pile, declare the gross on the 2047 carried to the 2042, verify the CSG line against your CPAM position, and challenge quickly and precisely when a bill departs from the texts quoted in this article. The rules are technical but they are written down, and a complete file almost always wins.