You live in Manchester, Leeds or London, and you own a stone cottage in the Dordogne, a village house in Brittany or a seaside flat on the Côte d’Azur. Since Brexit you hold that property as a third-country national, a person who no longer enjoys European Union freedom of movement, and every autumn the same brown envelopes arrive from the French tax administration. One carries the taxe foncière, the built-property land tax. Another carries the taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires, the housing tax that now survives almost only on second homes. If the property is valuable enough, a third layer appears in spring: the impôt sur la fortune immobilière, the annual wealth tax on property assets, known as the IFI. Each of these taxes has its own logic, its own liable person, its own valuation method and its own traps for a British owner who spends only part of the year in France. The good news is that each of them can be checked, calculated and, where the administration has got it wrong, challenged through a single, well-marked procedural gateway. This guide explains what you owe, why you owe it, how the bill is computed and exactly how to fight it, with the statutory texts and the most recent Council of State decisions to support every step.

I. What does your French second home cost you each year in local property taxes after Brexit?

Two local taxes dominate the annual running cost of a French holiday home, and Brexit changed neither their existence nor their amount, only the administrative life around them. The taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties, the tax on built property, falls on the owner every year whether the house is occupied, let or empty. The taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires, universally shortened to THRS, falls on whoever has the use of a furnished dwelling that is not their main home. Since the abolition of the housing tax on main homes, completed on 1 January 2023, the THRS is in practice a second-home tax, and in many tourist communes the municipal council has voted an additional surcharge of between 5 and 60 per cent on top of it. Understanding which of the two taxes bites you, on what date, and on what value is the foundation of everything that follows, because most British disputes come down to one of three questions: the wrong person taxed, the wrong dwelling valued, or the wrong occupation recorded.

A. Why do you still pay the taxe foncière when you live in Britain?

The taxe foncière is an ownership tax, and residence is irrelevant to it. The statute states the principle in one sentence: “La taxe foncière est établie annuellement sur les propriétés bâties sises en France à l’exception de celles qui en sont expressément exonérées par les dispositions du présent code.” (Article 1380 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). A cottage in the Lot is therefore taxed exactly as it would be if you lived in it all year, and the fact that you pay council tax in England, spend fewer than 183 days in France or hold only a visitor visa changes nothing about this particular bill. New buildings can benefit from temporary exemptions, typically for two years following completion, but ordinary second homes that British buyers acquire on the resale market fall squarely inside the charge.

The amount you pay is not the market value of the house but an administrative rental value, the valeur locative cadastrale, multiplied by the rates voted each year by the commune, the municipality, and the intercommunal body, plus the household waste collection charge, the taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères, universally known as the TEOM. The method for dwellings is comparative by design: “La valeur locative des locaux affectés à l’habitation ou servant à l’exercice d’une activité salariée à domicile est déterminée par comparaison avec celle de locaux de référence choisis, dans la commune, pour chaque nature et catégorie de locaux.” (Article 1496 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). In plain terms, the administration picks a reference dwelling in your commune for each category of housing, prices it from observed open-market rents, applies that tariff to the weighted surface of your own home, and adjusts for comfort elements such as running water, electricity, central heating and bathrooms. Because these cadastral values date from a 1970s assessment exercise updated only by national coefficients, two houses of identical market value in different communes can carry very different valeurs locatives, and a renovation that adds a bathroom or central heating can lawfully increase yours.

Three practical points cause most British disputes over this tax. First, the liable person on 1 January pays the whole year, because “La taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties, la taxe foncière sur les propriétés non bâties et la taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires sont établies pour l’année entière d’après les faits existants au 1er janvier de l’année de l’imposition.” (Article 1415 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). Buy in February and the seller remains liable for that year, which is why the notaire, the French public conveyancing officer who handles the completion, normally apportions the taxe foncière between seller and buyer in the completion accounts. Sell in December and you still pay the full following bill only if you still own on 1 January. Second, demolition, conversion or long-term vacancy can reduce or extinguish the charge, but only if the change is declared and evidenced. Third, where the valeur locative looks wrong, the file to assemble is the same one a French adviser would build: the latest assessment notice with the cadastral references, the title deed showing surfaces, the planning permissions and completion declarations for any works, photographs of the condition of the property, and, decisively, the identity of the local de référence, the reference dwelling used for your home, which you can demand from the tax office. If that reference dwelling is larger, better equipped or in a better location than yours, the comparison is flawed and the assessment can be revised.

For British owners the Brexit overlay is administrative rather than fiscal. The bill is served to your French address or to your online account on impots.gouv.fr, the portal of the French tax administration, and paper notices sent to a Dordogne cottage while you are in Leeds are still deemed served. Setting up the online account, electing for electronic notices and paying by monthly direct debit, the mensualisation, avoids late-payment penalties of 10 per cent that no distance excuse will remove. Where the property is held through an SCI, the French non-trading property company, the company itself is not liable to the taxe foncière in place of anyone; the tax remains assessed on the property, and the question is simply who held it on 1 January. None of this requires French residence, and none of it is affected by the number of days you spend in the country under the 90/180-day Schengen rule.

B. How is the taxe d’habitation on second homes calculated, and when does the surcharge bite?

Since the abolition of the housing tax on main homes, the remaining housing tax is a second-home tax in all but name. The charging provision now reads: “La taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires est due pour tous les locaux meublés conformément à leur destination d’habitation autre qu’à titre principal, y compris lorsqu’ils sont imposables à la cotisation foncière des entreprises.” (Article 1407 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). Two features matter immediately. The dwelling must be furnished, meuble, meaning equipped sufficiently for habitation; a genuinely empty shell is outside the tax, though the administration presumes furnishing from electricity consumption, insurance and the occupancy declaration. And the tax catches every furnished dwelling that is not your main home, including a flat you lend to friends or family for no rent for the summer.

Liability follows occupation, not ownership. The Code provides: “La taxe est établie au nom des personnes qui ont, à quelque titre que ce soit, la disposition ou la jouissance des locaux imposables.” (Article 1408 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). If you let your cottage year-round to a sitting tenant, the tenant pays the THRS, not you. If you keep it for your own holidays, even for three weeks a year, you pay. The difficult middle case, and the one that traps many British owners who let their homes as holiday gîtes for part of the year, was settled by the Council of State, the Conseil d’État, France’s supreme administrative court, in December 2024. Owners of three classified holiday gîtes in Brittany argued that their intensive seasonal letting meant they had not kept the use of the properties. The court disagreed and laid down the rule: “le propriétaire du bien est redevable de la taxe d’habitation dès lors qu’au 1er janvier de l’année de l’imposition, il peut être regardé comme entendant en conserver la disposition ou la jouissance une partie de l’année.” (Council of State, 8th chamber, 23 December 2024, No 492174 on Legifrance). Because the owners remained able throughout the year to accept or refuse each short-stay booking made through the online platforms, they had kept control of the properties and therefore owed the tax. Only premises set aside exclusively for letting, which the owner cannot use at all, escape under the official doctrine confirmed on the service-public.fr page on the THRS. If you run a French holiday let alongside your own occupation, you should assume the THRS is due and budget for it; readers who also let their property should additionally consult our guide on renting out a French second home, from registration to French tax and fines.

The calculation itself mirrors the taxe foncière: the same valeur locative cadastrale multiplied by the municipal and intercommunal rates voted for the housing tax, with no charge for waste collection. The painful addition is the surcharge, the majoration, available in communes facing a proven housing imbalance. The statute authorises it in these terms: “Dans les communes mentionnées au B du I de l’article 1406 bis, le conseil municipal peut, par une délibération prise dans les conditions prévues à l’article 1639 A bis, majorer d’un pourcentage compris entre 5 % et 60 % la part lui revenant de la cotisation de taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires due au titre des logements meublés.” (Article 1407 ter of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). Paris, much of inner Île-de-France, the Basque coast, large parts of Brittany, the Alps and the Côte d’Azur have voted the surcharge, many at or near the 60 per cent ceiling. A British owner with a flat in Paris, where the surcharge applies at the maximum rate, can therefore pay substantially more THRS than the owner of an identical flat in a rural commune that never voted it. Professional mobility offers a targeted way out: owners who keep a second home near their place of work can obtain relief from the surcharge on claim, and properties put up for sale or for year-round letting at a market price can also qualify, provided the claim is made in time and evidenced.

Two administrative traps catch British owners specifically. The first is the occupancy declaration itself. Since 2023 every owner must declare the occupation status of each property, main home, second home, let property or vacant dwelling, in the Gérer mes biens immobiliers section of the impots.gouv.fr personal account, before 1 July of the year, with a fine of 150 euros per property for a missing or wrong declaration, as explained on the official THRS guidance page and the Finance Ministry explainer on how the tax works. Owners who bought before the system existed and never declared are the most exposed. The second trap is the proof of main versus secondary residence. A very recent Council of State decision, given on 7 July 2026, holds that the address shown on the joint income-tax return is only one piece of evidence among others: “il ne saurait être présumé que cette adresse est, sauf preuve contraire apportée par le contribuable, celle de sa résidence principale pour l’établissement de la taxe d’habitation.” (Council of State, 9th and 10th chambers combined, 7 July 2026, No 506653 on Legifrance). For a British couple where one spouse lives mainly in London and the other in Lyon, or where the family declares jointly from a French address while the British partner works in the United Kingdom, the administration must weigh all the evidence, passports, utility bills, insurance endorsements, vehicle registration, payslips, rather than presuming the return address decides everything. Keep that bundle from the start, because the taxpayer who can show where life is actually lived wins the classification argument.

II. When does French wealth tax catch your holiday home, and how do you fight a wrong bill?

Above the annual local taxes sits a national wealth tax on property, and behind all of them sits the appeal system that corrects them. The wealth tax catches British non-residents directly on their French bricks and mortar, with a threshold, a valuation date and a rate scale that reward careful measurement. The appeal system runs on strict deadlines counted from the assessment notice, not from the purchase, and it rewards the taxpayer who identifies the exact line under attack and proves the correct figure. This second part takes each in turn: first the IFI as it applies to a British owner living in the United Kingdom, then the complete method for challenging any of the three bills, from the online complaint to the administrative court, the tribunal administratif.

A. Are you liable to the impôt sur la fortune immobilière as a British non-resident?

The wealth tax is created in these words: “Il est institué un impôt annuel sur les actifs immobiliers désigné sous le nom d’impôt sur la fortune immobilière.” (Article 964 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). Liability above the threshold of 1,300,000 euros extends expressly beyond residents: “Les personnes physiques n’ayant pas leur domicile fiscal en France, à raison des biens et droits immobiliers mentionnés au 1° de l’article 965 situés en France et des parts ou actions de sociétés ou organismes mentionnés au 2° du même article 965 , à hauteur de la fraction de leur valeur représentative de ces mêmes biens et droits immobiliers.” (Article 964 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). A British resident of London who owns a Paris flat worth 1,500,000 euros is therefore within the tax on that flat, while a British resident of France is within it on worldwide property above the same threshold, subject to a five-year partial shelter for newcomers that limits the charge to French assets.

The base is the net value at a single date: “L’assiette de l’impôt sur la fortune immobilière est constituée par la valeur nette au 1er janvier de l’année :” (Article 965 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). Net means after deducting debts that relate to the taxable property, principally the outstanding capital of the mortgage taken out to acquire, build or improve it, apportioned where the loan covers mixed assets. Three valuation consequences follow for British owners. First, valuation follows death-duty rules: “La valeur des actifs mentionnés à l’article 965 est déterminée suivant les règles en vigueur en matière de droits de mutation par décès.” (Article 973 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance). The reference is therefore the open-market price, the valeur vénale réelle, what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller on 1 January, evidenced by recent sales of comparable properties, notarial databases and, where needed, an expert valuation. Second, the famous 30 per cent reduction for the main home, since “un abattement de 30 % est effectué sur la valeur vénale réelle de l’immeuble lorsque celui-ci est occupé à titre de résidence principale par son propriétaire” (Article 973 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance), never applies to a second home by definition. A British owner cannot claim it on the Dordogne cottage while the family home is in Surrey, however much time is spent there in summer. Third, shares in an SCI or an English company holding French property are caught only in proportion to the underlying French bricks, applying the statutory fraction to the value of the shares, so interposing a company neither creates nor removes liability, it merely changes the paperwork.

The rate scale in Article 977 of the General Tax Code on Legifrance runs from 0.50 per cent on the slice between 800,000 and 1,300,000 euros up to 1.50 per cent above 10,000,000 euros, with a smoothing mechanism, the décote, for net taxable estates between 1,300,000 and 1,400,000 euros. The arithmetic matters because the threshold is assessed on the net taxable estate, not per property: a British owner with a Paris flat at 900,000 euros and a country house at 500,000 euros, less 100,000 euros of remaining mortgage, holds 1,300,000 euros of net taxable property and sits exactly on the entry line. Falling below the line by repaying debt before 1 January, or rising above it through a rising market, is a question of measurement on that single date, which is why an estate agent’s appraisal obtained in March tells you nothing about the taxable value three months earlier. Filing is part of the trap. French-resident IFI payers declare with the income-tax return, while British non-residents liable only on French assets file the dedicated IFI return with its schedules, and the figures must reconcile with the Gérer mes biens immobiliers occupancy data and, where the property is let, with the rental income declared in France. A mismatch between the declared occupant and the declared value is the most common trigger for an enquiry.

One final boundary point for British owners. The France-United Kingdom double tax treaty of 19 June 2008 allocates the right to tax income from immovable property to the state where the property sits, and French administrative doctrine applies the same territorial logic to the wealth tax on French bricks held by British non-residents: France taxes the French property, and any relief against United Kingdom tax follows from the British side under His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs rules, currently explained in the gov.uk guidance on the France tax treaties. Do not confuse the two systems. The treaty prevents the same rental income being fully taxed twice, but it does not exempt a British-owned French house from French local taxes or from the IFI, and no treaty provision reduces the valeur locative or the surcharge voted by the commune. The treaty argument belongs to income and to the computation of foreign tax credit on the British return, never to the French assessment notice itself.

B. How do you challenge a wrong valuation, a wrong occupant entry or a missed deadline?

Every tax in this guide is challenged through the same gateway. The procedural code states: “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.” (Article L190 of the Tax Procedure Book on Legifrance). The réclamation contentieuse, the formal tax complaint, is therefore the mandatory first step before any court, and it must identify the tax, the year, the article of the assessment and the exact correction sought: discharge, reduction or relief.

Time limits are strict and run from the assessment, not from the purchase or from the discovery of the error. For local taxes the rule is: “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts directs locaux et aux taxes annexes doivent être présentées à l’administration des impôts au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle, selon le cas : a) De la mise en recouvrement du rôle, de la notification d’un avis de mise en recouvrement ou de l’émission d’un titre de perception” (Article R*196-2 of the Tax Procedure Book on Legifrance). A THRS notice issued in autumn 2026 must therefore be challenged by 31 December 2027. The online messagerie sécurisée of the impots.gouv.fr account gives a timestamped filing that distance owners should always prefer to post, because a letter from London that arrives on 2 January is out of time. For the IFI, the general income-tax complaint deadline applies instead, running to 31 December of the second year following assessment, but the discipline is identical: file early, file in writing, keep the acknowledgement. Missing the deadline extinguishes the claim entirely, however plain the error, and no court can revive it.

The evidence differs by tax but the method is constant: identify the exact line, state the correct figure, prove it. For the taxe foncière, attack the valeur locative with the cadastral comparator, showing that the reference dwelling used for your home is larger, better equipped or better situated, and support the comparison with the deed surfaces, photographs and, for condition arguments, dated quotes for works. For the THRS, attack the occupation entry: a year-round lease in the tenant’s name with rent receipts proves you had neither disposition nor jouissance; a sale completed before 1 January with the published deed proves you were no longer the owner; a professional posting letter with the employment contract supports relief from the surcharge; and the classification as main home is proved by the full bundle the Council of State requires, utility consumption, insurance, vehicle registration, school enrolment and actual presence, never by the income-tax return address alone. For the IFI, attack the 1 January valuation with comparable sales close to that date, deduct the qualifying mortgage capital with the bank’s annual statement, and separate the French fraction of any company shares with the balance sheet. In each case the complaint should compute the corrected tax to the euro, because an administration that is shown the right number grants relief faster than one asked to find it.

If the office refuses expressly or stays silent for six months, the refusal, express or implied, goes to the tribunal administratif of the place where the property sits within two months of notification, with the claim, the assessment, the refusal and the evidence bundle, translated where necessary by a certified translator, a traducteur assermenté. Paris properties go to the administrative court of Paris, properties in the inner suburbs to Montreuil or Cergy-Pontoise, and the procedure is written throughout, which suits owners living in Britain: representation by a lawyer admitted to argue before the administrative courts is not compulsory at first instance but is strongly advisable once valuation evidence is in play, and hearings can be prepared entirely on paper. Penalties and late-payment surcharges should be challenged in the same complaint, because the judge who grants the discharge on the principal necessarily discharges the accessories. Throughout, the discipline that wins is the one the Council of State applied in the two 2024 and 2026 decisions cited above: the court decides on the facts as they stood on 1 January, on the documents actually produced, and on the statutory words exactly as written. Owners who keep the deed, the declaration receipts, the lease or the booking records, and the valuation comparables will find the system navigable; owners who discover the file only when the bailiff writes will find it unforgiving.

Conclusion

A British second home in France carries three layers of annual tax after Brexit, and each layer has its own logic. The taxe foncière follows ownership on 1 January and prices the bricks through an administrative rental value that only dated evidence of size, comfort and condition can move. The THRS follows occupation on the same date, catches every furnished dwelling that is not your main home including seasonal gîtes you continue to control, and can be increased by up to 60 per cent where the commune has voted the surcharge, with Paris and the inner Paris region at the ceiling. The IFI follows net wealth on 1 January above 1,300,000 euros, values the property at its true market price without the main-home reduction, and catches British non-residents squarely on their French assets. Against all three, the remedy is the same formal complaint filed by 31 December of the following year, proved line by line, and taken if necessary to the administrative court of the property within two months. Declare the occupation before 1 July, keep the 1 January bundle, compute the corrected figure yourself, and file through the secure online account. The French property tax system is demanding but not arbitrary, and a British owner who meets it on its own terms keeps the cottage, the flat or the farmhouse on a sound and predictable footing for the years ahead.